UKC

Are these actually a bad thing? I’ve never really thought about it much so never bothered making the appointment but now my bills are absolutely astronomical and I’m paying them all as my partner is on maternity leave. I need something to prove to her that warming the bed up with a f*uckin hair dryer is really quite daft 😂.

It’s only conspiracy theory types that think they are a bad thing right? 

And does anyone have any recommendations for a easy to fit thing that allows me to control my heating from an app on my phone? It’s one of those fairly modern common Worcester Bosch things. I quite like the idea of being able to control each radiator separately but seems that’s gonna cost quite a bit. Something basic is fine. 

ta. 

No.  They give you accurate bills and save you having to send in the readings yourself to get that.  Fit and forget.

The rest of it is indeed conspiratorial tripe.

I recommend Tado as it does geofencing best (again fit and forget) but if you're after simple I'd say Hive is probably simpler if you're happy controlling it manually.

I was shocked to see a news item the other day about how the electricity companies can change your smart meter to a prepaid meter remotely, and that this is often being done without informing the customer.

I guess they are not going to do that unless there's signs you're struggling to pay your bill, but could be a reason to think twice if the economic shocks that are coming over the next couple of years could put you in a difficult situation.

Otherwise, I find it quite handy to be able to see how the daily spend varies with change of behavior... I think the difference between using a hot water bottle and a hairdryer to pre-heat the bed would be noticable! 

Of course, you need to be careful what you wish for - she'd save more money still by sending you in to do the pre-warming 😁

I've got one which was installed by the previous occupant. It has SSE on it, who I stuck with for a year before switching to E.On and then Octopus. It seems to work for all three. It's quite handy to see what implements use the juice if you operate them singly. I can also see usage over each day/week/month. I can easily spot shower days as there is a spike on those. My heating and hot taps run on gas.

For bed warming get a hot water bottle/cat/dog?

For some people they might not be ideal https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/09/british-energy-suppliers-c...

But if you think fitting one is going to stop your wife using her hair dryer, well, maybe it will and maybe it won't.

Depends on what you think of having a remote disconnect feature on your mains power, and on having it built in to meters whose design started with the electricity companies teams and not with security specialists.  Almost invariably that approach to design ends up with some embarrassing vulnerability coming out down the line...  Most people aren't bothered, as it typical for very low probability / high consequence stuff like this.

(Of course they'll generally say it doesn't have a remote disconnect, but it does in order to support being flipped to pre-pay mode - see also Ciro's post.)

A smart meter won't do that as they're pretty dumb.  You need a single-plug power meter instead.  

However... tT's not clear to me that it is daft (from an energy perspective) however, if all the air stays in the bed, it will be a more efficient use of electricity than boiling an electric kettle for a hot water bottle, as the kettle will loose heat to the kitchen.   This is assuming you wouldn't call a hot water bottle daft.  My main issue with this use of a hairdryer is the fire risk.  Electric blanket is the low effort way to go.

What controls your power usage is turning things off that you don't need.  If you don't have a good awareness of what's on, you can get that by watching the flashing light on a post-mechanical dumb meter or watching how fast the disc spins on a mechanical one. 

A smart meter may well give you access to more affordable tariffs, particularly if you''re willing to be flexible in when you use your electricity for high energy jobs.

She’s not my wife and any talk of her talking of her being so is absolutely dependent on her sorting this hair dryer addiction out . To be fair she does also use a water bottle when she remembers. Our bills are already above the cap but we have a small house and there are only 3 of us so they really shouldn’t be. I’ll get the smart meter fitted.

On the fancy thermostat things the Tado brand mentioned above is a subscription isn’t it? I recall looking at them a while back and pretty sure it was £10 a month or something. 

There's utility provided smart meters and then there's home monitoring meters such as these https://www.smartgreenshop.co.uk/home-energy-monitors 

which can serve a similar purpose and generate insight & analysis and no possibility of unwelcome tariff changing / cut offs etc

If we ever meet at the crag please don’t tell her this. I’ll never here the end of it! We did have a electric blanket on her half of the bed but I couldn’t sleep. I like my side pretty cool. 

Replace the hair drier with a electric blanket, modern ones use very little power, or so my smart meter says. You could then use a timed smart plug so you never forget to switch it on, or off. Haven’t turned the heating on yet……

Imagine you're in charge of the rolling blackouts contingency for this winter (*).  

Would you prefer to disconnect at the street level, taking out houses of vulnerable people (to the cold, or dependant upon medical oxygen concentrators etc etc), small businesses, suburban police stations etc, or would you rather throw the contractors in those smart meters that don't have a "vulnerable" flag against them?

(*) - an exceptionally warm November has led to a big glut in European gas usage, the stores were full in Germany and LNG tankers were queuing up waiting for storage capacity to appear to be unloaded in to the last time I checked; we just might avoid a winter gas supply meltdown and the reasonable worst case scenario of rolling blackouts in the new year might be receding in to the distance.  Here's hoping.

I can't help thinking how much disruption a Russian hacker could cause to the UK by simply turning off all smart meters... An IT based war would be so much cheaper and less "messy" than using nuclear weapons.

The idea of a payback scheme for low usage during peak times is tempting me to consider one for the first time. Talking with friends about bills we are already a low use household, but any extra saving would be very welcome at the moment.

One thing I hadn't realized was that gas smart meters need to piggy back on an electricity smart meter to be able to send info back to the company and you only find out after they have been fitted if distance /thick walls etc means you still have to send in readings.  In fact for flats with a distant electricity meter you may not be able to use the personal use monitor in your flat.

yes, that's our experience, despite asking them to check before ripping out the old meters.

the handset can't even link to the electricity meter hub reliably (it needs to have a mains socket and somewhere to stand so can't be put where it can connect reliably - plus our electricity supply cables and consumer box seem to spread RF interference)

We can't even set the date and time correctly on the handset as there is no facility except for a "system menu" for which we have no pin.  This means records in the handset are lost by an incorrect end of year rollover) Complaints ignored by EON

IT IS SHIT!

Yeah, that does sound like a good reason for having a smart meter - if they can black me out and leave the old lady next door heated that could save some lives.

There might be unrest though if some people are finding lights in in houses they think are less "deserving" than them?

Do EON have an app?

I don't have a remote monitor in the house, but I can monitor daily usage on my phone (Shell).

Maybe there's a "likely to riot" flag in the database as well...  Any sort of rolling blackouts are going to add to the pressure to riot; the winter weather is an opposing pressure.  

Pure speculation on my behalf that the contingency plans for winter might go to this level of granularity.  It's the way I'd do it though.  Our supplier have been unusually active in prodding households this year to register if they have any vulnerable members.  This might just be dealing with the fallout of the response to Storm Arwen of course.

The £20bn (yes, you read that correctly) Smart Meter programme was funded by all of us, disguised as part of the "Green Levy".

It was designed by the energy companies and all the benefits accrue to them.

Energy companies are desperate to roll them out, because they face financial penalties if they don't. So wait long enough, and they will be paying you to take one. But please don't expect it be any practical help. 

Disagree.You can on my smart metter see the daily, weekly, monthly consumption across both gas/elec and the cost to you.

So yes it is practical as it helps you focus on your energy costs.

It does not help you if you bury your head in the sand about rising energy costs.

I find it useful as a reminder of quite what appliances eat what power. I'm wondering where the usage comes from between midnight and 7am now (when heating is not on).

The roll-out was a complete ****-up of course. Insecure, non-compatible etc - see past issues of Private Eye for details. But they work and stops me having to send in readings.

I have an electricity socket in the greenhouse that I use to protect seedlings in the Spring. It certainly made me act quickly when I had it set a touch too high!

I try hard not to waste energy and really don't need to plug in an extra device (running off electricity that I am paying for) to encourage me to reduce useage. 

Coming off our fixed deal has focused my mind on energy costs, but there is very little we can do to actually cut useage - short of sitting in the dark all night with the TV off.

Humm, bright LED streetlight outside..... we could leave thick curtains open to safe on lighting, but that would then cost us extra on heating. Also not quite bright enough to read by.

Well, you can only access time-of-use tariffs like Octopus Go with a smart meter. 

I run my heat pump and dishwasher and charge my car off-peak, saving me about £5 a day! I call that quite practical help... 

Regarding remote disconnect, how is this different practically to an electricity company (or others) disconnecting a wire?

It appears we have one. For year we had to send in readings, then it suddenly woke up and now it gets readings remotely, which does reduce faff. No obvious benefits in usage ATM

I don't have a "smart" meter - I don't even have a "smart" phone, so wouldn't be able to use one anyway.

I use a simple system - I switch things off when I don't need them. In fact I don't even leave things on "standby". The only items left on in my house are the fridge/freezer, oven clock, phones and internet router. For that matter when I use the combi boiler it's for just long enough to do the washing up or (occasionally) warm the room I'm using in the house. I even do a quick check before I leave the house on any sockets/switches I've used to ensure they're off.

As for bed - just how many seconds does it take for someone's body to warm up the bed when they get into it ?

Maybe I'm "tight" by some people's standards, but it ensures my bills are kept to a minimum.

well, on the bright side it did qualify us for a lower tariff till next August

Well, if you wanted to disconnect or reconnect millions near-simultaneously, the difference is pretty obvious.  People other than an electricity company will be very interested in that, particularly a sudden mass re-connection about 60 seconds after a sudden mass dis-connection...

At the single household level, it removes the barrier of the electric company needing a warrant of entry in order to forcibly fit a pre-pay meter or to safely disconnect a property.

The standing charges are added at midnight, in my case 27p for gas and 48p for electricity = 75p. At 7.30 a.m. my usage shows 92p, so 17p in 7 hours powers fridge, freezer and anything on standby.

I delayed getting a smart meter but am pleased I got one, I'm subscribed to Octopus limiting usage at peak times to get a credit.

Standing charges should be abolished and rolled into the unit price as they unfairly penalise the poor and low users.

The cost-per-household of the programme is about £800. Hands up all those who think their Smart Meter will save them £800?

Agreed but considering we're all paying for them I may as well get one. 

£400...it varies.

Its terrible having to move to a more uptodate way of doing things. The uk is burdened with older properties trying to keep up with modern infrastruture /investment and it is always going to be difficult. Employing people to read meters is woefully archaic and just well expensive.You can either stay stuck in the past and carry on or move forward.

I had a gas combi boiler replaced recently, the heating engineer wanted to know what I wanted (as well as what I needed in terms of size of house,  number of rads, number of bathrooms/showers, budget etc). In my case I wanted zero smart technology.. nothing! I have thermostatic rad valves on all of them

I paused and waited to have to justify myself... But he said that at one point everyone wanted smart everything but now it's changed and the majority of his clients now try to avoid or reduce smart tech because it adds expense and complexity and even cases where a service provider has an outage and people are unable to control things.

I think Smart technology like tado hive etc is a personal choice and not a foregone conclusion. Certainly not only dismissed by tin foil hat brigade, there are rational reasons why some people don't want it, or used sparingly/appropriately. If the system is carefully optimised in times and temperatures manually it doesn't necessarily save money. The only benefit in my case, is that it could alert me when the Mrs turns up the heating thinking I didn't notice, beyond that.. it'd be an expensive liability.

Each to their own...

Well, despite all the doomsaying above.....

Since we've had one we have reduced our energy use. Seeing the pounds ad up makes a difference.

No, it's not.  Even the doom-mongering DM only claims £420.

Well, me.  I save about £1500pa with mine.  But in the long term, everyone.

I did get a £30k bill for 7 days usage, resulting in an age on hold trying to get through to the energy company to correct it. 

I really like my smart meter (never thought I hear myself think that...)  I like the fact that I can instantly see what's using the power in my house (and turn off accordingly) - very useful when other members of the family might have different 'turning things off' habits..

It's been a bit of a shock how the our household 'current usage cost' records have been broken recently - a very visual reminder of how much more expensive electricity has become in recent times.

The information that I've gained from the meter will have undoubtedly saved money and (more importantly) reduced the overall power we've consumed as a household.

If your energy company is that incompetent that they can't take an automatic reading and turn it into an accurate bill, then the smart meter isn't your problem.

Thus showing a misunderstanding of what they are.

A smart meter is one that gives a reading back to your supplier automatically.  Optionally you can have a little screen showing dynamic usage.  The primary benefit is of no more manual meter reading by you or the supplier.

A smartphone is not in any way involved, unless your supplier optionally allows you to view that usage in an app.

Others have pointed out it's nearer £400.  But yes, given that meters have to be replaced periodically anyway to maintain accuracy (which means some of that £400 would be spent anyway) I would pay this in order not to have to faff about with estimated bills or having to read the thing myself.  It's simple modernity.

Warming the bed up with anything is daft! It'll be warmer if she sits on it beforehand.  If she's had the baby and complaining about carrying extra weight she should do some exercises to build up internal warmth and burn calories. If I find a bed cold I lie on my side and 'run' in it for a bit, that soon warms me up.

I wonder how long you can refuse a smart meter for, or if there the option to have a traditional one installed as a replacement?

As above, my biggest concern is hackers. Too many big corporations have been hacked recently for me to have confidence in power companies to have invested in sufficiently secure systems.

The cost of these add ons usually comes down and in the end there is barely any difference between not having it and buying it so it becomes a standard.

I agree with you on the concept of smart homes, although I suspect alot of younger people will just switch over and use it and in 10 years  time it will be the norm.

Always found its better to keep pace with technology than ignore it and get left behind, at the same time better not to be the first to adapt to it.

Me!

My smart meter saves me about £50 a month at current prices. 

How does it save you money?

I don't get it either, unless you on a special inventive deal.

Guess some people just have no basic awareness of the off button and need a visual reminder that devices (like tv and computer) still use power when turned on, even if you're not actually watching/using them.

I can't see any reason why you would.

Nobody is going to hack into individual peoples' smart meters, the impact is too low.  Hacking would be at a system level and would affect everyone, not just smart-meter holders.

Seriously, it's just paranoia.  Get one and you get accurate bills with no manual interventions.  Dead easy, basically no downside.

Indefinitely I hope but when it does come to have a new one fitted you won't be given a choice. When prices first started to increase I was looking into getting a fixed price contract and all of them were conditional of you excepting a smart meter. So it seems you can't even change tariff without having one installed (at least with my supplier)

I share the same view point as you, how can something that increases electricity usage save electricity if you're already being careful. Just turn off stuff you're not using, job done. 

Here in France the smart meters run by EDF are called 'Linky' and there's a big 'Stop Linky' campaign (or at least there was) run by a few people who have, shall we say, interesting interpretations of reality. My old neighbour was holding out from having one as she said she was electrosensitive (I think the main Stop Linky objection comes from the radio frequency used to transmit the data, rather than a specific worry they might get hacked or the electric company will shut you down).

I actually think that EDF won't (or aren't allowed to) cut you off if you have trouble paying your bills. They will reduce the current but there's an understanding that you can't leave people completely without power.

I'm buggered now because I just had a smart water meter installed too.

My supplier Octopus were demanding that I have a new gas meter, as the current one was 30 years old. They would insist I have a smart meter fitted but I could opt to disable it and use it in dumb mode. I opted to use it in smart mode, no regrets. 

As per my post of 13:38 - it allows me to access time-of-use tariffs.  I'm on Octopus Go.  Current rates on that are 43p/kWh daytime, 12p/kWh night time.  

Every night I charge my car (average 9kWh), run the dishwasher (about 0.8kWh) and heat pump to charge my thermal store (typically 4.5kWh).  That's a saving of (43p-12p) x 14.3kWh= £4.43 per day or £1600 pa.

This is an underestimate because the heat pump will pull a lot more energy over the winter for space heating... I'm waiting to get figures for that but it's likely to be another several hundred pounds per year.

Patronising, much? Surely it's not difficult to imagine that if you're not constantly anal about turning every single thing off, or live with other people who don't share your zeal, some information about current usage could be helpful in spotting issues? Deciding when to specifically look for something turned on, or finding out which devices are worth paying particular attention to.

Ok, got it, thanks.

I can see the advantage if you're charging an electric car, using electrical heating, etc.

Sure - I'm the best advert for smart meters there could be!

But, in the future, I think this is going to be the way for most people.  The point of rolling these things out isn't the simplistic one of being able to spot when you're using power.  It's to allow much more comprehensive time-of-use tariffs, in order to encourage people to reduce load at peak times.  If that saves the UK needing to build an extra nuclear power station or two then we're all going to save many billions, collectively.

It was, it was faulty.

Out of interest, what classes as "night time"? I'm trying to think what electricity usage I could move to night time rates to save money. I don't have an electric car, dishwasher or elecric heating. It's impossible to run a washing machine at anti-social hours as everyone's washing machine in this little block of flats shakes everyone else's flat! I suppose I could go to bed early and them wake up at 1am to cook dinner...

I can't see why they haven't promoted that more? As the chance to actually save money (as opposed to just cutting usage, which you can only do to a point) would be far more of an incentive to get one, even if the savings weren't as large as they are for you. 

How do you manage that, my combined electric and gas costs per year don’t even come to that.

That’d be really useful for heating.  The house retains heat pretty well. Could have the heating come on whilst on the night tariff, then not need it at all during daytime tarrif.

Not half as much trouble as it would when they turned them all back on 60 seconds later...

Less traceable, too...  

I think increasingly worse pricing for dumb meters is going to push most people over.  

They can't compel you to change.  I had a 5 month long saga trying to get EON Next to replace a broken dumb meter.  Initially I was told I had to wait much longer for a dumb one, but after several months of inaction and appalling customer service I was then told I could only get a smart meter, but they eventually admitted they could install it without a SIM and in "dumb mode".

On the day, the engineer rocked up to change it, just grabbed one of two dozen old dumb meters out of his van, fit that and registered it with their systems.  He said he's always pulling them out of properties and keeps them for replacements... 

Can't quite believe how atrocious EON's customer service was.  I'm hoping to get a little run-of-the-river hydro scheme in next year that'll use the winter flow to fill in the gaps in the solar and be done with buying electricity or dealing with customer service.

It’s interesting how most people on this thread see them as a benefit!

it also shows the benefit of a bit of competition as most other providers are not offering deals like octopus on lower rates.

Right.  So the same issue could have occurred from a faulty non-smart meter too.

Because they are.  At *worst* they stop you getting estimated bills.  Who likes those?

0030 - 0430

This is my domestic electricity, my dhw, my space heating, and my car!

You'd hope something CPNI have considered and grid operators have plans for. You'd hope... 

How much roughly for this, out of interest?

I would have thought unlikely.

https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/energy-switching/top-problems-with-smart-me...

Interested in the comments about a mass disconnection through hackers.  While I can certainly see the potential, I'm not sure it would be as catastrophic as it might sound.  My guess is that if utility/government security teams didn't sort it out in the first 24 hours most towns, cities and villages would have people living in them who would just bypass the meter in their own properties and those of friends and family.  It's not a difficult job and would get electricity to most houses again pretty quickly.

Obviously people wouldn't rush to reconnect their meters (free electricity being quite appealing), I'm sure the electricity companies have thought of this and added it to the list of reasons why they need to be on top of security.

Disclaimer - I don't recommend bypassing your meter for lots of reasons, not least the risk of death if you mess it up

Agreed.  Never understood the view that they are a waste of time and money. 

Scenario 1

• It's really not about the first 24 hours, it's about the first 60 seconds.
• The aim is to create a sudden massive drop in demand forcing the grid to have to disconnect signifiant generation capacity immediately (to prevent really bad things happening everywhere due to supply far exceeding demand) and then re-connecting them a little bit later, to suddenly drive up demand and hopefully trigger a cascade failure as generators are forced to disconnect to protect themselves (it's very bad news when demand exceeds supply).
• If that happens, the whole grid crashes out and the re-start process (a "black start) can take several days.  Such cascade failures have happened to other power grids without malicious actions, e.g. [1].  Texas came very close in 2021 as well [2].  Given comments from someone else on here about the dictat going out to CNI facilities about being prepared for several more days without power than usual, we're already sailing close to the wind this winter.  

Scenario 2

• By some miracle the grid isn't crashed by all these shenanigans and, as you say, "[some] people [...] would just bypass the meter in their own properties and those of friends and family".  I think you're probably right.  You also say "it's not a difficult job and would get electricity to most houses again pretty quickly.".  I agree that for some people it's not a difficult job and can be done PDQ.  I do however think there are people for whom it's not such a trivial job, and that there's going to be a spate of electrocutions and house fires...  Followed by several years of estimated billings...

> I'm sure the electricity companies have thought of this and added it to the list of reasons why they need to be on top of security.

Sure, you can have a list of reasons, but it doesn't mean you're really on top of it...   Some examples:

• Hollywood wanted to be on top of security with DVDs, so they got some technical people to add encryption.  This was CSS, and it fell rapidly, and a fortune was lost to digital piracy.  These systems don't stand a hope if they're not designed from the bottom-up starting with a secure platform and then adding the minimal features needed for the application.  To 
• I'm sure car companies know they need their car networking to be secure.  In the real world, a pirate DAB station can broadcast a channel with an evil image for display on the infotainment console that hacks the bus and puts the brakes on [3].  
• Chip and pin!  Turned out to have security flaws.  If I recall the news stories of the time, people were being gaslit by their banks - "you must have written down your PIN, it's your fault and liability".  One of the banks did this to a Cambridge academic in security.  [4]. The banks claimed security was taken seriously, then they gradually found out and lied to people, and it took a decade for the vulnerabilities to become publicly disclosed and addressed.

None of the interactions I've had with the companies that sell electricity to consumers has given me any confidence that they're better than Hollywood, the auto industry or banks.  

The quote from a leaked report in theregister [5] doesn't inspire confidence either -

• "It also said that GCHQ's technical arm CESG has "voiced strong concerns about the proposed approach". Since the report, GCHQ has worked more closely with DECC "to assure the security of the UK system".  
• That smacks of a system that's designed by people without a clue on security, that's then handed over to GCHQ to be made secure.  A bit like the digital version of sticking fingers in a crumbling dam. 

The Financial Times also suggest GCHQ were brought in late in the day to patch a flawed system [6].

• The agency built in additional security measures for the UK metering system after discovering glaring loopholes in meter designs in use abroad that it believed could pose a national security risk if rolled out in Britain. The communication channel between each meter and the utilities operating them was designed to be encrypted. But the encryption key — the code used to unscramble the data each meter sends and receives — was the same for all of them. If a hacker was able to crack the key, they could potentially gain control of every meter, GCHQ feared, according to a senior Whitehall official. That would allow them to “start blowing things up” the official said.
• Securing common actions with many devices in the field - devices that you don't have physical control off, and over a network that you don't physically control and that is easily spoofed - and using a single encryption key on all devices is so inconceivably stupid it re-enforces my take from theregister article that the security was an afterthought from some people who had no background in the field.  The very obvious analogy is using the same really secure door lock on every house in the country, and leaving a spare key inside every front door, so if one person leaves their door open, a burglar can walk in and get a key to every house in the country.  It's literally that stupid.  Plenty more choice quotes in the FT article.  I mean the good news is somebody stoped these idiots before they went ahead with Plan 0...  But I don't get good vibes about it.  

It's a low probability / high consequence issue and it's one I doubt many people will give two hoots about.  

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/24/car_hacking_using_dab/

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19559124

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2016/11/30/gov_warned_of_smart_meter_debacle_by...

[6] https://www.ft.com/content/ca2d7684-ed15-11e5-bb79-2303682345c8

I reckon about £6k for the parts using kit from PowerSpout in New Zealand as a pricing guide to the hydro components, and fitting myself except for the mains hookup, the trenching some concrete.  Haven't got a handle on the regulatory side yet which might have more costs, Probably £12k all in.  1 kW for ~5 months of the year I reckon, or 3,600 kWh/year.  Suddenly the economics of this stack up quite favourably...

Thanks, that was a really useful post.  I hadn't thought about the immediate impact on the grid.  Attacks that destroy infrastructure seem worryingly easy.  I work in the water industry (although not an IT specialist) and am definitely not confident that security is up to scratch.

DHW?

Space Heating?

Domestic hot water

Heating of, err, space. Like your living room 

Interesting. I'm sure you can do the concrete!

Erm, well my electric and gas which covers all of that plus cooking still does not cost anywhere as much as much per annum as claimed to be saved.

Are you simply ignoring that fact that I'm running my car from this as well?

We had one fitted almost 3 yrs ago. from Bulb,  It did not work from day 1 so we still have to phone in the readings,

It doesn't matter who designs the security, it doesn't matter how robust it is.

Anything that one person can design another person can hack/bypass/override. 

I'm sure that in the past, that I heard that it is not just about affecting your electricity, but that hackers could get into to other security via the smart meter/router connection, or am I getting that totally wrong?

That's like saying it doesn't matter what lock you fit on your doors, because any lock can be picked. But there is a world of difference between a toy padlock that I could pick in 2 minutes and a proper secure lock that would take an expert a long time to get through.

Properly implemented data security is effectively impregnable, in that no hacker will have the resources to defeat it. The "security" that Wintertree is complaining about is on the toy padlock level.

delete "gives". insert "should give".  I'm not alone in this area in having one that works not properly.

As for excess bills it is quite simple.  You agree a final reading of your analogue meters with the installer on the day.  These are then incorrectly entered on the database and you end up going from being in credit to getting an email about changing your direct debit because you are now in debit by about 800 quid.

Happened to us.

This. Exactly this. My o/h was sceptical and took the p*ss when I got a 'leccy blanket last year. Then she got into the toasty prewarmed bed and has never stopped extolling its value since.

What mobile network(s) do smart meters use for their communications back to base? Are some of the problems due to poor mobile network coverage? Could the communications also be bad depending on exactly where the meters are located in particular houses?

My understanding is that it is a dedicated radio network.  "Long Wave Radio" when I questioned the "engineer" installer which I found hard to believe. I think he meant "Long Range".  Our electricity meter is able to connect to this and send consumption data. 

However, the short range wireless link from the electricity meter at the back of the house outside by the back door is not capable of reaching the supplied handset so the link drops out constantly, perhaps every minute or two.

The Gas meter (outside beside front door) is dependent on the electricity meter as a hub to relay its data to EON and the wireless link is incapable of making it through the walls of the house (built in the C18th.) to the electricity meter installation.

Gas meter is battery powered with a very long life battery while I believe the Electricity meter derives its power from the supply.

The sad thing is I repeatedly told EON that I only wanted the meter replacing if the new installation worked properly but we still ended up with a pig in a poke.

Potentially useful, currently not so much.

Warming the bed with a hairdryer isn't going to cost more than about 15p unless she's very very patient (or tucks it in and leaves it running!!!). Get a hot water bottle or an electric blanket, it won't save you much but hairdryers are noisy and annoying, nobody needs that in their pre-bed routine.

I resisted switching to a smart meter for years for a variety of reasons, mostly around it being useless to me and of zero interest. We got one recently because my wife thought it'd be useful and I got sick of batting away the calls from the provider. It works, our bills reflect our usage and the readout unit sits on a shelf basically unused wasting a little bit of power.

The gas display is super laggy, it only transmits a few times an hour so you can't tell what a shower cost for example, you don't get a distinct feedback reward for behaviour change. Useless. Also it occasionally just disconnects from the meter and needs rebooting.

The leccy updates in real time which is better but stuff like LED lights use so little you can't see the real time cost, it just trickles up and stuff like the washing machine and dryer is getting used whatever, who cares what it costs if you have to use it you have to use it and they're both already newish efficient models. Our unit cost (good Energy) is crazy now (67p IIIRC) so the meter is now showing big daily numbers but it doesn't include the government discount scheme so it's driving some unnecessary stress. Also ours doesn't separate usage from standing charge when displaying cost so it's still not very intuitive as a user aid for saving money.

You can put it in power mode to help hunt down expensive items but it's the wrong tool really.

Basically it's pretty useless as a consumer product until we get a variable rate tariff and then it's primarily of use to the provider, I'll be using a phone app or automated controls to make best use of that.

I think used as they are they're a waste of resources and I suspect in time they will prove to be a security liability.

jk

Thanks for all that. What's the purpose/function of the 'handset'?

Edit: looks like the technology used for the wide area comms differs between England and Scotland - see e.g. https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

Complicated. I would be interested to read good technical info on how the entire system is designed, if anybody has such links.

Ours uses its own radio network apparently for communication with the energy provider, not the mobile phone system, seems mad and a little unlikely but I asked and that's what I was told, I guess it's a cost saving overall to run their own network.

The meter-display link in the house is a bit flaky, particularly the (external) gas meter link.

jk

When touring one of the London unis and looking at computer science with my daughter ( this was 7 years ago) the dept in question had a all sorts going on about protecting the power infrastructure from hacks etc.There was clearly some serious funding going on there from the gov and the private sector.It was interesting ( although did not appeal to my daughter).I cannot remember for the life of me which Uni it was.

Its a start though and will no doubt improve...driven by the need to provide more info etc etc.that is what usualy happens with this type of technology..even you must recognise that.

Not the Russian or Chinese government hopefully

Even me I eventually relented because they are necessary for variable rate pricing and that is necessary (but not sufficient in its current form*) for a better transition to renewables but for now, on the tariff I have it's a waste of space.

*maybe if the meter-display data link were documented, open and standardised but I doubt it is.

jk

They were alos necessary to frankly elimiante the need to employ people going round reading meters in both domestic and industrial environments. Once a quarter at my factory they would send somebody in to read all the meters, that has now gone. Its a god send at work. Its also more productivity and is the sort of infratructure investment to improve the countrys productivity we need to be doing.As UK plc we should not be employing people to read  meters..ffs.

Really

"Here to read the meter mate."

"Sure, been before? In the welding bay, there, toilet's in the back. Let yourself out."

In reality it's just replacing some low skilled workers (plenty retained to read faulty units) with higher skilled workers to (for a period of time) install then fewer to maintain (periodically replace because sealed batteries) the meters. So does it really improve productivity or just destroy lower skilled jobs? It only really improves productivity if those people losing their jobs disappear (reducing the denominator) or can retrain and earn more (increasing the numerator). We'll gloss over disappearing to consider retraining, while already poor, having lost an income in threadbare tory Britain. It's just not happening!

jk

Except it isn't always conspiratorial tripe, they can switch your tariff to pay as you go without doing anything physical. Admittedly that would be rare cases I imagine, but still, who would want to be switched to a higher rate. Then there's the other issues concerning security.

Tado are great, I think Honeywell do something similar, I have a mix, the Honeywell is older, dedicated wireless and not individual radiators.

It isn't and that's the killer for me, one day it might be, with future models, but that's exactly what I would want from MY smart meter, MY data!

I cannot get wound up about retaining people to read meters when there clearly is better technology around.

I'm not talking about retraining people to read meters, it's a job technology is well suited to, I'm questioning your claim that the loss of those meter reading jobs increases productivity. How specifically?

jk

No disrespect... I do not need to hold your hand for you to work that out for somebody who is involved in technology.

You're implying you understand something here that I don't, you probably do, I'm asking you to explain what it is.

How specifically does getting rid of human meter readers improve productivity? I've explained my understanding: It could, marginally, if they somehow just disappeared along with their jobs but they don't.

I'll concede it saves someone usually already tasked with meeting and greeting briefly and occasionally meeting and greeting a meter reader. I recon (since it's often me, I work closest to the door) it costs me about 10min per year. I waste an order of magnitude more than that in a year fighting with the electric-keyfob locks between me and the toilet!

Alternatively and better, if in losing their jobs they were meaningfully enabled to retrain to get better ones. But they're not.

What don't I understand?

jk

OK, someone in dire financial straits may prefer not to have one.  But most people aren't about to default on their bill, and they aren't going to do it for a laugh.  If you really don't trust your supplier, switch.

Of course one that doesn't work properly as a smart meter just reverts to being a dumb meter.

Totally different, a better lock on your house makes it not worth bothering with so the bad guys go nextdoor instead and it will only be bad guys in your area looking at your lock. On the other hand a national system in every house and building in the land running the same security that can be attacked from anywhere in the world will attract a lot of people trying to break it, either just so they get the credit of being the 1st or for nefarious reasons. 

Properly implemented is one thing, done on a cost as things are in reality is another, considering the very high profile hacking that has happened in the past nothing is actually secure, once something is built others will always try and often succeed to reverse engineer it. 

Wouldn't put me off a smart meter though, there are far easier ways to bring this country to its knees than going after the domestic grid. 

43p? You're being had.

We're on prepayment and are currently on 32.52p/kWh.

I suspect you're in a small minority with your heat pump and EV, good for you with the savings, but your dishwasher only costs 35p at your peak rate, whoopydoo.

Nothing like the threat off the electric going off on a cold, drizzly Mancunian night when the Mrs is half way through Coronation Street to make one being frugal with the electric.

Thanks. I can't think of any of my electricity usage that I could move from 'daytime' to those hours.

I'm really not!  We have a big PV array, and more than 90% of our import is at the 12p rate.

0.9 x 12p + 0.1 x 43p < 1.0 x 32p

Well that's another thing, you can't always switch if you have a smart meter, some suppliers can't use other suppliers meters.

So while you might find it OK, I don't. I use a standalone metering device that I can interrogate via wireless and I get up to 6 second interval data.

Eventually, hopefully at least, supplied smart meters will give this level of data to the customer. I might think of installing one then, when I can see a benefit to me, while lowering the risks of errors and hacking. that day seems some way off at present.

dishwasher /  cloth washer?

I've just seen a post on FB moaning about why her neighbour puts the washing machine on at 2am. mystery solved.

I don't care about the data.  I care about accurate bills with zero effort to me.

How loud are these machines?

Mine's about 12 feet away and you wouldn't know it's on if you didn't know it's on.

They can also get a court order and break into your house, change the locks and fit card meters.  I guess that does make it harder than changing them remotely but worth bearing in mind that they can impose pre-pay meter under certain circumtances even if meter isn't smart.

I don't have a dish washer, you couldn't fit one into my kitchen, and when there's only one living there it seems wasteful to have one for one plate and two saucepans (or else leave the washing up to fester for a week until there's a dishwasher full). If I put the washing machine on during those hours it would wake the residents of the other flats in the block, everyone's washing machine seems to vibrate the other flats when they use it.

ha ha well that why it's OK for you, but "The rest of it is indeed conspiratorial tripe." isn't true for others.

I've no idea, maybe she's in flats and it the flat above, who knows.

you should get one like Maggot's

You said your smart meter saved you £1,500 per annum. How did it help you save that much out of charging your electric car?

You should try and persuade my landlord to buy one like Maggot's!

Petrol at £50/week would be £2500/yr. If electric cars are half that, that's close to £1500 saving a year.

He's saving 31p per kWh. At 4 miles per kWh, driving 20k miles would save £1500.

Sigh.  Do I really have to spell this out?

My domestic electricity use is approx 6kWh/day - that's all my sockets, lighting, and the induction hob.  Of that, quite a lot (maybe 2/3) is supplied by my solar PV (varying enormously summer-winter). 

I get my DHW and heating (could you really not manage to type 'dhw' into Google?) from a heat pump.  Averaged across a whole year I expect it to draw about 15kWh/day (we're going into our first winter with it, so this is an estimate).

So I'm importing around 17kWh/day on average.

My EV covers around 12,000 miles per year.  At ~4 miles per kWh that's 3000kWh or 8kWh per day.

I therefore need to buy 25kWh a day.  If I got the very best normal tariff I could find that might be 32p/kWh, so an annual energy cost of about £2900 (ignoring SC).  If I ran the heat pump in the daytime to take advantage of solar PV I could probably drive this down a little, perhaps to £2700?

But, I supply the entirety of the heat pump demand on my cheap overnight tariff.  I also supply almost the entirety of the car (it's only plugged in in the daytime if I'm desperate) and as much of the domestic energy as I can on my overnight tariff.  That tariff is 12p, with the remainder at 43p.

So I'm actually buying something like 22kWh at 12p plus 3kWh at 43p.  That's £1400.

My smart meter is therefore saving me somewhere between £1300 and £1500 pa.

Just got the results of first super saver session with Octopus on November 15 between 5-6 p.m.

Total energy use for the day: £4.37

Credit for cutting usage for one hour £1.97

Credit for being in top 10% of savers £1.25

Total Credit £3.22

Net energy cost that day £1.15

I was cooking a stew but paused it for the hour and resumed afterwards.

All seems positive to me 😀

But how does a smart meter achieve that?,he did not say switching from petrol to electric achieved the saving. It was the smart meter wot done it.

He's on the Octopus Go tariff, like me. You get cheap electric between 00:30 and 04:30, but you need a smart meter for it to work. So getting a smart meter enabled me to save £50 a month on electricity.

How do you get the results? I did my first session the other day. I went all out and switched off everything I could, got it down to 50W. Then they said they failed to get my readings so they were just going to pay me the average rate

Shame, they just emailed me, my smart meter seems very reliable.

The Octopus app seems overwhelmed currently but will probably sort itself out.

Have you read my post of 1033 today? I don't think I can make it much clearer.  Without the smart meter I could not get the time-of-use tariff.

If you're living with someone who switches everything on and then just leaves it running, wasting electricity - and probably doing the same with gas central heating, doors and windows open, etc. - then surely they, and to a slightly lesser extent you, are the problem regarding energy wastage and ruining the environment.

Those who habitually switch things off when they don't need them, shut doors and windows etc. are the REAL eco-friendly people.

Well yeah, obviously it's good to be in the habit of turning things off. I'm just pointing out that one benefit of a smart meter could be helping spot when you or someone else have failed to do so. Maybe you're perfectly attentive and never miss or forget anything but I don't think many people are.

I think it's habitual. Growing up I was always told not to waste electricity and turn off lights etc. Yes things get forgotten occasionally (especially with brain fog), but most of the money saving tips are just good habits that I had drilled into me during childhood.

​​​​​ Obviously it's totally wrong that people are financially unable to sufficiently heat their homes, but sensibly moderating useage is the 'right' way forward on so many levels (environmental, financial etc). The key thing is finding the balance for comfort and health, whilst not being wasteful.

ha ha, what's their name?

Even a quiet machine, will be loud at 3am, when you are trying to sleep.

But that's one of the "advantages" of a smart meter, they sell you "cheap" electricity at off-peak times.

Using a smart meter to spot if something unnecessary is on requires you to first look at the smart meter - wherever it is located.

If a light is switched on, or another electrical device is operating (TV, radio, heater, fan etc.) they should be a darn sight easier to spot.

If you have unrequired lights on all over the house and you can't tell that they are, then you need to get your eyes tested (or take the kids pocket money off them to pay the bill !)

I am the same, lights are not left on, the internet router is not left on when we go to bed or go out, TV etc  turned off rather than standby.  Smart meter tells us what we’re spending but doesn’t save money or offer any new insights into our usage.

When you hear average energy bills of £3,000 you just think, Jesus those folk must be wasting energy left right and centre with stuff left on unnecessarily.

The bulk of any large bills will probably be heating costs.

Totally agree. Although as has been pointed out on here already, for some households electric consumption does include car fuel.

Really? I'm not sure we have much stuff to leave on, ie that is consuming significantly when not in use yet our leccy is running at ~£6/day currently, that's ~£2k for starters. There's some seasonality (almost all of that the super efficient tumble dryer which contributes space heating) but not that much, it's cooking (all electric), modern laundry machines, modern fridge freezer, a laptop+screen workday and a few hours of telly in the evening. Nothing unreasonable, nothing old/inefficient, nothing used heavily. We have a few and only LED bulbs but tend to only light space we're in.

We could watch the LED TV instead of the LCD one, that would save energy but it's in a room currently without central heating so we'd need electric heat, small win, big loss.

We have a few vampire devices wasting power constantly: a few USB sockets, broadband, various entertainment/whitegoods on standby, central heating controls, all modern ultra low power standby stuff except the router/modem which are technically always running if not at full power.

We'll easily get through £1k of logs and gas in a year.

That's a small house (and only half habitable) with almost no gadgets and an electronic engineer living in it so I have an idea what consumes what and when and I don't think my wife is doing anything mad during the day, apparently she's not even resorted to the radiant heater under her desk yet this year.

The killer is 67p/unit!

jk

Have you thought about swapping the TVs?!

😵‍💫😂

I'd love to but it doesn't work, for reasons.

The proper fix is to find a more affordable tariff!

jk

That's insane, my Octopus electricity price is apparently 32.24p

Yep. So insane I just double checked and I was bullshitting. Sorry, It's 64.97p/unit.

It was one of the few renewable deals when I took it out and the small premium hardly mattered to me given we used little, add a toddler, a TV and the occasional EV top-up to the mix since then to bump up usage and with the super-inflation, it's suddenly quite eyewatering!

jk

So why are they complaining - the rest of us use petrol/diesel, but we don't include that in our HOUSEHOLD running costs.

I haven’t read all this thread so forgive me if this has been done already. We have solar pv on our garage. Not having a smart meter they cannot tell how much of the energy we generate is being fed into the grid and how much of it we are using ourselves. Their solution to this is to assume we feed in 50% of what we generate and pay us for that. Because we are retired and not leaving the house empty every day to go to work I believe that we use much more of what we generate than that, as we leave a lot of white goods operations till daytime and/or when the sun is shining. We also have a device that diverts any energy we are generating but not using into an immersion heater. For this reason we are resisting a smart meter.

Getting a smart meter doesn't automatically move you from deemed export to metered export.  You will still be paid for the assumed 50% export. 

In fact, switching from deemed to metered (or vice versa) is quite difficult to do. FiT companies are pretty resistant to changing the terms partway through.

So you can crack on and get a smart meter if you like!

Well, thanks for that Jamie. I might just do that, but not sure what the benefits will be, not until I have an EV to charge up at night when they bring in PAYING people to use off peak!

Currently in the middle of my second Octopus saver hour. Got it down to 33W currently.