Smart Meters - Pros and Cons

['WellDel]

On 15/10/2022 at 10:24, BFTD said:

Keep an eye on it. Mine stopped sending statistics back to base and I didn't know until I was changing to a different provider. My direct debit had been slightly under what was being used, which isn't a major problem until eighteen months have passed and you're suddenly faced with an £800 exit bill  

Had the same issue with mine. (British Gas).

Meter set for half hourly readings when installed and naively took engineer at his word that I had hee haw to do. Pay by DD and online billing. Randomly checked my account one day while I was booking annual boiler service visit to find they'd been doing estimated bills for 8 months as the meter hadn't been sending the info. On inspection the electric meter had somehow lost its connection to base while the gas one was just totally dead. Engineer sent to replace both, and on calculating last actual reading to the latest ones I supplied I was circa £500 in credit.

I now check usage monthly to keep a handle on their function and accuracy. Fuckers aren't that smart after all.

[resk]

20 minutes ago, HEY_SIDNEY said:

Pros: 

 

• The In Home Display (not to be confused with the actual smart meter itself) allows you to view your usage on a half hourly/hourly/daily/weekly basis - dependant on what you have set your time frame at - your supplier auto sets this to monthly. I highly recommend you set it to half hourly.

I'd add to this - at least one supplier (SSE) allows you to see the half hourly / daily / weekly usage and cost on their website ie. the same information that the IHD shows.  I binned my IHD after about a week when I realised this - I'd rather just log into my account and view it on my PC rather than read it off a wee screen.  

[beefybake]

2 hours ago, resk said:

I'd add to this - at least one supplier (SSE) allows you to see the half hourly / daily / weekly usage and cost on their website ie. the same information that the IHD shows.  I binned my IHD after about a week when I realised this - I'd rather just log into my account and view it on my PC rather than read it off a wee screen.  

With Octopus, that's pretty much what I do.  I no longer have the IHD switched on. I just go to their website, or the phone app.

I can check the KwH useage by the hour, day, week, or month.  The useage stats for the previous day typically show up on the site/app by around

11 am, or 12 on the current day.  It doesn't show the £ cost, but as I do a meter reading once a month, which automatically generates a bill, and a deduction

from my credit.., I don't really need to monitor the specific £ cost on an hourly/daily etc basis.  What's important to me is the KwH useage, everything

else follows from that.

[Pens_Dark]

I'm reluctant to get one. Not that I think there is anything sinister about them or it gives me cancer or whatever.

I just think my obsession over how much I'd be spending would be through the roof. Watching the pounds rack up for daring making yourself a cup of coffee would be depressing. 

Coincidentally I actually was looking British Gas account today and there doesn't seem to be an option to arrange for one to be fitted? Thank f**k.

[Boo Khaki]

There's a chronic shortage of meters themselves, so I think the few that are still available are getting fired into new builds, hence why people are being quoted a year to 18 months for an appointment to replace.

[HEY_SIDNEY]

1 hour ago, Pens_Dark said:

I'm reluctant to get one. Not that I think there is anything sinister about them or it gives me cancer or whatever.

I just think my obsession over how much I'd be spending would be through the roof. Watching the pounds rack up for daring making yourself a cup of coffee would be depressing. 

Coincidentally I actually was looking British Gas account today and there doesn't seem to be an option to arrange for one to be fitted? Thank f**k.

When i was at my parents they would obsess over it at the start n then that urge finally gave way.

Ironically, i don't have a smart meter in the flat and we both work(ed) for an energy company. For no other reason than industry knowledge helps us.

Think Beefy bake nailed it, its whats important to that person whether they get one in.

[Pens_Dark]

36 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

There's a chronic shortage of meters themselves, so I think the few that are still available are getting fired into new builds, hence why people are being quoted a year to 18 months for an appointment to replace.

We just moved in to a new build house so I assumed that the smart meter would be installed and ready to use. I was surprised by that but suppose what you're saying is maybe why we didn't have one.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Pens_Dark

[scottsdad]

18 minutes ago, Pens_Dark said:

We just moved in to a new build house so I assumed that the smart meter would be installed and ready to use. I was surprised by that but suppose what you're saying is maybe why we didn't have one.

[Pens_Dark]

6 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Indeed. 

[guinness]

Was meant to get a smart meter fitted 3 week's ago & the guy couldn't fit it. So I asked the guy about my mother in laws gas meter not giving a reading after 3 week's. He said tell her to tell them to take it out. Plus don't get one fitted at my place because their more  bother than what their worth.

Edited October 27, 2022 by guinness

[kingjoey]

A lot of people on here getting totally confused between the smart meter, which replaces the old existing meter, and the smart meter monitor which sits in the corner of the room doing very little in my case.

[guinness]

3 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

A lot of people on here getting totally confused between the smart meter, which replaces the old existing meter, and the smart meter monitor which sits in the corner of the room doing very little in my case.

All their wanting is to do away with ordinary meters so the don't need any meter reader's. Doing away with job's. A bit like self service checkouts at the supermarket. 

[scottsdad]

2 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Self-service checkouts at supermarkets are an absolute godsend.

Best invention ever.

Yeah.

You can keep your wheel, nails, printing press, compasses, steam engines, internal combustion engines, penicillin, telephones, the internet, the early 1990s Falkirk strip with red shoulders and ringpulls for beans cans. Self service supermarkets are the bomb.

[Florentine_Pogen]

6 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Don't underestimate the value of not having to interact with other human beings asking you how your day has been and whether you're "getting up to much later". 

Self-service tills are right up there with self-shaving razors for haircuts.

I think you're getting your hairdresser mixed up with the supermarket. I've never been engaged in vacuous chat by a checkout operator.

[TxRover]

15 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Don't underestimate the value of not having to interact with other human beings asking you how your day has been and whether you're "getting up to much later". 

Self-service tills are right up there with self-shaving razors for haircuts.

Except that as self-checkouts become the rule:

1) You wait in a queue to get to a self checkout, and people want to chat with you.

2) Close to 33% of the time the machine decides you’ve not done something right and calls over a person to sort it out.

3) Now you have to wait for someone to come approve certain purchases or unlock the security tags.

4) They are net slower for purchasers. The weighing system causes your checking out to be slower.

5) The bagging areas are generally too small for more than a few items.

6) The cameras are annoying.

[Florentine_Pogen]

7 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

And thanks to self-service tills, I haven't either for the last god-knows-how-many years.

I was subjected to this low-level drivel when getting blood taken at the surgery yesterday by a nurse.

I seem to attract this type of nonsense.

 

[RH33]

EDF have informed me the smart metre isn't sending info back. 

[mathematics]

On 28/10/2022 at 13:55, RH33 said:

EDF have informed me the smart metre isn't sending info back. 

It’s probably confused. 

[beefybake]

On 28/10/2022 at 13:55, RH33 said:

EDF have informed me the smart metre isn't sending info back. 

That sounds like a 'their' problem.

For them to sort out.

[Unless, that is, what is being referred to is lack of communication between the smart meter and the IHD.

This happened to me after Octopus installed a smart meter at my flat. Their answer was that the IHD needed to be nearer

to the smart meter.  The smart meter is in its box in the common hallway. The IHD is now ( inconveniently for me)  positioned

about 9 inches away, separated by the wall between them.  One of the little things Octopus accidently forgot to say when they were

extolling the virtues of a smart meter. ].

Edited October 30, 2022 by beefybake

[Gnash]

9 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Al of this is persuading me that holding off on installing a smart meter is the right approach for now TBH.

Sounds like a world of potential hassle for absolutely zero gain to me.

I've come to the same conclusion.  Unless they can pinpoint usage for specific appliances, while several are running (they can't), I don't see the point.