Smart Meter In-Home-Display IHD6 Stripdown

[@elesjuan]

This was a rather interesting overview of this neat little display! My power company upgraded my meter to a "smart" one from the same manufacture (in the States here.) and I noted the zigbee logo on mine as well. Did a fair amount of research coming up with nothing, so I rang up the power people and got basically nowhere. I wanted to see if it were possible to monitor my usage via zigbee from the meter and inject that data into my home assistant server for collection graphing and monitoring. Anyone I could reach with electric company had no clue. The old meter used the ISM 900mhz band, and while I never successfully found my power meter, I was able to find the gas meter in the 433mhz ISM band, and successfully sniff its data out of the air. My solution for power monitoring was to build my own system with some CT clamps inside the electrical panel, which plug into an esp32 and run data into esphome addin within home assistant. Pretty neat.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

9:37 these meters use a C or D-cell sized lithium thionyl chloride non-rechargeable cell. I did a teardown of one of these meters a few years ago : kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIHGYmedYsdlj7s

[@EsotericArctos]

Although these may be Zigbee often the profile is the SE profile which is not compatible with the usual profiles we use for home automation, which generally follows the Zigbee HA profile. Just wanted to mention that as a lot of people think Zigbee and that it could be put easily into home automation systems and they may not be so easy to integrate as people think. The Anti-Tamper switch can be setup to be silent to notify the utility company when you have opened it as often these devices are rented and not owned by the customer.

[@BuyitFixit]

I think the version I bought off ebay to mess about with, might be the updated IHD7, as it has a slightly different PCB layout and also has a room temperature sensor near the bottom. I also has an ESP32S2 Processor along with the FT800 display / sound / touch screen chip. I've uploaded a picture of the PCB but for some reason it won't let me put the link to it.

[@keikoimazu]

Many thanks fir very useful information.

[@UpLateGeek]

It looks like there's a track going from the switch to R40 which is unpopulated, the other side of which goes down towards the voltage regulator at U2. That suggests it might be a pull-up resistor, and the fact that it's not fitted suggests it's floating, hence it may not be active.

[@BuyitFixit]

Damn, I got one of these and was going to do similar as it has an ESP32S2 processor in it. Not sure if its been locked or not though. I did something with one of the PIP500 energy displays some time ago and reverse engineered the connections and used an ESP8266 and wrote some drivers for the touch screen and display. kzbin.info/www/bejne/naHPqJyjdttpoNU

[@smoothjamie4046]

Lithium Thionyl Chloride cells are primary cells I.e. non rechargeable. They are used for sensors with long term applications. Have a look at SAFT LS cells on RS. AA cells with 3.6V each.

[@WelshPaul]

The little notch on the power cable is to prevent strain on the micro USB port which can cause it to break or detach from the PCB. Micro USB suck!!!

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

I now have 9.6kWh of batteries waiting for panels on the roof, I did ask how 18 panels stacked up on there sides in the garage is going to reduce my bills. funny they had no answer for that. 🙂

[@fredflintstone1]

Meow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@rpdom]

I had 3kW of panels on my roof waiting three weeks for an inverter and batteries. Finally got it done and it is working well now.

[@BuyitFixit]

I recently fitted 16 panels on our shed roof, and got a blown inverter off a friend, which I then fixed, and bought another blown one off eBay. However tech support wasn't forthcoming with a service password I needed so I had to reverse engineer their software, and write my own keygen!

[@BuyitFixit]

@@rpdom I'm waiting for batteries, as I'm thinking about going totally off grid.Although I'll have to change the two grid tie inverters I just repaired.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

@@rpdom with luck they should go up next week, at least I'll have time to get up their scaffolding and clean out the front guttering :-)

[@aaronmdjones]

Hello again Julian. The third wire on the battery is almost certainly the other end of a grounded negative temperature coefficient thermistor. This allows the charging circuitry to detect the battery temperature and cease charging when outside a specified range, usually between 0'C and 45'C.

[@ck008uk]

Do you recommend installing smart meters? Can the energy suppliers manipulate the actual reading remotely?

[@JulianIlett]

Your energy supplier can't manipulate your readings - that wouldn't be legal. However, they can remotely switch your meter into pre-pay mode.

[@marknewman2756]

Hi Mate great vid would you happen to know as im with edf how you connect the smart display to the smart metre all im getting is not commissioned connecting to smart metre cheers mark

[@tonyfrewin4822]

Very interesting video. I love the fact that you are scaring the family into switching things off😂. Also loving the thrupence and tuppence, just don’t get enough of that these days 😂.

[@markburton3306]

Octopus has a useful API for grabbing various bits of info. We don’t have solar panels yet, but we do have a plug-in hybrid car. I was going to use the agile pricing to optimise for cost charging the car. However, we now have a deal with cheaper electricity in the early hours, so I just run the charger then

[@jitendrabaviskar393]

My IHD is not displaying the gas consumption pls guide me on this. Thank you.

[@michaeldevlin2685]

Mine has never worked from the day of installation. Contacted the energy provider many times with no result. I've had the meter and display unit for going on 3 months now. Very dissatisfied with the way they are responding. They either have very poor installers and technicians or they just can't be bothered. (Octopus energy)

[@dom1310df]

Most smart meters still use 2G, which is why the 2G shutdown has been pushed back so far to give time for the smart meters to wear out and be replaced "naturally", without having to go round to everybody's house (again).

[@tensonanila]

Could you please help me I have same home display at home from last two days my gas is showing only …… dots like this I press on dots showing usage KWH not cost. Could you please guide me how will I put back on coast.

[@jgobin]

Hi Julian, Great video as usual. I have an identical meter, but it doesn't have a wifi symbol top right, it shows the incorrect rate for gas and it does not show the export rate (I have a small 1.2Kw solar array) I have reset the IHD several times but the it still shows the wrong tariff ... any suggestions how I could update it?

[@JulianIlett]

I phoned Octopus and the chap altered the electricity rate (which was wrong) while we spoke.

[@arnavmohan959]

@@JulianIlett hey there, I was watching your wave form generator video and I had a question. How do IGBT’s make a pure sine wave for 60hz? I understand that they switch on and off many times and the more they do that, the average looks more like a pure sine wave. If they only switch on and off 20,000 times a second and pulse width modulation works best when the pulses are extremely fast, how do you generate 60hz of ac?

[@pulesjet]

Big Brother is watching You.

[@BuyitFixit]

It's worse than that, as big brother can also disconnect you!

[@ncot_tech]

Will they let you switch to Octopus Go for your incoming power, or are you on another supplier for that? I’m attempting to find a solar installer but there’s more chance of Russia going home than having panels on my roof any time soon.

[@JulianIlett]

You can't have both Agile Outgoing and Go at the same time. Because I work from home, I charge the car during the day so Go isn't as useful to me.

[@RyanMcGuinness]

The various numbers your showed on screen can actually be used by anyone who has them to pull your electricity usage stats. E.g there's a third party sites called Hildebrand that I used to get my Octopus readings into home assistant. Pretty sure I only needed those numbers.

[@DogsBAwesome]

Only time I shower at night is in hot, hot summers days and that's a second shower, as I'm a toasty boie at night and wake up sweaty.

[@neilp7024]

Hi Thanks for the video it expalins alot...however i just wondered how this work with a storage battery and solar,does it give reading after the excess power has gone to the battery?

[@Steve0272.]

Are these displays accurate 🤔??

[@Henry-sv3wv]

If you can't programm IHD6 with arduino it's proprietary crap.

[@dnt1951]

I have the same smart meter with British Gas. How far should history go back?

[@vince_martyn]

The gas meter does talk Zigbee (which is 2.4G) and they wake up every 30 minutes for a short period, which makes firmware updates fun. The anti-tamper switch will have sent an alert to the DCC (middleman) who may have sent it to your provider who might not even notice 😀

[@jlucasound]

They will say, "Oh, it's just Julian Ilett. He's taken it apart again. Disregard".

Some SE devices are dual band and can also talk on SubGhz Zigbee band 868/915mhz.

[@GadgetBoy]

Lithium Thionyl Chloride battery. Primary battery, ridiculously high energy density, low internal discharge, not rechargeable, and releases nasty toxic gas if you try.

[@piconano]

Very interesting. I wonder when are they going to start charging for apparent power as well?!

[@JulianIlett]

The smart meter certainly measures it. If you wade through the menus, there are registers for real power, apparent power and power factor.

[@piconano]

@@JulianIlett You're screwed my friend.

[@GeeTheBuilder]

@@piconano what is apparent power and why is he/we screwed?

[@piconano]

@@GeeTheBuilder Google is your friend. Ask your friend.

[@ncot_tech]

Never, that’s just fear spread by the “ooer smart meters are evil” weirdos. They’ve found a far better way of screwing us for higher energy 😉 we’re paying nearly 50p a day for “line rental” and to prop up Bulb and the other failed energy providers.

[@audibell]

Don't tell you energy supply that

[@jtb2586]

8:24 our "smart" meters are on 2G. They are going to keep 2G alive specifically for the "smart" meters. How stupid is that.

[@davey2k12]

Jesus I'm using what you use in a week in a day 😂

[@MontyVideo969]

Thanks for your time and efforts on this intriguing video. I have a question for you and your subscribers :- "Would an IHD function correctly when paired with a S.M.A.R.T meter that is operating in *dumb* mode?" Presumably, this would preclude the "benefit" to the energy companies knowing when you use energy but it would give homeowners the tools to manage their energy usage (the primary reason energy companies give for the use of SMART meters in the first place).

[@hi-tech-guy-1823]

Packet radio or LoRa - LoRaWan - Mesh Radio > Shame you don't have USB SDR - Software-defined radio (SDR) "Hack RF One" And or "SDR Play" Due can then Can Ears Drop

[@rbeartoe2621]

Great video. This was the only video I could find on these display. Purchased one off the back of it. However it appears the only do plug in now (I was unaware) so have to leave it plugged in at all times. I noticed the newer ones do not have the battery symbol. It does show a wheather reading instead.

[@banjax66]

Hi Julian. At 20:50 you said "thruppence" (meaning 3 pence) .. In fact your family used 30 pence worth of gas. So maybe you need to cut down their evening gas usage! LOL. Secondly, I'm sure these remote 'In Home Display' units must be registered to your own meter in some way else you could possibly hack into your neighbours meter to see how much power THEY are using? Just a thought mate.. Ian. 2E0IFZ.

[@JulianIlett]

Yes, but 27p of that is the standing charge, leaving just 3p of gas usage :)

[@BuyitFixit]

They use a version of zigbee with keys IIRC, I did look into something similar when I was messing about with a PIPIT500 energy monitor a few years back. I see your an intermediate, I done my foundation last year.

[@jlucasound]

Wow! I never knew your wife was from Hong Kong! Chinese women are Beautiful! I love their culture and intelligence. Thanks again for another awesome video, Julian! I have a job interview coming up with an electronics manufacturing co. in CT, USA. Wish me luck! 😀

[@jlucasound]

"Taking a body full of sweat, into your bed at night". Julian, you know there are ones who want that. Probably in NY or LA. 😯 Maybe Cypress. 😜 I think showering in the evening is a great idea. I miss not having a tub. I have a very small studio apartment. Can't beat the cheap rent, though.

[@RockinJohnny]

I am with Utilita and for the past few months had constant signal problems, the engineer came out and said that gas meter not communicating with electric so got no display from my gas and now waiting again to see if they can fix it their end. Got told that if you use a Wi-Fi connection you risk hackers and people switching on your power etc not sure if that's the case but if you dont have a firewall setup that could happen in theory.

[@adyday5447]

So. The smart meter is already a WiFi hub. Already connected to the telecommunications infrastructure with transmitter and receiver for data. ? Right. So! How to use this ! instead of the current internet providers. ?

[@max246]

I hate them, I love to use Bright which can provide with a monitor device and gets the information from the supplier

[@SuperPauline14]

My gas usage doesn't show but my electric does. What could be the problem?

[@puddle_puddle]

Your gas meter isn't communicating with the electricity meter (the gas does all it's communication via the electricity meter) probably because it hasn't been properly commissioned by the energy company. That's usually the problem, certainly was mine.

[@BillyNoMates1974]

I had three of them. they are known for just screwing up and not connecting anymore. I suspect I live in a high noise area hence the three home display huds, I went through

[@sanchitkhandelwal2496]

I have one of this unit from my previous providers and is not linked to anything now. Can I use this unit to connect to a raspberry pi or something else to make an alternative use of it?

[@y0rkiebar]

My IHD went pop a few weeks back, noticed it rebooting and then saw smoke coming out of the back! Unplugged sharp-ish. Received a replacement but haven't got around to getting it paired to the meter yet.

[@David-bl1bt]

I'm assuming after 7 months you have now linked to your meter!? How did you pair it with your meter? I have moved house and brought my display with me so I'm so wondering if I can pair it with the meters at my new home so that I can have 2 working displays.

[@y0rkiebar]

@@David-bl1bt Yes, the replacement is now paired OK. It's not something you can do yourself. I contacted the smart meter installer customer service people and they tried to pair it remotely but it didn't work. So they had to book an appointment for someone to come out and pair it at my home, which worked.

[@David-bl1bt]

@@y0rkiebar OK, thanks for your prompt response. It appears that it be be destined to another piece of plastic ending up in landfill rater than being put to some use.

[@UpLateGeek]

My parents have been considering getting solar since before they built their house in 2020. They couldn't do it when the house was built because of the increased cost of materials and labour during the pandemic. I was speaking to my colleagues at work, one of them has a 10kW system and the other a 15kW system, and surprisingly the one with the 10kW system paid back the cost in just under 3 years, and the one with the 15kW system paid his back in only 2 years. Both of them have batteries and generate a large excess of energy, they basically end up with negative bills over the year, so they're effectively being paid to generate electricity instead of paying to use it. The latter uses a lot more electricity, so that's why his pay back time was quicker. When you're spending thousands of Aussie dollary doos on electricity every year, installing an excessively large system that reduces your bill to zero or negative makes the pay back quicker, obviously at the expense of higher up-front costs.

[@jtb2586]

Wait, your telling me there are people that shower in the morning? So you go to bed gross.

[@jamesw5584]

dont they have encryption keys that are volatile if the tamper is activated, like card machines?

[@rubusroo68]

is it still the case that if you change supplier it effectively bricks your smart meter?

[@rpdom]

The current type 2 meters should be able to switch to any supplier.

[@ncot_tech]

The SMETS2 meters are fine if you switch, the original smart meters break. I moved into a brand new house in 2018 and it had a smets1 meter locked to British Gas. I switched to Bulb and it went dumb. However then Bulb told me I could have a free smart meter installed if I wanted. So they ripped out a literal brand new electricity meter and replaced it with a newer brand new meter 😂 The IHD didn’t work for months, then one day sprang into life. They’re not that great at the moment, nobody needs to know their house is costing 17p/hour.

[@nophead]

@@ncot_tech Eventually EDF took over our old smart meter. I think the government forced them to. It is just a matter of transferring ownership of the SIM I think.

[@markflack9191]

It is nice to see yours working, my in home display has never worked, some issue with my meter setup. I have asked my supplier several times to fix it and they never do.

[@JulianIlett]

Some suppliers are more approachable than others. Octopus can be persuaded to fix things if you phone them. Email support is pitiful though.

[@joshuabest100]

My British gas one constantly loses connection even though it's right next to the meters

[@michaeldevlin2685]

Same problem with mine. Have tried many many times both emails and phone calls to my energy provider (Octopus) Either the haven't got good technicians or they just can't be bothered. The energy providers bombard you with requests to get a smart meter then abandon you when they don't work. I wish I hadn't been persueded.

[@deslomeslager]

ER34615 Battery, 3.6 V, D, Lithium Thionyl Chloride, 19 Ah, Raised Positive and Flat Negative, 33.1 mm But see the size: 33 mm x 61.5 mm. So small, and still 19Ah, that is like WOW ! A LiFePO4 of that size only delivers 7Ah at 3.3 Volt(ish).

[@smoothjamie4046]

Yes but it has a very high internal resistance and therefore very low short circuit current (probably mA). These are ideal for smoke detectors/tank level sensors where you want 10+ years battery in low drain devices.

[@masterofx32]

I was wondering why someone would still build devices in such an obnoxious design and resistive touch screen in 2022. Then you turned the device around and it showed „made in UK“, that was the aaaaahhhh moment 😂

[@BuyitFixit]

They made an updated version IHD7 (bought one to reverse engineer and mess about with) and it still got an resistive touch screen lol. Interestingly it has an ESP32S2 processor! I posted a link to a picture of the pcb in my post further up if you're interested.

[@nicolelin1528]

Hello Julian, sorry to contact you here, because I can't find your email. May I ask if you will consider business collaboration?

[@gabest4]

14:07 I might be wrong, but I think that inductor is a piezo buzzer. I've seen the same in a cheap bluetooth tag.

[@JulianIlett]

Ah yes, you're probably right.

[@DuarteMolha]

how did you set up the smartmeter to read the solar panels? I have solar panels but I was told that the smartmeter was not able to detect the output of the solar panels

[@leexgx]

You have a second smart meter that logs what is been sent out the the generation (solar/ battery's)

[@foxabilo]

You'd think that the gas meter would have an impeller in the gas flow to recharge the battery.

[@JulianIlett]

Gas pressure is way too low for that.

[@fredflintstone1]

If I use your exported power can I just pay you??? 🙂 and save money

[@JulianIlett]

Only if you pay in crypto. Governments hate crypto - it cuts out the middleman :)

[@DogsBAwesome]

I have the same energy Monitor on Octopus but it doesn't have the wifi option as far as I can see.

[@JulianIlett]

You press the menu symbol (the 6 rectangles), then you have to press the right arrow (because there actually 9 menu items) and WiFi is in the 'settings' sub menu.

[@DogsBAwesome]

@@JulianIlett mine doesn’t have that option

[@andymouse]

I have one of thoses units and have never taken any notice of it, however I do know that the gas bit dosent display anything ! and we all shower in the evening too, so we're all squeaky clean...cheers.

[@fredflintstone1]

Cheese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@andymouse]

@@fredflintstone1 SQUEAK !!!!

[@IanFarquharson2]

Mine makes some odd noises, like it has a tiny hdd in it with heads seeking.

[@JulianIlett]

That's weird. It's always a worry when lithium powered devices make odd noises.

[@IanFarquharson2]

It’s been doing it for a long time… might open it up it’s not really ‘mine’ to crack though.

[@timrees1]

Mine was making weird noises at the weekend only. Then I realised it makes a beeping noise if the "weekly budget" has been exceeded.

[@GeeTheBuilder]

How on earth do you use so little electric 😬

[@JulianIlett]

Solar panels. For most of the day I'm exporting electricity, not importing it.

[@GeeTheBuilder]

@@JulianIlett sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant, your solar panels notwithstanding, iirc you were using about 140w when you switched off the PV In my house with wife and daughter there is no chance of that! 😬

[@foxabilo]

Oh, I believe the white wire is a temp sensor.

[@BuyitFixit]

Yes, I believe you are correct!

[@JulianIlett]

Would that tiny cell ever get warm. The charge current is probably a few tens of milliamps.

[@foxabilo]

@@JulianIlett I remember designing a boiler monitoring unit for a large manufacturer and there were some pretty stringent health and safety regulations to conform too when putting battery systems into homes and especially "at risk occupants", and as you know not all of them make complete sense in all cases.

[@Johan-bb4sy]

you should add "" to your referral link, right now it is not available for clicking.

[@jensschroder8214]

£ stands for "libra pondo" in Latin. The "pound" can be derived from this as a weight. The Italians used ₤ (Lire) but other currencies are also named after it. In English it is not certain whether it is a currency, a mass or a force. In Germany it was established that 2 pounds correspond to 1 kg. The American pound in lighter and requires 2.2 pounds for 1 kg. I can't say how much the British pound weighs.