Smart Meters.

One of the things to be aware of in this smart meter tech world. There are now smart air-conditioning units and hot water heater's etc that can be remotely controlled or set to run at reduced efficiency levels , the power grid's in many countries are running at max load capacities more and more often in hot/cold weather. So your supplier can remotely turn off air conditioning and heaters when they want!! They have been doing it in the USA I believe for some time now ! They say it's to protect the "grid". But its just a simple easy to cop out on the cost off , "Upgrading" their supply equipment !!!

 

They are Smet2's, the electric one appears to have been made by EDMI but there is no obvious makers name on the gas meter.

 

That's a load of rubbish, all suppliers have to support Smart Meters, I've swapped a number of times without a problem.
All that'll happen is, if the supplier can't interface with the meter directly, they'll read them manually same as the old analogue meters.

I was the sole Smart Meter 'specialist'* initially, and installed and supported the first Smart Meter system in the UK when I was in IT at British Gas, and supported them up until I left.
While they don't actually save you money (funnily enough cutting back on electric and gas usage does that...) but just tell you what you're using, they're fairly reliable.

Apart from possibly signal issues, most problems that are supposedly 'Smart Meter faults' are actually faults with the billing system not the meters.


*i.e. I didn't duck quick enough when they asked who wanted to work on it.....

 

Sorry then. Radio 4 money box must’ve been wrong then.
And martin Lewis.

 

Probably, that said I did leave about 2 years ago, so they may have changed something to make it more difficult to change since, but I doubt it.

What reasons did they give that makes it difficult to change?

 

If it doesn’t work, then they can’t change supplier as the new supplier wants the meter working (for the exiting company to fix first) before they’ll swap and take on the supply. Also, there is a lot of interference being reported (on audio tv/soundbars) for quite a lot of people. I suppose that one depends on distance etc.
Im not saying that everyone will have problems, just that some do.
I suppose you don’t hear about all of the thousands of houses with no errors So it’s clearly not the normal.

 

I had a 1st generation smart metre installed by British Gas when they first appeared (around 8-10 years ago at a guess). I’ve changed supplier 3 or 4 times since then with no issues at all other than non of the subsequent suppliers could read the data remotely and I had to revert to reading them myself. My current supplier is changing it to a current model in Jan (at my request).

I very much doubt it will save me any money, I’m just a techno geek that likes new toys, I have no doubt I will get board with it after a few weeks switching things on and off and looking at the terminal. But it if saves me having to read the metre myself then that’s good as I sometimes forget, or am on holiday and end up with an estimate that is usually way off.

 

I do self read so i always pay for what i use......dont see a point in having a meter that tries to make you worry about every time you switch something on.

 

I don’t mind the odd estimate, it balances out after 4 weeks and it not as though I’m loosing any interest. I guessing everyone will end up with one at some point. But there is certainly no hurry as the advantages are slim at best.

 

If the smart meter wasn't weighted in favour of the supplier they wouldn't fit them
The threat of being remotely cut off if you refuse to pay a spurious reading is reason enough not to have one

 

They don’t have a choice Gas and electricity suppliers are required by their licence to take all reasonable steps to roll out smart meters to all of their domestic and small business customers.

 

If a meter doesn't work, whether it's analogue or smart, it will be replaced asap on safety grounds alone by the supplier.
When I left two years ago, we were supporting millions of Smart Meters and I had worked on the Smart meters for over 10 years and in that time hadn't heard of one instance of a TV or soundbar interfering with a signal.

So it sounds like duff info on those websites.

Don't get me wrong, smart meters do have problems as well as analogue meters, but most of the time the problem isn't actually the meter and there's a lot of disinformation out there.

 

With the Smets 2 standard, smart meters have to be universal, so there's no bias towards a particular supplier.

Nobody had ever been cut off remotely with a smart meter in BG while I was there, and I'm fairly sure none of the other smart meter suppliers have done it.
For that to happen, they'd have to go to court to get an order to do it, again the same as with analogue meters.

 

As for the having to have a smart meter goes, e-on have made it part of their contract to supply the power/tariff. They continually wrote to me stating in was a condition of my contract. I'm guessing that all suppliers wil adopt this approach, so you will not be able say I don't want one.

 

Maybe they haven't but I bet it's been said to a customer to make them toe the line

 

I don't see what all the fuss is about. We've had a smart(ish) water meter for several years. The meter is down a hole in the front garden and the water company just has to drive past to get the reading via remote signal. I don't see a Gas/Electric smart meter being much different and it saves having to let someone into you home every few months if (like me) you don't have a white box containing the meter accessible from outside.

 

What is this 'Corvid' vaccine I keep hearing about? I didn't think we were in danger of turning into Crows.

As to smart meters I don't want one. I received a letter from my supplier SSE saying "We are coming to fit a smart meter at your address on the Xth of February" or something like that as if I didn't have a choice. I ignored it and I haven't heard anything about it since. My mate is an infrastructure manager for SSE and he recommended that I don't have one as he says they are all about control by the company and nothing to do with helping the consumer.

He says that one of the beauties of the smart meter is that the poor can be disconnected remotely if they don't pay on time or, in the event of an energy crisis. Of course unless enough people refuse to accept them we will all eventually be forced onto them and give up a little bit more of our personal control of our environment.

 

Haven’t got one,don’t need one and not having one.

I’m quite happy and capable of reading the gas and electric meters at my property.

I don’t see how one will save me any money,,,if we’re cold we turn the thermostat up and if it’s to warm we turn it down simples,that way I’m in control not the energy company.

 

Similar in France with the electricity smart meter "Linky". Those people who all have mobile phones and computer are afraid of getting cancer from a line encoding data sending unit, or to have important secret data known (well.. we are talking about electrical meter unit) . Lots of rumors (built in secret camera and mic, etc) Since mine was changed, the invoices are lower.

 

Having worked on the 'inside' as such, it does make me chuckle at some of the misconceptions of smart meters and how many tin foil hat types there are around