British Gas SMETS1 meter lost network out of the blue

EnquiringMind33

I'm new here, so apologies if someone has already asked the same question.

My British Gas smart meters (both gas and electric, not prepay) are SMETS1, fitted in summer 2016. They've worked fine up until Sunday 22 January 2023.

From Monday 23 January 2023 onwards, I've been getting 2-4 lost network alerts daily (maybe more, as each replaces the last one, rather than forming a list). On checking my account web pages at BG (and the BG app), I no longer have charts of energy usage for any days after Sunday 22 January.

Everything at home still looks normal - the monitor display has all the correct near-real time consumption figures for electricity and the more delayed (as usual) ones for gas, plus running totals for the previous day, week and month etc. and its connection to the meters is strong. The meters are fine and their indicator lights are all normal, with those on the Trilliant communications hub all green (Home Area Network flashes green, if that means anything).

Whilst the website and app understandably say they haven't received any data from my meters this past 8 or so days, they do both have the latest numerical meter reading total for both, matching the readings on my meters themselves, though sometimes lagging a little. 

Three BG Customer Service agents were convinced they were still getting all the normal automatic readings from my meters. One is looking into it with their digital team and hopes to update me on the situation next week.

They did say that my meters have already been remotely upgraded to the newer DCC network, though they weren't sure when. Could this be the source of the issue? Has anyone else had this happen, or something similar? Thanks in advance!

phi_lw

Did you ever get a resolution? I'm in a similar position - SMETS1 meters have migrated to DCC (checked on Citizen's Advice link) but still no adoption into my account so that I can see data on my in home display. Like you various BG helpdesk people said they were definitely getting readings but then another said they weren't and I should be providing manual readings instead. Provider has always been BG - they installed the meters originally and I'm still with them so you'd think it would be straightforward? Thanks!

EnquiringMind33

Not entirely - my situation isn't quite the same as yours (though I too have always been with BG) because my in-home display has always managed to still show all the data in what appears to be the correct way. I think some tinkering behind the scenes has been done by BG since I reported the issues, as I don't now get the constant barrage of lost network alerts (which were reporting a break in communication with BG) - they stopped completely for a month or so, but now I get occasional ones, say once or twice a week. Some data is getting through to BG now; as I type this on 25 April 2023, my BG online account/app has gas readings up to 22 April and electricity readings to 23 April, so it's better than when I typed my first post in this thread, but still lagging a bit. However, fairly often the total readings for certain days seem to be averaged estimates based on my typical recent usage (no hourly breakdowns on those dates either).

At least I've discovered since all this that I can read the meters accurately on my (working) in-home display via one of its menus, which saves me having to stand on my head trying to read the displays on the actual meters! So when I remember, I do that and submit the readings on the BG website, just to try and keep things accurate. Not something I had to do before the DCC upgrade, though!

All in all, it's working "better enough" than it was so I'm not going to pursue BG over it any more, as I doubt I'd get much further without a whole SMETS2 set of replacement meters (if they even offer that in my situation - I haven't checked). Ironically, I didn't take much notice of all of this when it was working fine - which it was, the entire six and a half years before it was upgraded to the "improved" newer DCC connectivity! 

phi_lw

Thank you.

There's certainly very little information out there on the process.

[Deleted User]

At least I've discovered since all this that I can read the meters accurately on my (working) in-home display via one of its menus, which saves me having to stand on my head trying to read the displays on the actual meters! So when I remember, I do that and submit the readings on the BG website, just to try and keep things accurate. Not something I had to do before the DCC upgrade, though!

Beware: the reading showing on the IHD is the TOTAL of all the index readings recorded on the meter since it was first installed. Each smart meter has 4 registers/indexes. BG used to record Free Weekend usage on a different register to the one used to raise a statement.