ivie Bud - display queries

If your ivie Bud shows: “Waiting for data” or “Connection lost” These error messages usually pop up when there’s something up with your smart meter(s), not your ivie Bud. But it’s always worth a go at turning your display off, waiting a minute and then turning it on again. This should give your smart meter(s) a nudge and it’ll hopefully start responding again. If this doesn’t help, try moving your ivie Bud closer to your smart electricity meter.

If these error messages still appear, it’s possible your smart meter(s) isn’t communicating with your ivie Bud. Your energy supplier can help with this though. Don’t worry. This problem won’t affect your energy supply or your bills. Please also let us know about this issue here. We are always keen to understand customer problems and hear feedback. Do please contact your energy supplier first though.

Dashes come up for several reasons. If you’ve just set up, it’ll take a few minutes for your ivie Bud to connect to your smart meter(s). It might take a bit longer for some to get this connection sorted. The dashes might appear because your smart metering system is sending incomplete data or has stopped communicating with your ivie Bud.

You can try reestablishing the connection by restarting your ivie Bud. Just press and hold the On/Off button on the back of your ivie Bud. If that doesn’t help, you can try moving your ivie Bud closer to your meter(s). If the problem persists or occurs regularly, your energy supplier may need to make changes to your system.

The ivie Bud gets the time from your smart meter(s). If there is a connection problem between your smart meter(s) and your ivie Bud, your smart meter(s) won’t send the up to date time to your ivie Bud. When this happens, your ivie Bud will show dashes to stop you from seeing inaccurate data. If you keep seeing the wrong time for longer than two days, please contact your energy supplier so they can check and try to refresh the time on your smart meter or update it.

ivie Bud can only show the energy data that it gets from your smart meter(s). So this means your ivie Bud will only show historical data from the time you moved house or the time when your smart meter was first installed. Any data before this is not available as it’s private to the last tenant or inaccessible as the meter(s) was not installed at that time. You should be able to see all this historical data when you set up your ivie Bud. If it hasn’t appeared, you should contact your energy supplier to try to get it corrected.

Exceeding your budget will make your ivie Bud home screen switch to a weekly view because the budget is evaluated on a weekly basis. Even if you have a single day with high usage during the week, as long as you are still on track for your weekly budget, you will not be alerted. To stop your ivie Bud home screen from automatically switching to a weekly view, please increase your budget. To see how to set and adjust your personalised energy budget, please see ‘How do I set up or adjust the budget on my ivie Bud?’. 

If you have changed your Wi-Fi provider/password in order to reconnect your ivie Bud to your network, you need to clear your Wi-Fi settings. To do that you will need to fully reset your ivie Bud, by going to “Settings” and then pressing the “Move home” button. Once you have done that, you will need to rejoin your ivie Bud to your Wi-Fi and to your smart meters by following the on-screen prompts. If you have any issues, please get in touch with our Customer Care team at customercare@ivie.co.uk. 

Before we jump in, do you have a smart electricity/gas meter installed at your home? Seems a bit silly to ask but there are quite a few installations where this is not the case. Haven’t got one? Ask your energy supplier to get one installed.

Now, let’s get into the possible reasons behind this:

If your ivie Bud has never shown electricity/gas data, there’s a chance that the electricity/gas meter was not recognised or wasn’t available at the time your ivie Bud was activated. If this is the case, please contact our team here so we can update your ivie Bud.

If your ivie Bud previously showed electricity or gas data but has since stopped, it might mean there is something wrong with the connection to your electricity/gas meter. Turn your ivie Bud off and wait a minute before turning it on again. This should kickstart the connection to your smart meter(s)! If it’s been 48 hours and your ivie Bud is still not displaying electricity, gas, or neither, please contact your energy supplier.

All gas meters only send data every 30 minutes, so you can only ever see instant electricity data. If you want to see your most recent gas data, just keep checking your ivie Bud and it will update soon.

Your standing charge is applied daily by your energy supplier. Different energy suppliers apply the standing charge at different times of the day such as midnight or in the early hours of the morning. Your instant energy usage (“Usage Now” screen) will not include your standing charge in your energy costs. Your standing charge will apply to your “Used so far” screens and to your historic usage too.

As your standing charge costs you a few pence per day, it will unlikely make a significant change to your overall energy costs at any given moment. If you have more questions about your standing charges, make sure to get in touch with your energy supplier.

If your tariff has recently changed due to the new Price Cap coming into place on 1st October 2023,  your energy provider will send your new tariff details to your smart meter(s). Sometimes, this might take a while to be updated by your supplier, so your ivie Bud will continue to show your old/incorrect tariff. Don’t worry though, your bills are not calculated by your ivie Bud, but by your energy supplier,  so even if your tariff takes longer to update on your ivie Bud, the correct tariff will be used by your supplier in any future bills.  

If your ivie Bud continues to show an incorrect tariff after a while, make sure to contact your energy supplier to check that your meters are updated with the correct tariff information. 

Your ivie Bud gets your tariff details from your smart meter(s) and if you have a time-specific tariff(s), your ivie Bud will show this at the relevant times. If the tariff is not switching at the appropriate time, check with your energy supplier that the smart meter(s) is set up correctly to report the changeover. Only your energy supplier can make changes to your tariff.

Your ivie Bud shows your energy usage, costs and rate which are all taken from your smart meter(s). Your display will show your current spending up to now but may be slightly different to your energy bill. The energy costs on your ivie Bud won’t cover any VAT or discounts like a direct debit discount applied by your energy supplier. If you’re worried about your energy bill or prices on the ivie Bud, give your energy supplier a call.

We recently updated the software if your ivie Bud and the “Full Reset” button is now called “Moving Home”. You should only use this button to disconnect your ivie Bud from the smart meter(s) when you are moving out from your current property or if you are returning your ivie Bud. This means your ivie Bud will no longer receive energy data from your smart meter(s) and will need to be set up again.

If you have accidentally pressed “Moving Home” or if you have moved home and taken your ivie Bud with you, please contact the ivie team here so we can help. Make sure to include ‘Moving Home’ in the subject line and your MPAN and ivie Bud GUID in the email. We’ll get on it as soon as we can.