Smart meter IHD+CAD

[kev2021]

Hi,

Since my IHD seems to continue to be not showing correctly ever since I switched suppliers a while back, I’ve not had much luck in finding out why. The actual usage looks about right i.e. with nothing on at all apart from start items i.e. fridge, freezer, clocks etc it’s showing 0.06kw BUT the needles on the IHD shows in the red.  Initially I had not set any budget info etc so I’ve since been in and set it to say £10 a day BUT it sill shows in the red regardless but the actually usage figures seems to about right (not measured exactly each item but it would appear to be about right).  Obviously my bills are no higher than usual so I’m not using any more but the IHD seems to be constantly in the red or it switches briefly to orange, green then back to red.

So it appears energy providers only support them for 12 months and I’m way past that as I’m with possibly 2 different suppliers since then.

So I’ve now seen a IHD+Cad that supposedly will give you live data as opposed to historic data, glowmarkt (https://shop.glowmarkt.com/products/display-and-cad-combined-for-smart-meter-customers) are doing one at approx. £70, appears to be a one off cost and they also have a app which lets you view the usage as well so can see previous days/weeks and also lets you view live data if your out so looks promising and you can also enter your tariff info etc so its accurate.

Has any one else tried these?

An alternative is ivie.co.uk but didn’t seem to get great reviews so I’m not sure about that one.

Any thoughts from anyone here or is there something else?  I was going to go to my current supplier but I’m not sure if the issue is my actual IHD or if its something to do with switching supplier as that seems to be when it went in the red all the time, as if something hasn’t been changed somewhere but as the IHD has original supplier logo on, maybe parts of it are locked to them?

My parents have just had the same thing, there were moved by there supplier and now there older IHD unit is now red pretty much 95% of the time.

So I’m wondering if a independent one will help, apparently once I sign up and validate my info, they will send a IHD+CAD all set up, I just turn it on and done as I believe I cannot pair it with the smart meter so they do it prior to shipping.

Thanks

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

Going back a little, one of your suppliers originally went bust – did you have a IHD then, just trying to create some background information as I cannot recall ?

Yes, after 12 months or switch in supplier or supplier goes into administration, IHD could no longer be supported ?

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

Hi,

No, my Elec is the only smart meter I have.  That supplier I switched from, they never went bust.  It was my gas supplier that went out of business and I have a standard gas meter, non smart.  So this would only be for my Elec supply for now, eventually I’ll prob get my gas meter changed to a smart meter but I’m in no hurry as it is outside the property so they can come read it any time, unlike my Elec meter, I need to be home for them to read it so it made sense to make that a smart meter so that can remote take a reading any time they like.

My parents have smart meters for both and there supplier has moved them as they sold part of the business so its all be handled by them and since the move, there’s is now in the red most of the time too so seems to tie into a issue since switching suppliers but got to the bottom and was thinking maybe it is due to the IHD being supplied by the company initially with whereas the one above is independent so might not have same issue?

Thanks

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

I knew it was complicated ;) – Only a thought, Is you Gas and Electric now supplied by same supplier ? if so, maybe worth giving them a call and say you want a Gas Smart Meter replacement from your Traditional Gas Meter and then they should (ask them) supply you with a new single IHD to suit both Gas and Electric Smart Meters ?

When we switched to OCTOPUS last year, we had both our GAS and Electric meters upgraded at the same time and now have a single IHD to view both GAS and Electric usage etc ?

 

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

yep, never simple :)

At the moment, my supplier isn’t doing smart meter upgrades in my area.  My Elec and Gas are now supplied by same supplier but on different tariffs so don’t fall under duel fuel.

My smart meter I have would take Elec & gas and the one i linked above will take both and they advised when I checked my post code etc that my Elec smart meter is compatible and when I upgrade the gas one, it can be added also.

Also I’ve since found out my supplier looks to contract out the smart meter installs to a 3rd party unlike other suppliers who have there own engineer so if they did come, upgrade the gas meter to a smart meter and give a new IHD, I suspect the Elec would still read high and they would simply pass it to supplier whereas a engineer for the company would prob be able to do more and also liaise and fix whilst there.

I’m also thinking if I switch supplier in the future, I’d likely go through the same issues again so any advantage of going for a independent one like linked above or would that too have same issues?

I’m currently thinking I may have to switch my Elec to a different supplier next year as existing one is a bit high for Elec (excluding the existing gov cap in place that ends in April) so will have to see if any fixed tariffs around early next year but existing one is only offering variable tariff atm.  My Gas is fixed for 2 years so will still be with them for the gas but I recently read that existing supplier is looking to raise 50m over next 2 years so looks like they could potentially be in some financial issue so might be worth moving away, will depend if prices start to get any cheaper and if companies offer any fixed deals etc.

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

I see, planning ahead

BTW – what does it say when you use the below link to see if meter is still in Smart Mode ?

https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk/

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

Yes, trying to, avoid spending unnecesarily but worth if it it would resolve the issue :)

I tried that link, it lets me go to the next page, i enter in my details then it just says something went wrong, if your the owner check the logs…

To my knowledge, the meter is still working as my bills show meter readings.  Last month the end of sept was estimated but then it shows 3 smart meter readings until end of Oct so i guess maybe a temp glitch in sept for some reason but other bills been showing smart meter read so I believe it is reporting back and the units look correct, its more the visual appearance on the IHD, always showing in Red, makes you immediately think what’s going on, I’m using loads, then you switch screen and see 0.06kw and think oh I’m not using loads… and there in is the issue – faulty IHD or some back end issue which I’ve got no real way to determine and I not had much traction with supplier but of course covid etc been going on, now energy prices increases so they all snowed under with customers calling or switching etc

So wondering, is the above worth it? When i downloaded Bright app, it wanted to agree and provide meter info so they can register to receive the readings, which I’ve not done yet as I’m not sure what that implies, does it mean my supplier wont get the reading or the readings will be sent to supplier and the bright owners/app? My idea was to get a CAD connected so that it would receive the readings and then the app talks to that but unsure if Glowmarkt will still hold the readings also (not sure why they would want to or need to unless I signed up to there cloud system which I don’t want) as I don’t see a need for them to have my readings as its largely meaningless to them.

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

Does sound like the Smart meter IHD+CAD option is a good option for yourself, can you remind me whom your Electric is supplied by currently as there maybe limitations / restrictions etc ?

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

Well interestingly, I think Chameleon do one also but that looks very similar to the normal IHD so i presume normal IHD is CAD also?

Supplier is So Energy.

I’m tempted to buy it but ideally looking to see opinions on it from other users and if they had issues before that were resolved after moving to it.  From my point of view, it isn’t tied to a supplier i.e Supper A provides it, you switch to supplier B and the unit doesn’t properly update as it was suppliers A’s whereas with the above, its independent and it gets linked to your meter and you can then enter tarrif info etc i believe so looks as if its independent so shouldn’t give the same issues although at present I’d imagine some are when usage is jumping in cost as its used to you spending x per day, now its significantly more..

For smart gas meters, i’m kinda in favour of the uniflow styles ones, not the white small plastic box thing.

Thanks

kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

So Energy use two IHD by default one of which is the CHAMELEON IHD3

https://help.so.energy/support/solutions/articles/7000058738-ihd-manual-chameleon-ihd3

Never used CAD / Gateway CAD based displays / App myself but a great idea in principle to combine home display (IHD) and consumer access device (CAD) to allow a real-time view of energy consumption from the smart meters and access to that data via an app anytime, anywhere.

‘Consumer Access Device –  Is a cloud-connected secure smart meter gateway device/service that accesses real-time energy data from smart meters and sends that data to a designated cloud service’.

Data and privacy I am not familiar with for this scenario, but given this could be a cloud based service, checks regarding actual data centre locations are advisable as well as GDPR and country of CAD business etc ?

Hopefully others can advise on any teething problems they may have had with IHD or CAD based systems.

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

Thanks, my understanding was they had 2 systems, one is cloud based BUT if you got the CAD device then it keeps it local? or does it still send back to the company?

Wasn’t overly clear, maybe need to find a forum specific to this and see what ppl say if no one is familiar here?

Thanks

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

I’ve just sent them a message so will wait to hear back :)

Kev

Share the knowledge

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

kev2021 wrote:

I’ve just sent them a message so will wait to hear back :) Kev

There response will be interesting 👍

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[kev2021]

Hi,

Had a reply, it seems that even if i have the IHD+CAD locally, it still sends data back to them.  The Bright app is free. and you can use MQTT with it if you want to use the data in a different way etc.

If I remove the device from WIFI, then they wont get the readings but I also wont get data in the app but could view just on the display. However, I believe the app allows you to see all previous usage, maybe right back to when installed or maybe just with the current supplier.

I did ask what happens should the company go out of business, would it continue to work or not and she couldn’t advise on that, I suspect the unit would work but the app would stop due to effectively no servers to read from.  I was hoping the app would talk to the IHD+CAD directly and not via the glowmarkt.

Looking at it again, the display appears to just show you the cost, no graphical display to indicate usage, I presume due to the app probably does allow of that for you but visually it just says £x used for that day.

Undecided whether to pursue or go to supplier and request new IHD and then advise them no doubt it doesn’t work properly and let them figure out what’s up lol.

Kev

Share the knowledge

You need to login in order to vote

[UK Sentinel]

kev2021 wrote:

it seems that even if i have the IHD+CAD locally, it still sends data back to them.

That makes sense as Smart Meters (not IHD) send meter readings directly back to the utilities company using the same technology as mobile phones (3G) I believe.

Bet your glad you started looking into all this

 

Share the knowledge

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

Liked by:

You need to login in order to vote

[Author]

Posts