Smart meter woes

[G4WFT]

Having just placed an order for solar panels and battery I thought I'd look around for a decent tariff for electricity supply. I've been with Bulb for a couple of years so thought I'd check out their EV tariff before switching to Octopus Go. My electricity meter is a SMETS1 made by Secure, which Bulb reckon they can talk to, plus, since June this year, my statements from them show a monthly reading tagged as "Smart" which means they are reading it remotely. So I contacted them by email to ask about going on the EV tariff. Their reply is this:

Thanks for your email,

To join the Ev tarff, you'll need to have a SMETS2 installed by us with an In Home Display (IHD) then we can easily put you on on the e tariff.

I’m sorry that we can’t install one of our newer generation smart meters for you. This is because the meter you have is already smart.

Until recently, the type of meter you have would only be smart with the supplier who installed it. But, we're able to communicate with your meter.

So we can't put you on the EV tariff yet, till we are able to replace your type of meter.

I'm just unable to understand this. They seem to say that they can't install a smart meter because I already have one, which they can communicate with. Am I missing something very simple here?

 

[Dilly]

I’m with Octopus. Have been since 2018.
I have a secure SMETS1 and not had a single issue
My meter was installed by Eon in March 2017

 

[pdk42]

I’ve been with Octopus since I got my Model 3 two years ago. I swapped explicitly for the Go tariff. My previous supplier was Ovo who had installed a SMETS1 Secure meter. Octopus has no issues getting half hourly readings from it after a short wait. Just recently, Octopus upgraded my meter, on my request, to a 3-phase device that’s SMETS2 and with no charge.

 

[MrBadger]

Looks like typical half scripted generic Octopus communication that often contradicts itself.

I emailed ElectricJuice (an Octopus company dealing with public charge points) today and got a response telling me that they couldn’t give me a better supply tarrif deal via email - looks like that was a standard Octopus response saying they are busy with Avro customers.

tl;dr they look like they are too busy to put any thought into emails at present due to being a SoLR for some folded suppliers.