Octopus Smart Meter Experiences

[spooksman]

I must say that my move to Octopus Go was brilliant. I expected problems as I had an old SMETS1 Secure meter that has been 'dumb' for a few years. However, they switched me over, and within 5 days I got an email asking me to accept Go terms as they were getting regular readings.

Now got both cars set to start charging at 12:30 on a regular basis .

I even got my £100 credit on the account for the referral I used (thanks Roy!). Now I need to spread the word as well...

Also, I love being able to look at the stats, just because...

 

[Smog]

So just to give everyone my side of things. I moved to octopus in June, and they installed my smart meters in august. They worked for around 5 days, then seem to have stopped working.

The help I’ve had through twitter has been awesome. They have tried things from their end, then they even sent an engineer out todos a full restart. This didn’t help, so they asked what days i was free. They’re replacing them again next week on my next day off. Despite not having a bill through all this, they are happy as my account is in credit and they know it will be sorted once the meters are running. Would highly recommend their twitter support

 

[Rooster6655]

mine was installed 9 weeks (4 weeks with Bulb and 5 weeks with Octopus) ago now and the electric is still not giving a reading, the gas is fine and showing every 30 mins.

Same with mine, not been working 2 months now, customer service is a complete joke, logged countless calls, emails and promised deadlines and calls missed. Seems like Octopus energy are worse than how Tesla customer service was at the start of Model 3 deliveries!

 

[ACarneiro]

They may be suffering from similar problems, as I believe Octopus too are growing very rapidly.

 

[Mr Miserable]

Same with mine, not been working 2 months now, customer service is a complete joke, logged countless calls, emails and promised deadlines and calls missed. Seems like Octopus energy are worse than how Tesla customer service was at the start of Model 3 deliveries!

That is a bit strange.
On my setup the smart gas meter sends it's readings to the electric smart meter which then forwards them on.

 

[Philip P]

I’m still waiting for them to book me in to install a smart meter, apparently they are extremely busy, reliant on third party engineers and the customer service staff only work part-time. Maybe things will improve but they clearly have problems.

 

[shuhockey]

No news again apart from the system is really busy! So I'll give it till Tuesay and then mention the complaint word and see if that speeds it up. When you complained at bulb I got £30 credit, so I wonder if its the same at Octopus?

"Unfortunately there's a considerable backlog at this moment in time, hence why this process has taken so long.
I will inform you as soon as the process has been completed."

 

[StuC]

I'm having my charger installed today and have just been informed by Octopus that I can't have a smart meter because there's no WAN signal where I live. I get a perfectly good mobile signal but I guess they must use a different network, which doesn't sound very "smart" to me. Has anyone had success with the signal booster approach with Octopus?

 

[Adopado]

I'm having my charger installed today and have just been informed by Octopus that I can't have a smart meter because there's no WAN signal where I live. I get a perfectly good mobile signal but I guess they must use a different network, which doesn't sound very "smart" to me. Has anyone had success with the signal booster approach with Octopus?

In some areas they have been installing second hand Type1 smart meters because of this inherent problem with Type2 connectivity. They did that for me. Type1 smart meters use the standard phone data networks I believe and have a better chance of working in marginal areas.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Scotland would be Arqiva network which is not mobile.. it's a proprietary network on 423Mhz. You could probably scan for it with relatively cheap kit but in general nobody does, they install meters and cross their fingers..

The south of england is Telefonica using their mobile masts (basically matching O2 coverage), which appears to be more successful.

 

[Rooster6655]

When you complained at bulb I got £30 credit, so I wonder if its the same at Octopus?

"Unfortunately there's a considerable backlog at this moment in time, hence why this process has taken so long.
I will inform you as soon as the process has been completed."

Utility companies are bad enough as it is now Octopus adds on several more layers of things to go wrong, they are useless, I waited 6 months for the meter and then it stopped updating 2 months ago and just get fobbed off. I'd say zero chance of getting any credit, they are useless and don't care.

I don't even know if the data will be sent properly for use with the Agile tariff so its not a good position to be in when charging your car and you might be charged a different rate in the future.

 

[tomorrowman]

Utility companies are bad enough as it is now Octopus adds on several more layers of things to go wrong, they are useless, I waited 6 months for the meter and then it stopped updating 2 months ago and just get fobbed off. I'd say zero chance of getting any credit, they are useless and don't care.

I don't even know if the data will be sent properly for use with the Agile tariff so its not a good position to be in when charging your car and you might be charged a different rate in the future.

Just to balance things out a bit. My transition to Octopus Go, including smart meter upgrade, was painless and has resulted in a frankly astonishing drop in my electricity bill (I'm easily astonished ).

Found Octopus to be prompt and helpful in their responses to either email or phone calls.

Agreed doesn't help you, but the difference in experiences is troubling.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

I found that you never got a response in under a week from email from octopus. Not even a 'we've received your email and will get back to you'. That increases stress and makes the whole thing a worse experience.

But the core of the blame is whoever decided that the companies primarily setup to bill you should be in charge of installing smart meters.. they just have no expertise in that. Should have been the DNO from the start, or a dedicated national company.

 

[Adopado]

But the core of the blame is whoever decided that the companies primarily setup to bill you should be in charge of installing smart meters.. they just have no expertise in that. Should have been the DNO from the start, or a dedicated national company.

Octopus don't install the smart meters but you are right that are "in charge" in that they have to request the contractors to do the installations ... I strongly suspect that if it was the DNO they would be using exactly the same contractors to carry out the same thankless tasks of trying to get the damned smart meter system to work!

 

[Tony Hoyle]

The DNO would have had a better overview of signal issues and could do entire areas at once. This piecemeal stuff means nobody really owns it and you just get blind swapping out of meters which all has to be paid for. I'd hope they'd have something better than the lowest bidder contractors we seem to have now, too..

 

[tomorrowman]

Octopus don't install the smart meters but you are right that are "in charge" in that they have to request the contractors to do the installations ... I strongly suspect that if it was the DNO they would be using exactly the same contractors to carry out the same thankless tasks of trying to get the damned smart meter system to work!

Interestingly Octopus did install my smart meters - unless they are handing out purple vans with a giant pink octopus on it to their contractors.

 

[Adopado]

The DNO would have had a better overview of signal issues and could do entire areas at once. This piecemeal stuff means nobody really owns it and you just get blind swapping out of meters which all has to be paid for. I'd hope they'd have something better than the lowest bidder contractors we seem to have now, too..

In this day and age they are unlikely to take on direct staff for what will be a time-limited requirement so would most likely be using contractors ... and everybody goes for the cheapest it seems to me! I agree that it would be a much better idea to do whole areas at once ... that has to be much more efficient and, as you say, enable an awareness of connectivity that varies in the different areas.

 

[Adopado]

Interestingly Octopus did install my smart meters - unless they are handing out purple vans with a giant pink octopus on it to their contractors.

Interesting ... mine was an independent contractor ... must vary.

 

[rincewind]

I’m still waiting for them to book me in to install a smart meter, apparently they are extremely busy, reliant on third party engineers and the customer service staff only work part-time. Maybe things will improve but they clearly have problems.

Mine was taking ages, so I emailed them and said that if they couldn't get the smart meter installed, I'd cancel and find a provider that would. within 2 days, I had an appointment.

 

[Neilman]

Interestingly Octopus did install my smart meters - unless they are handing out purple vans with a giant pink octopus on it to their contractors.

Same here, I had a pink Octopus van visit twice in Hayes - first time was to replace both gas and electric meters but found they couldn't be commissioned that day ('back-end' problems!). Second visit six-weeks later to commission meters included replacing the gas meter again but they are now working and reporting every half-hour as per normal.