Having had nothing but trouble for a year with my In House Display, my
energy supplier has finally bitten the bullit and agreed to remove all
the current SMETS2 2.4G meters and fit the new dual band meters. These
run at either 2.4 G or 868 MHz.
To you gurus... my current HUB to IHD @2.4G is severely range
restricted. <10M in my case It barely works at 3M.
What range could one expect from 868MHz HUB to IHD?

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On Thu, 26 May 2022 16:51:04 +0100, TTman <kraken.sankey@gmail.com>
wrote:

Having had nothing but trouble for a year with my In House Display, my
energy supplier has finally bitten the bullit and agreed to remove all
the current SMETS2 2.4G meters and fit the new dual band meters. These
run at either 2.4 G or 868 MHz.
To you gurus... my current HUB to IHD @2.4G is severely range
restricted. <10M in my case It barely works at 3M.
What range could one expect from 868MHz HUB to IHD?

What do you use the display for?

--

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts,
but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon

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On Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 18:19:11 UTC+1, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 26 May 2022 16:51:04 +0100, TTman <kraken...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Having had nothing but trouble for a year with my In House Display, my >energy supplier has finally bitten the bullit and agreed to remove all
the current SMETS2 2.4G meters and fit the new dual band meters. These
run at either 2.4 G or 868 MHz.
To you gurus... my current HUB to IHD @2.4G is severely range
restricted. <10M in my case It barely works at 3M.
What range could one expect from 868MHz HUB to IHD?

What do you use the display for?

Nobody is going to be able to give a definite answer. However, the range
is likely to be significantly greater because there will almost certainly be much less interference and the absorption in building structures will be lower. The 2.4GHz band is a total "free for all" whereas anything that transmits
in the 868MHz band (in the UK) must comply with very specific requirements including maximum transmission duty cycle. This means that even if there
are a lot of devices transmitting there will be gaps when the channel is clear. I designed 868MHz antennas for a smart meter manufacturer and a home
automation company a few years ago. Because the band is quite narrow
it is possible to optimise the antenna so as to give very good performance.
A smart meter generally has enough space to do this properly.

John

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Nobody is going to be able to give a definite answer. However, the range
is likely to be significantly greater because there will almost certainly be much less interference and the absorption in building structures will be lower.
The 2.4GHz band is a total "free for all" whereas anything that transmits
in the 868MHz band (in the UK) must comply with very specific requirements including maximum transmission duty cycle. This means that even if there
are a lot of devices transmitting there will be gaps when the channel is clear.
I designed 868MHz antennas for a smart meter manufacturer and a home automation company a few years ago. Because the band is quite narrow
it is possible to optimise the antenna so as to give very good performance.
A smart meter generally has enough space to do this properly.

John

Interesting, you say a few years ago...pity no-one saw the cost/benefit
of 868MHz and plumped for the 1c cost of 2.4G bluetooth. My IHD works in
the garage at a range of 2-3M to the HUB... Move it to the lounge (
where it is optimally useful) and the IHD lasts for about a day or two
before it gets 'locked out'. Put it back in the garage (2-3M) and it
could take several days before it would show correct data again.That's
not the fault of 2.4G, it has to be an obscure system bug.2.4G bluetooth interference? not according to the literature re 2.4G bluetooth for
smart meters...

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On 26/05/2022 18:18, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 26 May 2022 16:51:04 +0100, TTman <kraken.sankey@gmail.com>
wrote:

Having had nothing but trouble for a year with my In House Display, my
energy supplier has finally bitten the bullit and agreed to remove all
the current SMETS2 2.4G meters and fit the new dual band meters. These
run at either 2.4 G or 868 MHz.
To you gurus... my current HUB to IHD @2.4G is severely range
restricted. <10M in my case It barely works at 3M.
What range could one expect from 868MHz HUB to IHD?

What do you use the display for?

3 main components. Smart Electric meter. Smart Gas meter. A comms HUB
plugs into the Electric meter. The comms HUB sends electric/gas data to
the energy supplier via the mobile network. The Hub is also a 'router'
that collects data from the electric meter and the gas meter via 2.4G bluetooth. The HUB sends this data to the energy supplier( via mob
network) and to the in house display by bluetoth- basically a dumb
terminal which can have various parameters loaded into it- cost per KWh, standing charge per day etc. Thus it can show the user consumtion modes
in KWh or £££

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On 26/05/2022 16:51, TTman wrote:

Having had nothing but trouble for a year with my In House Display, my
energy supplier has finally bitten the bullit and agreed to remove all
the current SMETS2 2.4G meters and fit the new dual band meters. These
run at either 2.4 G or 868 MHz.
To you gurus... my current HUB to IHD @2.4G is severely range
restricted. <10M in my case It barely works at 3M.
What range could one expect from 868MHz HUB to IHD?

Do you live in a welding shop or under a steel bridge?

Some Victorian era houses (mine included) may have galvanised chicken
wire mech embedded in the plaster walls. It makes a wonderful Faraday
cage especially combined with slightly damp plaster (no damp course). It
was briefly fashionable for a short while as a cunning way to cut
corners and avoid having the plaster slump.

Main problem for the meter reader (who still came *after* the thing was installed) is that now he has to levitate to read the thing. It requires
button presses to cycle through the display. Default is date/time!

My mains comes in at roof height and the meter is 12' in the air. Easy
enough with the antediluvian synchronous motor with counter rotating
cogs with pointers - iPhone on a selfie stick will get it.

But the new one requires button presses! (Ha! Ha! - not my problem)

My smart meter IHD to my amazement actually worked despite the fact that
there is essentially no mobile phone signal where the sensor is
installed. The one in our VH lasted all of a month before failing and no
matter how fancy an antenna they added it never really worked at all.

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Regards,
Martin Brown

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My smart meter IHD to my amazement actually worked despite the fact that there is essentially no mobile phone signal where the sensor is
installed. The one in our VH lasted all of a month before failing and no matter how fancy an antenna they added it never really worked at all.

But the In House Display works via 2.4G bluetooth HAN.It's the HUB WAN
that sends data to the energy supplier...

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