I had Smart Meters installed in August 2022 to replace type 1 smart meters and they worked perfectly until 4th December 2023. On that day an engineer from Octopus installed a Zappi Ev Charger and the meters stopped communicating. Octopus say this is down to a poor signal in my area and they wont be able to reconnect the meters.
The signal has never been a problem before the EV Charger was installed so I do not believe this is the reason for loss of communication. I also have Solar PV and storage batteries and was on the Agile tariff. Octopus have changed this to Flexible tariff.
Is there any way for me to determine the actual cause of loss of communication as I am not in a poor signal area.
Octopus are under a legal obligation to be honest with consumers. This is part of the conditions of their supply license.
Write to them and ask them to confirm in writing that what they have anecdotally advised you is true; remind them that they have a legal obligation to be honest and that the evidence suggests the person you initially spoke with is being less than honest; and ask that they make a proper detailed investigation before confirming in writing what they previously advised.
"Hi,
You have replaced my previously functional smart meters.
Your employee advised me that the reason that the new meters are not functioning is that the mobile phone coverage disappeared at the exact same moment that you installed the new smart meters.
This is suspicious. No evidence was presented to support the statement that the mobile phone coverage disappeared at the moment that the new meters were fitted vs, for example, the employee making an error in enrolling the new meters with the DCC; or the back office failing to connect the Octopus Head End System to the new meters at DCC.
I remind you of the terms of your supply license that require you to be wholly truthful in your responses to consumers; and the current adverse publicity surrounding the fallout Post Office having deliberately withheld the truth about errors in their systems and administration from their users.in order to look good in the short term.
Please can you confirm, in writing, the steps that you have taken to verify that mobile phone coverage has indeed disappeared at the exact same moment that you installed the new meters; and the steps taken to rule out other possibilities such as administrative errors on the part of octopus head office, the DCC, and indeed the installer.
I hope the exercise in being asked to confirm each step highlights an oversight that can be corrected and confirm that I would be delighted if you are then able to remedy this and would not report you to the regulator for the initial breach of the terms of your supply license by claiming a third party was at fault rather than your own supply chain.
If the mobile signal is indeed at fault please confirm what steps you intend to take to remedy this; such as attending site with a mobile phone signal analyser capable of demonstrating a lack of signal or indeed interference from nearby devices; or an external antenna to improve reception in a marginal area and a plan for contacting your connectivity provider to report the signal blackspot and remedy this.
A response within 7 days to confirm the above and a full investigation within 28 days would be considered reasonable.
Should you not commit to.this timescale I will be raising a formal complaint for breach of the terms of your supply license for a suspected failure to be wholly truthful with regards why this all stopped working the moment that you touched it.
Thanks "
Where in the UK are you? Northern âradioâ signal area or southern 3G area?
If the latter there are several external antennas that can be fitted with increasing degrees of attenuation (I think that is the right term - Iâm sure I will be corrected if not). Have they tried these?
Does your IHD work? If not, then it is an internal error - not an external one. I had this recently after a power cut - Gas meter worked (so WAN OK) but Electric didnât. They had to replace the electric meter.
Iâll add that my meters failed completely after a full power cycle once (i.e. meters isolated from the mains by pulling Mains Fuse).
Does all the the comms hub LEDs flash roughly every 10s?
It took Octopus 6 visits and 3 lots of meters/Comms Hubs before they were reliable - eventually they fitted the Telefonica 3G Comms Hub even though I am in Scotland.
Just keep ringing and raise a complaint call. That got it fixed for me eventually.
I am in the North east
Re-reading thisâŚthe issues occurred afer Octopus attending to install an Octopus suppiedl EV charger on a property with Octipus managed meters?
I would guess that there are lots of âworkflowsâ that need to heppen to register devices in the Octopus Energy backoffice systems; and that the installer has managed to mash a button that âunregistersâ the smart meters whilst registering your EV charger.
If this is the case then the meter will work just fine form meter to the DCC (the company that gets all the meter data) but then the link from there to the Octopus Energy billing system; through the spaghetti that they call âKrakenâ; has been broken by whichever âworkflowâ the installer started.
He wonât be able to see any of that. The billing department people wonât be able to see any of that. It would need to be escalated to engineering.
âCan you confirm that that no changes were made by your installer to the registration state of the smart emter with the DCC; and that the DCC systems indicate that their connectivity to the meter disappeared at the exact same moment your installer began their installation / registration process for the EV charger? Might it be possible that the installer has inadvertently âunregisteredâ the smart meter with the DCC, or severed the link between the DCC and your billing system, by initiating the incorrect workflow or a snag occurring duering that workflow? Please do not attempt to answer this question yourself and instead please escalate to an technical expert familar with the terminology here and the workflows involved in registration of a meter and the linking of a DCC enrolled meter to the billing enginer if you are not an expert in these matters.â
Can you share more on this / send a photo?
There is an installer trying to get a PV array setup in Scotland but they are being told that there is no coverage on Arqiva and nobody will grant the export tariffs as a result.
It sounds like thereâs a known workflow for Octopus to say âto heck with Arqiva; we will fit a SIM based solution within their coverage area so that this worksâ which would be immensely helpful to this customer!
I am definitely not an expert in this field, my tech knowledge is just about zero 
i will put these questions to Octopus and hopefully get a response. Thank you for your help.
That was aimed at Octopus (their junior customer service people have a habit of trying to answer questions that they donât have a damn clue about by picking random answers from their script sheets instead of escalating to those who can understand the question)
It wasnât Octopus that did it, it was the friendly Meter engineer. Rang his supervisor, explained the issue and got the authority to order the 3G comms hub.
Just say to the initial handler it is a complaint call (the complaint being the meters are broken that did work). This definitely elicits a better response. Use Twitter(X) as well - very responsive to complaints on X (@ Greg in as well) and they will respond to DMs. Waiting for email support can be hit and miss.
What is the state of the Comms Hub and the IHD?
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One of the problems has been solved - the new comms unit had not been registered to my account, so the smart meter is now sending data, it only took 8 weeks and a Dead Lock letter to prompt them to send an engineercto investigate !
The other problem has not been solved. The smart meter will send data only when the Zappi EV charger is isolated from the main electricity supply. So far neither Octopus nor Myenergy have a solution. Has anyonecelse had this problem ?
[This A Zappi EV charger is blocking communication between the Smart Meter and Octopus relates.
Please donât post twice with the same subject - it only dilutes the responses. Moderator (RW)]
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Their processes are evidently breaking down in the back office!
Thatâs a red flag for electrical interference. Have myenergi offered an exchange unit on the off chance itâs a manufacturing fault rather than a design fault?
A replacement unit has been installed but the inteference with the smart meters remains the same. Myenergy are baffled by this.
Theyâll want to do some signal analysing in that case; unlikely to be happenstance for two units to cause interference on the comms side
I will let you know the outcome
My comms hub was causing an MCB to trip in my CU. Apparently not an isolated case (pun intended). Fortunately they can remote the Comms Hub from the top of the meter and I could then get it put âround the cornerâ from the CU which solved that problem.
Are the 2 in close proximity?
Have you asked on the Octopus Forum? Octopus Smart Energy forum
Did you get this solved? Over the last few days I have found that connecting the EV to Zappi2 (Ethernet enabled) causes the SMETS2 meter comms to drop out and reconnect. This is new behaviour. I have also noticed a bunch of new inputs appearing in EmonCMS with node numbers 0, 4 and emonshield, which I suspect may be related. All this seems to confirm that there is EM interference generated by the Zappi and/or meter comms, as @marko indicated.
No this problem has not been solved. Octopus are trying to ignore the problem, basically telling me that there is nothing they can do and I am on my own with this.
Have you informed Myenergy of your problem? As it is similar to mine it may help them to find a solution.
My next move is to try ethernet connection to the Zappi instead of WiFi, but from your experience this may not be my solution
Iâll open a case. The Ethernet connection is fine, but the connector on the circuit board snaps off very easily: stupid design. The Zappi had to be changed because simply pushing in the rj45 cable broke off the connector, and the installer was being careful. We zip tied the connector to the circuit board second time round to prevent a reoccurrence!
I suspect wifi and 433mHz on the Zappi2 remain active regardless of whether Ethernet is in use.
Zappi + battery + ASHP+ solar inverter does seem to have harmonic issues on the mains. Each may be ok on its own, but when all are presentâŚâŚ
Are you in the north with a SMET2 that sends data using rf or in the south with a SMET2 using 4G / 5G.