EON Smart Meter - Lost connection (no wi-fi)

Tycrane

My smart meter has no wifi and when I go to settings there's no wifi options. How do I resolve this problem? It just says 'waiting for current data' and 'no wifi'

Cheers

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

The device in your photo is your in-home display.

Have you tried re-starting it? Unplug the power, remove the battery (or, if it isn't removable, wait for it to go flat) then plug it back in.

[Deleted User]

Occam’s Razor. Move your In House Display (IHD) closer to your electricity meter. I have my IHD about a Metre away from my meter box and I get a Zigbee signal strength of one bar. The culprit is probably foil-backed insulation in my walls.

If you download and install the BRIGHT app you should be able to get historic usage data via the DCC network.

If data doesn’t return then it could be a IHD firmware issue for the device manufacturer to resolve or a communications hub problem that the DCC needs to resolve. Your supplier can make a request to the DCC for a remote communications hub reset. Your supplier is responsible for your meters etc but they have to rely on other parties to put things right.

macman

The smart meter doesn't work on wi-fi, it uses a mobile connection to the DCC. Presumably the same connection is made to the IHD?

[Deleted User]

macman said:

The smart meter doesn't work on wi-fi, it uses a mobile connection to the DCC. Presumably the same connection is made to the IHD?

The communications hub establishes 2 networks: a wide area network (WAN) which either meshes with other meters or connects directly to the DCC network via a mobile 2G or a UHF long-range connection, and a home area network (HAN) with Zigbee wifi. The IHD connects to the HAN.

The_Fat_Controller

My IHD certainly does connect to the meter by WiFi, the information on the relevant page advises it is using Channel 14 which is above the usual range of 1 to 11 that is used in the 2.4 Ghz band for home WiFi from ISPs.

glennevis

The_Fat_Controller said:

My IHD certainly does connect to the meter by WiFi, the information on the relevant page advises it is using Channel 14 which is above the usual range of 1 to 11 that is used in the 2.4 Ghz band for home WiFi from ISPs.

Zigbee wifi (IEEE 802.15) channel 14 is not the same frequency as your home wifi (IEEE 802.11) channel 14. Each Zigbee channel covers a much narrower frequency band.

Good explanation here, with diagrams

https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/zigbee-wifi-coexistence/

Which shows that zigbee channel 14 overlaps with home wifi channel 1. 

matelodave

My IHD only works when its within 1-2 metres of the leccy meter. Our meter is in a wall box on the outside of the building with the IHD near the wall indoors, so it works, but it wouldn't for most people

TBH they really need a reliable range of around 10-15 metres which even Bluetooth struggles to achieve especially if there is a wall or two between the transmitter and receiver.

I'm guessing that for a lot, if not most people, the limited range makes the IHD useless.

[Deleted User]

TBH they really need a reliable range of around 10-15 metres which even Bluetooth struggles to achieve especially if there is a wall or two between the transmitter and receiver. 

There are plans to deploy dual-band communications hubs in the latter part of 2024. These will be combined with a 4G mobile connection. The two networks will still be secure to prevent hacking.

Raxiel

There are some third party IHD's that consumers can buy (pre-paired by the vendor) that connect to both the HAN and domestic Wi-fi, allowing real time monitoring by other devices on the Wi-fi network. Prices seem to be around £50

I'm not aware of any first party IHD's that connect to anything other than the HAN. Presumably because they can't vouch for the security of the domestic network and so don't want to risk any potential liability claims if a vulnerability in the meter is found that can be accessed by that route.

MWT

Raxiel said:

I'm not aware of any first party IHD's that connect to anything other than the HAN. Presumably because they can't vouch for the security of the domestic network and so don't want to risk any potential liability claims if a vulnerability in the meter is found that can be accessed by that route.

There are plenty of IHD's provided by suppliers that do connect to the local WiFi as well as the HAN, but that is misleading as they do not use the WiFi to provide a data path between the meter and anything else, but they can use it for firmware updates for example...

The Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID is one such device and separately shows signal strength for the local WiFi and the HAN.

You can see the same in the image the OP posted..

The 'radar' is showing the WiFi strength, the bars to the right of that show the lack of the HAN connection...

So for the OP, the 'no WiFi' message is a bit misleading as improving the WiFi strength will not solve anything useful.