Smart Meter Issue - Scotland

Azteca1986

Hi all,

wondering if anybody can help us or has any ideas what can we do to get our smart meter working. 

We are in North-east of Scotland and had the smart meter installed in January as we got two electric cars and wanted to switch to the EV tarriff with E-ON. We were not getting any WAN signal and therefore the smart meter wasn't working and the engineer left it as it was. For a week now the WAN light is blinking every 5 seconds but the HAN light is solid green. Our understading is that this means the smart meter is not connecting to the comms hub. We never got the in home display so can't tell if that connection would work.

Does anybody have any experience with HAN issues and any ideas how can we solve them? E-ON is not the most helpful and we are a bit weary of them sending another engineer who will swap the meter and the hub, it won't work and we will be in this circle forever.

Thanks for any asnwers.

Scot_39

Would having the comms hub moved say 1m from the meter help ?

If it's in a particularly signal blocked location in your home - rather than just your whole area in a poor area.  An extension lead might be an option

See tge kaifa fl100 link near bottom here

https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html#qa

Ildhund

This is a bit strange. If the WAN lamp is flashing at 5 second intervals, there should be a connection to the WAN. Are you not seeing evidence of readings and/or usage data being available over the WAN? This should be apparent from your online account (although I've no idea how good E.On are at retrieving or displaying them). Otherwise, check one of the third party 'other users' like Loop or Bright to see what they can find.

If you weren't given an IHD, there's nothing to pair with the comms hub. Sadly, a perpetual solid HAN lamp isn't one of the states shown here. You could also run this little utility: homebrew.n3rgy.com/  to see what's going on. Enter your MPAN and tick the tiny confirmation box before clicking on Check meter. If this works, you can ignore any warnings about expired security certification and missing gas proxy details if there's no gas meter. If there's no IHD or gas meter, the HAN won't have anything to do.

It's part of the requirements for a smart meter exchange that an IHD is provided to the customer and its workings explained. You should badger E.On about this.

Azteca1986

Ildhund said:

This is a bit strange. If the WAN lamp is flashing at 5 second intervals, there should be a connection to the WAN. Are you not seeing evidence of readings and/or usage data being available over the WAN? This should be apparent from your online account (although I've no idea how good E.On are at retrieving or displaying them).

There is no data being send over the WAN and it is not showing as smart anywhere.
E.on came back sayin there is no signal coverage in the area and none is planned. The girl I spoke to also said that the WAN flashing every 5 seconds indicates connectivity issues but trying to connect. Supposedly the WAN light would turn into almost constant flashing if the connection was established. Which goes against all the information we have found so far on all the different forums.

We are rather confused now but they won't do anything if the "smart" team can't see any response from the meter on their side. Not very happy with the situation as there is no alternative being offered to remedy the issues.

Ildhund

The girl you spoke to was apparently ill-informed (to use a polite phrase). 

"There is no data being send over the WAN " presumably means that neither Loop nor Bright were able to poll your meter for data. Did you manage to run the Homebrew tool? 

There are plenty of angry EV owners in North Britain whose meters won't play ball. Some of them have taken matters into their own hands, with many successes: There is hope for anybody trying to get a smart meter in a poor signal area | Speak EV - Electric Car Forums

Reed_Richards

Eon Next sent an engineer to fit my smart meter.  After he fitted the meter and comms hub, the engineer concluded that the signal was not quite strong enough so left.  He said under those circumstances he was not allowed to give me the IHD.  He was wrong.  My smart meter works perfectly well, the WAN light flashes once every 5 seconds, Eon Next can see my half-hourly readings and so can I if I use an app like Loop.  I persuaded Eon Next to send somebody back to set-up the IHD.  And after all that I went ahead and bought an EV.  Oh, and I'm in the North East on the Arqiva LRR system.

Don't listen to bad customer support employees, do your own investigation.  

Azteca1986

Ildhund said:

The girl you spoke to was apparently ill-informed (to use a polite phrase). 

"There is no data being send over the WAN " presumably means that neither Loop nor Bright were able to poll your meter for data. Did you manage to run the Homebrew tool? 

There are plenty of angry EV owners in North Britain whose meters won't play ball. Some of them have taken matters into their own hands, with many successes:

I did manage to run the Homebrew but it also says that it can't see the meter. We checked with relatives who have the same set up and the WAN light is definitely flashing right but the solid HAN is wrong, it's supposed to be flashing in the same interval, which we think is causing the problem as the devices are not communicating to each other.
We have taken matters into our hands and build an aerial, as the "North" type of meter you can't connect antenna to. We think it is thanks to the aerial the WAN signal started working now.

Azteca1986

Reed_Richards said:

Eon Next sent an engineer to fit my smart meter.  After he fitted the meter and comms hub, the engineer concluded that the signal was not quite strong enough so left.  He said under those circumstances he was not allowed to give me the IHD.  He was wrong.  My smart meter works perfectly well, the WAN light flashes once every 5 seconds, Eon Next can see my half-hourly readings and so can I if I use an app like Loop.  I persuaded Eon Next to send somebody back to set-up the IHD.  And after all that I went ahead and bought an EV.  Oh, and I'm in the North East on the Arqiva LRR system.

Don't listen to bad customer support employees, do your own investigation.  

Our issue is that Eon can't see the readings and are now refusing to send an engineer out even tho the WAN light is flashing in the right interval. They are quoting that there is no coverage in our area and are not planning to improve the situation or offer alternative. So there is no way we are getting the IHD from them.

QrizB

Azteca1986 said:

Reed_Richards said:

Eon Next sent an engineer to fit my smart meter.  After he fitted the meter and comms hub, the engineer concluded that the signal was not quite strong enough so left.  He said under those circumstances he was not allowed to give me the IHD.  He was wrong.  My smart meter works perfectly well, the WAN light flashes once every 5 seconds, Eon Next can see my half-hourly readings and so can I if I use an app like Loop.  I persuaded Eon Next to send somebody back to set-up the IHD.  And after all that I went ahead and bought an EV.  Oh, and I'm in the North East on the Arqiva LRR system.

Don't listen to bad customer support employees, do your own investigation.  

Our issue is that Eon can't see the readings and are now refusing to send an engineer out even tho the WAN light is flashing in the right interval. They are quoting that there is no coverage in our area and are not planning to improve the situation or offer alternative. So there is no way we are getting the IHD from them.

The IHD does not connect to the WAN. It connects to the HAN and echoes information from the smart meter(s). The IHD should work to a degree even without a WAN connection.

Azteca1986

QrizB said:

Azteca1986 said:

Reed_Richards said:

Eon Next sent an engineer to fit my smart meter.  After he fitted the meter and comms hub, the engineer concluded that the signal was not quite strong enough so left.  He said under those circumstances he was not allowed to give me the IHD.  He was wrong.  My smart meter works perfectly well, the WAN light flashes once every 5 seconds, Eon Next can see my half-hourly readings and so can I if I use an app like Loop.  I persuaded Eon Next to send somebody back to set-up the IHD.  And after all that I went ahead and bought an EV.  Oh, and I'm in the North East on the Arqiva LRR system.

Don't listen to bad customer support employees, do your own investigation.  

Our issue is that Eon can't see the readings and are now refusing to send an engineer out even tho the WAN light is flashing in the right interval. They are quoting that there is no coverage in our area and are not planning to improve the situation or offer alternative. So there is no way we are getting the IHD from them.

The IHD does not connect to the WAN. It connects to the HAN and echoes information from the smart meter(s). The IHD should work to a degree even without a WAN connection.

We understand that, but our HAN is for some reason not working. But because Eon are saying we are not in coverage area for WAN, they are refusing to send engineeer out.

Guesthouse

We’re also in NE Scotland and we got Smart meters in Jan 2022 when we a) renewed energy deal, b) got an EV and home charger and they’ve never worked.
On the day, we were advised it may take a while to get registered, log-in or whatever. We have an old granite flat, so it was also suggested that may impact why the gas meter (outside) wasn’t connecting to the stuff in the electrical cupboard. 
We made some follow up requests but usually that ended in “someone will be in touch to arrange an engineer visit”. We were on a long fix (started before we got the EV) at a low rate, so there was no massive urgency, as we don’t use a lot on the EV. Now it’s time to renew supplier again, so it’s a bit more important. 
We get a call every month or so and they tell us there’s no engineers in the area……..and repeat. 

I listened to a radio report that reckoned the comms methods are the problem. From the south of England to about the Midlands/North of England, there is mainly one method (either mobile/wireless or a radio network?) which has good coverage and works well. North of the Midlands, we rely (but not exclusively) on the other method and it’s not as reliable. If I recall, responsibility for fixing the less reliable or moving to the more reliable method is predictably batted about between parties. 

So, good luck getting a resolution.