Smart meters

[eddie7]

I know there are a number of threads about smart meters, but I haven't found one that answers my problem. We have just had an electricty smart meter fitted. There should also have been a gas meter, but the gas meter failed to communicate with the electricity meter, presumably because of the distance - about 13m. Also the In-House-Display (IHD) failed to work , again because of distance. We live in a residential building where the electricity meters are all on the ground floor, and the gas meters are at various points around the outside of the building - not an unusual situation, but obviously one that the smart meter people failed to take account of. I believe that our meter is of the SMETS2 variety. The communication part is made by Toshiba - SKU1 Cellular, and the meter is by Landis/Gyr - M190120. What I am wondering is would it be possible to introduce some ZigBee range extenders. These things seem to be used for smart homes to allow operation of various appliances with your smart phone. The Home Area Network that links gas meter with the electricity meter and the electricity meter with the IHD is based on the 2.4Ghz ZigBee communications protocol - IEEE802.15.4.

Has anyone any experience of using the CC2531 or the CC2530 bare board ZigBee communication modules. Could they be used as range extenders, repeaters or routers - I am not sure of the correct description?

 

[ericmark]

If you could do as you want, then the smart meter would be useless as anyone else could as well.

 

[SimonH2]

... but obviously one that the smart meter people failed to take account of.

And not the only one. Quite a few of the claimed benefits/savings (some of them still listed) won't happen because the people writing the meter/system specs clearly didn't consult all the people involved - and so the specs don't support the functions needed to provide that benefit.

 

[winston1]

Sounds as if your smart meters are not fit for purpose. Reject them and ask for your old meters to be refitted.

 

[AndyPRK]

I think the op wants them and to work

Apparently gas meters can have a separate transmitter fitted near by to send readings in.

But I guess that doesn’t help with the in home display.

 

[eddie7]

I am quite happy having the smart meters. I am just trying to find a way of increasing the transmission range. Obviously I can't interfere with the meter itself. I have heard that a new SMETS3 spec is being introduced. Perhaps this will include better range. In the meatime I think I will just have to try one of the CC25xx modules, although I am not sure whether the ZigBee protocol will automatically detect a ZigBee network, or whether it has to be preprogrammed to do so. Anyone know anything about ZigBee?

I had not heard of the separate gas meter transmitters. There was no mention of that from my energy supplier.