After months of being bombarded with request to install smart meter I have had a three phase one installed by EON .
The only problem is that it can not communicate with what I assume are the units on the Openreach poles .
Can anyone advise if there are fixes for this in terms of some form of signal booster or similar ?
Talking to EON has not been productive so far .
Thanks in advance
I don’t think the Openreach poles are involved in any Smart Meter comms.
Since it’s a new install it’s presumably a SMETS2 meter. The comms links for those depend on where in the country you are located - there’s a North-South split, with more options for coping with poor reception in the southern half of Britain, which uses the O2 mobile network.
More info here: Technical information on UK SMETS 2 Smart Meters
There’s nothing you can ‘fix’ as a consumer though - EON will need to get their metering provider to sort it.
Our Smart Meter when installed a good while ago (think it is an older one that can only communicate via mobile networks rather than the dedicated network that is being rolled out in denser areas) struggled to get a connection when first installed.
The installer came back and fitted a separate antenna on a cable so it could be placed closer to a window and it has worked ever sense. Maybe they can do something like that.
Where do you live (roughly)?
“assumptions are the mother of all Foul* ups”
No, in the Northern Area the meters communicate via Radio Frequency comms creating a mesh communication; in the South (roughly below Newcastle IIRC) it is via 4G.
I’m in the Central Belt of Scotland, in a highly insulated house and after 2 years of no reliable comms they gave up on RF and fitted a 4G unit. Even that didn’t work until they fitted an external antenna. There is a thread about it here somewhere I think.
The other problem is that the meters may not be communicating internally via the HAN (Home Area Network). Each meter connects to this via the Comms Hub. There are ‘Dual Band’ meters that communicate better than others (they may only fit these now).
Raise a complaint that they don’t work but be prepared for a long haul. It’s fitted. They often don’t care much after that.
Octopus were great at eventually fixing the issues.
Thank you all for replies . So it’s not the little black boxes , which I was hoping it was as a fix may have been easier .
Same problem Borpin , highly insulated , breeze block cavity with proper stone on the outside in a lousy mobile reception area , south wales coast just outside larger city , but in a bay so reception is a joke , non existent in house because of windows and insulation , meter in garage .
I’m with Eon hoping to use their new drive tarrif for storage batteries , some Hope at the moment !
Time to stir the pot , thanks all again .
South Wales is ‘south’ so your meter will be trying to use the O2 mobile network. The good news is there are options for an external antenna (like Brian eventually had fitted) and - assuming you don’t already have one of those - that should significantly improve the ‘WAN’ comms between the meter and Smart DCC. The ‘HAN’ comms between the meter and the In-Home Display are a separate problem, but won’t stop your meter working.
In theory EON should have worked this all out before installing the meter…
If you could check which Comms Hub you have installed currently, and whether it already has an external antenna, that would be useful. Here’s the specific section of the page I linked to previously:
I ended up with the middle antenna, external to the comms hub, but inside the house. I left the garage door open while it was connecting and once connected it has been pretty reliable.
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