Smart Meter (SMETS2) ZigBee Range Extending Inside the Home

MidlandsGlory

MoneySavingAndy said:

Hi Dolor,

As you say, they may have been some confusion: MidlandsGlory and I were discussing a workaround by minimising the 'HAN distance' by putting the Smart Meter display close to the actual meter to ensure that the ZigBee connection is not struggling because of distance and/or obstructions, and in turn using a secondary display via home WiFi and the app to access the meter information.

The question of the separate WiFi connection issue for this particular unit is almost certainly not a home network problem, at least, not in my case: I have a very stable mesh system (TP-Link Deco M5) that keeps c.20 devices consistently and reliably connected throughout the house with no issues whatsoever, and the smart meter is positioned with a direct line of sight to one of the mesh modules only a few metres away. I would be 99% certain that the smart meter display has some kind of stability / compatibility issue that causes the WiFi disconnection problem - if it is an incompatibility, then this device is the exception rather than the norm as every other WiFi device I have has no issues connecting and staying connected.

A plausible alternative explanation is that the WiFi instability may be because the ZigBee connection fails and there is some interdependence between the two, although that seems odd to me as they are two different communications protocols being used by the device for two different purposes. I'm going to move the display unit anyway and see if at least that works seeing as right now having the unit in the ideal position in the house for us to see it is useless if it won't actually connect!

Regards,

Andy.

To clarify as you so well explained.. it is a problem with the IHD and AVRO as they accept, here is what they said to me:
Hello,
Thank you for your email regarding this issues with your in-home display.
We are aware of the issue and we are currently working with the manufacturer of our in-home display to seek a permanent resolution. Once we do have a resolution, this will be sent to your device automatically and the change will be visible to you.
We can assure you that this is just a display issue and it will not affect your bills. However, if you do have any concerns that the actual meters are not recording your usage correctly, then please let us know.

Kind Regards,

Simon

Smart metering | Avro Energy Limited | Wheatfield
House, Wheatfield Way, Hinckley, Leicestershire, LE10 1YG

And from Geo...

Hi,

​Is your supplier Avro and do you have an L&G meter and is it not just the Wifi that resets but any settings you change such as budget?

​If so please can you contact Arvo and let them know you are having the overnight factory reset issue, this is something Avro are aware of.

Tallerdave

As IHD wifi connectivity is not a core requirement of smart metering functionality, you can almost guarantee that it's undergone little, if any, testing. And it will forever remain at the bottom of any bug fix list. It has zero impact on revenue or regulatory compliance so it's unlikely to receive any development effort to fix.

MidlandsGlory

Tallerdave said:

As IHD wifi connectivity is not a core requirement of smart metering functionality, you can almost guarantee that it's undergone little, if any, testing. And it will forever remain at the bottom of any bug fix list. It has zero impact on revenue or regulatory compliance so it's unlikely to receive any development effort to fix.

Yes, I noticed that. Annoyingly it worked perfectly at one time but the app was rubbish. They (Geo) have since improved the app so it would make a decent display module on an old tablet but now there are the connection problems making it impossible. So So someone did something and broke it. I don't think its the IHD software (although they could help by building a lock function in the software to disable responding to remote resets. I doubt the nightly resets are coming from Avro systems, its something that has become set into the meter reading system as a default action that needs to be unset and only sent out when requested by Avro in response to a problem, but I am just guessing.