Ovo smart meter

manc.girl

I've put off having a smart meter due to bad publicity about inaccurate bills. I have now agreed to have an Ovo smart meter fitted later this month. Am I doing the right thing?

marcia_

manc.girl said:

I've put off having a smart meter due to bad publicity about inaccurate bills. I have now agreed to have an Ovo smart meter fitted later this month. Am I doing the right thing?

 Yes, you will be forced to have one at some point because they can't replace old meters like for like and they have a life span that means it will definitely need replacing.

 I've had a smart meter for 2 years with accurate bills. 

MattMattMattUK

manc.girl said:

I've put off having a smart meter due to bad publicity about inaccurate bills. I have now agreed to have an Ovo smart meter fitted later this month. Am I doing the right thing?

Absolutely, the made up stories on Faceache and the trolling form various "newspapers" is rubbish. There are millions of smart meters, they are more accurate than dumb meters, they have a lower failure rate than dumb meters (as a meter, comms is a separate issue). 

Peter999_2

Nothing changed with smart meters and old meters.     Essentially they are the same meters but one communicates with the data collector to give readings (DCC).

If the communication fails, it just means you would give them meter readings manually from the meter (I have to do this with my parents gas meter as it is too far away from the electricity meter for the communication to work - every month I take a reading, give it to Octopus and then the next day they generate a bill).

Having a working smart meter means you can access smart meter tariffs.     I personally use a tariff called Octopus Agile where the price of electric changes every 30 minutes depending on wholesale rates. 
There is an app which tells you how much you have saved against the standard tariff - I paid £35.52 last month for electric instead of £47.96 which is a 25% saving.    My gas meter is on a tracker which again uses wholesale gas prices and it saves quite a lot - though it isn't as easy for me to work out.

Try not to listen to people on social media who just seem to enjoy talking utter rubbish and fooling gullible people.  Same with EVs - because of a smart meter I have saved over £2,000 in fuel since October 2024 (2 cars which about 5000 miles a year use each).

dreaming

I have smart meters with OVO and have had no problems at all. I do check periodically (probably a couple of times a year now) to make sure the accuracy has not slipped but it is great as it saves me having having climb the stepladder monthly to read the electric meter (above the front door), or crouch down to read the gas meter (in a lower cupboard in the kitchen) - not so easy as you get older

badmemory

I was reluctant to have a smart meter but having solar meant that had to change.  My biggest problem is that although I could read my old one I cannot read the smart meter.  The in home display is interesting & provides current usage but is not terribly useful with past usage & that includes previous days usage.  I have however run some checks & fortunately my solar comes with a good info system including non-solar usage & so far all seem to agree.  That is the 4 items - grid usage, solar usage, solar production & solar export.

Alnat1

Why can't you read the smart meter? Why can't you check usage on your suppliers app/website?

badmemory

I can't read the meter because one it is in colour (as in red lights) not black & white clear numbers, which was hard enough but doable.  A smart meter is not just a read & go it is a press buttons & read.  It is bend over, twist, press & read.  I am 79 with an iffy back.  The major issue is when the supplier can no longer read the meter.  I will thankfully be able to fabricate the meter reading from the info I have & I seriously doubt they will know the difference.  But I will lose the export value.

Ildhund

badmemory said:

I can't read the meter because one it is in colour (as in red lights) not black & white clear numbers, ...  

This thread is about smart meters installed by OVO. When you say it's in colour, are you referring to an electricity meter or a gas meter? Can you identify the make and model of the meter(s) concerned? 

badmemory said:

... press buttons & read.  

Smart meters normally have a display which cycles through the four or five most commonly required readings automatically. The most you should have to do is touch one of the buttons to light up the display if it's dark. You might, though, have to press a button repeatedly to get to an export reading. 

OVO have an excellent account website, where readings are normally available within 24 hours and with a history going back to the time the first smart meter was installed (that's eight years in my case). Have you had a look there to see what data are available to you?

powerful_Rogue

badmemory said:

I can't read the meter because one it is in colour (as in red lights) not black & white clear numbers, which was hard enough but doable.  A smart meter is not just a read & go it is a press buttons & read.  It is bend over, twist, press & read.  I am 79 with an iffy back.  The major issue is when the supplier can no longer read the meter.  I will thankfully be able to fabricate the meter reading from the info I have & I seriously doubt they will know the difference.  But I will lose the export value.

If you're with Octopus, get a Home Mini. If you're not with Octopus, look into them. 15p kWh export.

Peter999_2

I've not seen a smart meter with coloured lights on the display?      My old dumb meter was exactly the same as my smart meter - you had to press a button to light it up and display the kWh.     Even if you didn't get a smart meter you would end up with a meter where you have to press a button to get the display - this is really the point I made that they are the same meter just one has comms and one doesn't.

I will give you that it's not completely straight forward to read, but neither was my smart meter that I had installed 20 odd years ago.    My meter is actually a bit confusing, it's set to ecomony 7 so it has two different rates even though it was only installed in December 2024.     I have to press a combination of buttons to get the two readings and then add them together to get the "real" reading - this was the same with the old meter and the crappy energy company refused to change it.

However, I have an octopus mini installed which automatically displays the usage and it's always been spot on so far (I only use less than 3kWh a day).    It's like a lot of things, you just need to go through a bit of a learning curve until it clicks exactly how it works.   I'm hopeless at things like cooking but now I'm a lot older and retired I have started learning and it's nothing like as difficult as I thought it was (partners throughout the years have always made a song and dance about them cooking, haha)