Octopus Smart Meter Comms - fact or fiction?

Qyburn

One frustration with smart meter issues is the different explanation, often contradictory, that are given. Today I called Octopus about billing dates and why they've been issuing part month bills.

This guy told me, and insisted, that Octopus request data from the smart meter every half hour, and that if any of these requests are unsuccessful then a bill is automatically generated using the HH data that they do have.  I did press him on the first point, asking was he sure they communicate every half hour, and don't do something like make a request once a day, which what I had understood. On the second point it doesn't match my experience, nor explain why an estimated export bill was issued two days later.

He also read from something that said the protocol prioritises collection of import data over export. I can see that might make sense in some scenarios. But that sort of prioritisation would surely only apply when both are being requested. I can't see why it would result in export requests always failing, even if only export is being requested.

He didn't know what I meant by "index", do they use some other term?

Peter999_2

Yes, they do send a meter reading every half hour.      If they didn't they wouldn't be able to offer the Agile tariff which is a different price every half hour.

I'm not sure he is right about the second part though.     I don't know for 100% but I would think that the meters will store so many readings and if it fails to communicate for one half hour, the next time it communicates it would send two readings instead.

I used to work in IT for heating controls and I once had a project where I had to interface with electric meters to provide data for a US company.   There were about 30 different readings they wanted for the meters every half hour and I had to communicate over the serial comms port.    I could request any of the information I wanted and it would respond (very slowly though, haha).     I would expect that that would be the same for the smart meters and as well as the reading they probably get loads of other information as well.

SJMALBA

I'll let those more expert than I respond in respect of the specifics of your question(s), but, in general, my experience with Octopus is that, from CSAs to Senior Management, the occurrence of people not having the first clue what they are doing, or what they are talking about, is all too, and worryingly, common. 

mmmmikey

Peter999_2 said:

Yes, they do send a meter reading every half hour.      If they didn't they wouldn't be able to offer the Agile tariff which is a different price every half hour.

I'm not sure he is right about the second part though.     I don't know for 100% but I would think that the meters will store so many readings and if it fails to communicate for one half hour, the next time it communicates it would send two readings instead.

I used to work in IT for heating controls and I once had a project where I had to interface with electric meters to provide data for a US company.   There were about 30 different readings they wanted for the meters every half hour and I had to communicate over the serial comms port.    I could request any of the information I wanted and it would respond (very slowly though, haha).     I would expect that that would be the same for the smart meters and as well as the reading they probably get loads of other information as well.

Hi - I don't think that's actually how it works. I think what happens is that the meter records the data at half-hourly intervals and it sits there until it is requested. My understanding is that Octopus request the data two or three times a day via the DCC and that's then used to create the Agile (etc.) bills. I'm fairly sure this has been investigated a few times in different threads and this has been confirmed by reference to the documents. But happy to be proved wrong on this.

I suspect that what has happened here is that you've spoken to a poorly trained customer services agent or one with out of date information. Or pehaps they've just "dumbed down" the message they give out on the basis that most customers don't understand the difference anyway?

Qyburn

Peter999_2 said:

Yes, they do send a meter reading every half hour.      If they didn't they wouldn't be able to offer the Agile tariff which is a different price every half hour.

Well yes they could. This was the point I tried to make, the fact that they hold half hourly data doesn't mean they must have been requesting (or receiving) those readings one at a time. It doesn't mean they don't of course, but there are other ways of collecting data rather than one HH at a time.  Ironically he pretty much proved the point because while on the phone he pulled in data for 25th to 27th July in the one request.

Newbie_John

From Agile experience.
The meter stores half an hour records for about 1 year.
Octopus definitely doesn't request it every 30 minutes but at least once a day - sometimes the readings don't come at all, sometimes have gaps and that not ally sorts itself out in about 7 days.

I think there is a difference between older meters and newer ones.

With other providers Tomato is able to read my SMET2 every 3h and that's the most frequent I've seen.

MWT

For clarity, Octopus retrieves 24 hours worth of half-hour data for each smart meter with half-hour data collection authorised.

They do issue more than one request each day for this data, but only to split up the comms load. 

All the data for a single meter is requested once each day.

You can see this in your own half-hour data on the portal.

Typically the requests are issued at the same time of day, just after 00:30 GMT for me, so I will usually see everything up to the half-hour period ending 00:30, or during BST, 01:30.

Others will see something different as there are also retrievals at just after 00:00 GMT, and their used to be one at 23:30GMT, but not sure if that is still the case. 

Where there is missing data, Octopus can issue retrieval requests during the day of course...

debitcardmayhem

MWT said:

For clarity, Octopus retrieves 24 hours worth of half-hour data for each smart meter with half-hour data collection authorised.

They do issue more than one request each day for this data, but only to split up the comms load. 

All the data for a single meter is requested once each day.

You can see this in your own half-hour data on the portal.

Typically the requests are issued at the same time of day, just after 00:30 GMT for me, so I will usually see everything up to the half-hour period ending 00:30, or during BST, 01:30.

Others will see something different as there are also retrievals at just after 00:00 GMT, and their used to be one at 23:30GMT, but not sure if that is still the case. 

Where there is missing data, Octopus can issue retrieval requests during the day of course...

OK so if that is true , why don’t I get data on Octopus until after 1300 or later most days, fact or myth ? Can you show us where they actually state that. Personally I get data earlier than Octopus present to me using other apps, except the ones that rely on their api?

Qyburn

debitcardmayhem said:

OK so if that is true , why don’t I get data on Octopus until after 1300 or later most days, fact or myth ? Can you show us where they actually state that. Personally I get data earlier than Octopus present to me using other apps, except the ones that rely on their api?

One of the Octopus guys (or ladies) told me there's some additional validation/authorisation/or something after they receive the data before it's approved in the account for billing.

I can see this first hand when they update data during a phone call. The Octoprice Data Checker sees the data straightaway  https://www.octopriceuk.app/missingData) but it's not visible in the Octopus app or web page until a couple of hours or so.

MWT

debitcardmayhem said:

MWT said:

For clarity, Octopus retrieves 24 hours worth of half-hour data for each smart meter with half-hour data collection authorised.

They do issue more than one request each day for this data, but only to split up the comms load. 

All the data for a single meter is requested once each day.

You can see this in your own half-hour data on the portal.

Typically the requests are issued at the same time of day, just after 00:30 GMT for me, so I will usually see everything up to the half-hour period ending 00:30, or during BST, 01:30.

Others will see something different as there are also retrievals at just after 00:00 GMT, and their used to be one at 23:30GMT, but not sure if that is still the case. 

Where there is missing data, Octopus can issue retrieval requests during the day of course...

OK so if that is true , why don’t I get data on Octopus until after 1300 or later most days, fact or myth ? Can you show us where they actually state that. Personally I get data earlier than Octopus present to me using other apps, except the ones that rely on their api?

Because the data does not simply get pulled straight from the meter into the Octopus database.

It has to go from the meter to the DCC, from the DCC to the Adapter and from the Adapter to Octopus and then get processed into the individual records for each meter which is then added to the Octopus database.

This is not a simple end-to-end request customer by customer and meter by meter.

When you use one of the 'Other Suppliers' they are typically working with much smaller datasets than the millions that Octopus have to handle, and they also pull their data at different times of day.

debitcardmayhem

MWT said:

debitcardmayhem said:

MWT said:

For clarity, Octopus retrieves 24 hours worth of half-hour data for each smart meter with half-hour data collection authorised.

They do issue more than one request each day for this data, but only to split up the comms load. 

All the data for a single meter is requested once each day.

You can see this in your own half-hour data on the portal.

Typically the requests are issued at the same time of day, just after 00:30 GMT for me, so I will usually see everything up to the half-hour period ending 00:30, or during BST, 01:30.

Others will see something different as there are also retrievals at just after 00:00 GMT, and their used to be one at 23:30GMT, but not sure if that is still the case. 

Where there is missing data, Octopus can issue retrieval requests during the day of course...

OK so if that is true , why don’t I get data on Octopus until after 1300 or later most days, fact or myth ? Can you show us where they actually state that. Personally I get data earlier than Octopus present to me using other apps, except the ones that rely on their api?

Because the data does not simply get pulled straight from the meter into the Octopus database.

It has to go from the meter to the DCC, from the DCC to the Adapter and from the Adapter to Octopus and then get processed into the individual records for each meter which is then added to the Octopus database.

This is not a simple end-to-end request customer by customer and meter by meter.

When you use one of the 'Other Suppliers' they are typically working with much smaller datasets than the millions that Octopus have to handle, and they also pull their data at different times of day.

Aah i see like this perhaps 😂😂 , I know how it works but it seems like they use the top photo



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