Smart meter with Octopus Home Mini

Mark2019

I’ve recently had a SMETS2 smart meter installed, replacing an old SMETS1 with British Gas. My old SMETS1 meter was communicating with the IHD but not Octopus itself after switching providers. After the install, the engineer gave me an Octopus Home Mini. It’s setup and working but I liked having the IHD to have a glance at the daily cost/usage without needing to open my Octopus app. This also allowed others in my home to do the same.

My questions are:

1. I still have my old British Gas IHD. Is it possible to connect this to my new smart meter?

2. If not, can I buy an IHD and connect this to the meter? If so, what would people recommend?

3. If not, will I have to go through Octopus to obtain one?

Thanks in advance. 

mmmmikey

Hi

1. No, there are security settings to prevent this

2. I use a Hildebrand Glow which was very easy to set up 

Hope this helps :-)

EssexHebridean

You could contact Octopus and push the line that having a visible IHD helps with energy use management as it reminds others in the household to turn things off etc, particularly at peak times  - that might play to their eco-friendly credentials, and score you an IHD from them. I hadn't realised they were now giving the home minis instead of IHDs though - and with that being the case it may be that they simply aren't having IHD's supplied for new meter installs now. 

Mark2019

EssexHebridean said:

You could contact Octopus and push the line that having a visible IHD helps with energy use management as it reminds others in the household to turn things off etc, particularly at peak times  - that might play to their eco-friendly credentials, and score you an IHD from them. I hadn't realised they were now giving the home minis instead of IHDs though - and with that being the case it may be that they simply aren't having IHD's supplied for new meter installs now. 

Thanks - this is exactly what I did and they’re processing an IHD for me in the next two weeks. To be seen whether that materialises but looks promising at the moment. The engineer who installed the new meter certainly said just that - Home Minis over IHDs going forward. 

FreeBear

Got a Home Mini, and to be frank, not impressed with it. Whilst I can get data for electricity fairly quickly, gas lags behind usage by a good 4-8 hours. And the app is currently quitting as soon as it is opened <grrrr>.

Phones4Chris

mmmmikey said:

Hi

1. No, there are security settings to prevent this

2. I use a Hildebrand Glow which was very easy to set up 

Hope this helps :-)

@mmmmikey Are you sure that the existing IHD could not have been connected? Surely It's only a configuration issue which Octopus would have to have pursued once they were given the GUID, but as they seem to be supplying a new one it's of no real consequence.

EssexHebridean

Mark2019 said:

EssexHebridean said:

You could contact Octopus and push the line that having a visible IHD helps with energy use management as it reminds others in the household to turn things off etc, particularly at peak times  - that might play to their eco-friendly credentials, and score you an IHD from them. I hadn't realised they were now giving the home minis instead of IHDs though - and with that being the case it may be that they simply aren't having IHD's supplied for new meter installs now. 

Thanks - this is exactly what I did and they’re processing an IHD for me in the next two weeks. To be seen whether that materialises but looks promising at the moment. The engineer who installed the new meter certainly said just that - Home Minis over IHDs going forward. 

Thanks for the update, and that is useful information about the plan for the future with the minis rather than an IHD supplied as standard.

mmmmikey

Phones4Chris said:

mmmmikey said:

Hi

1. No, there are security settings to prevent this

2. I use a Hildebrand Glow which was very easy to set up 

Hope this helps :-)

@mmmmikey Are you sure that the existing IHD could not have been connected? Surely It's only a configuration issue which Octopus would have to have pursued once they were given the GUID, but as they seem to be supplying a new one it's of no real consequence.

Thanks @Phones4Chris , you make a good point, my answer lacked clarity. 

What I was meaning to say was that it isn't something you can do yourself because of the way the security works. 

I'm not sure if there are technical differences between SMETS1 and SMETS2 smart meters that would stop this, but as you point out otherwise it's presumably something that could be done, I suspect that this would involve returning the IHD to Octopus for re-configuring as I doubt the on site engineers have the equipment/training to do this. As such, I'd imagine that sending out a new one is probably a more cost-effective option.

Phones4Chris

@mmmmikey If there aren't "technical differences", then it wouldn't be a case of returning the IHD, it's just a case of getting the IHD's GUID correctly registered with the address and the SMETS2 meter. Something Octopus ought to be able to do (remotely) and had one been wise to this at the time, the installer of the SMETS2 should have been able to do it (again assuming there wasn't any technical limitation with the IHD itself).

Qyburn

Presumably there's no way the Mini could continue to work if you switch away from Octopus.

matelodave

Qyburn said:

Presumably there's no way the Mini could continue to work if you switch away from Octopus.

This is what Octopus say, so I guess it wont work with other suppliers if it relies on the Cotpus platform to collect and present the data

"The Octopus Home Mini is a small, palm-sized device that beams live readings from your smart meter to our cloud-based platform Kraken, so we can show you up-to-the-minute smart insights via your Octopus Energy app"