Smart meters. Wish you hadn't?
Poll: Smart meters. Wish you hadn't?
Total Members Polled: 599
Discussion
I had both fitted a couple of months ago.
Pluses:
I had bigger meter tails and an isolating switch between meter and fusebox fitted. No charge.
The installer removed a gas pipe going to a downstairs fire for me.
My gas meter is now off the floor and pipework looks neater.
I have access to different tariffs - and will probably change to a tracker.
Minus:
My gas meter stopped communicating after a few days - it took about 3 weeks to get it up and running again. No data lost, just the smart functions.
Pluses:
I had bigger meter tails and an isolating switch between meter and fusebox fitted. No charge.
The installer removed a gas pipe going to a downstairs fire for me.
My gas meter is now off the floor and pipework looks neater.
I have access to different tariffs - and will probably change to a tracker.
Minus:
My gas meter stopped communicating after a few days - it took about 3 weeks to get it up and running again. No data lost, just the smart functions.
I've had one for years, has it reduced my consumption, nope as I've always been mindful of gas and electric usage, however I like that I don't have to submit meter readings, sometimes it's interesting to see usage of electric when the house is empty, just out of curiosity and also how much its costs to cook dinner for example if I use the oven or stove, again just out of curiosity more than anything.
It is interesting that they are "free" I wonder how much they are to supply and install, not cheap I'd imagine and the cost is on our bills anyway.
It is interesting that they are "free" I wonder how much they are to supply and install, not cheap I'd imagine and the cost is on our bills anyway.
Had one in old house, one in the new house going in next Monday.
We've got an electric car and it therefore makes absolute sense to have the smart meter (though I accept this would be possible on Eco7 too).
Will be heating water and tumble drying during the cheap hours as well, so the savings have been and will be substantial.
With regard to the thread question though, if we take away the "tin foil hat" reason, which has a little merit perhaps, I find it hard to think of a reason to not have one.
We've got an electric car and it therefore makes absolute sense to have the smart meter (though I accept this would be possible on Eco7 too).
Will be heating water and tumble drying during the cheap hours as well, so the savings have been and will be substantial.
With regard to the thread question though, if we take away the "tin foil hat" reason, which has a little merit perhaps, I find it hard to think of a reason to not have one.
Road2Ruin said:
K87 said:
When smart meters came out there were a lot of advertisements which said
Installing a smart meter will reduce your energy bills.
There will be many who will say, no, that is not completely corrects and make their own minds up, there will be others who were taken by this claim and went ahead with a smart meter thinking that they need do nothing more than agree to the installation to have lower bills. This includes my neighbour who changed supplier and had a smart meter. After 20 years of having bills no more than £100 pm his first bill was over £5000, he is elderly and came to me in tears. The new supplier said that they were acting on the figures from the old supplier and the old supplier said 'it is what it is' despite having a long record of steady useage figures. Obviously clerical error somewhere.
This went on for a year, the old bloke had to borrow money to pay the bill.
I know people that complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the wording of the advert who upheld the complaint and the wording was changed.
What exactly has that got to do with a smart meter? Fundamentally, he changed supplier and either the meter reading from his old meter has been recorded incorrectly or he has been underpaying for years because his old meter was never read. The new smart meter would have started at zero, so that bit is irrelevant.Installing a smart meter will reduce your energy bills.
There will be many who will say, no, that is not completely corrects and make their own minds up, there will be others who were taken by this claim and went ahead with a smart meter thinking that they need do nothing more than agree to the installation to have lower bills. This includes my neighbour who changed supplier and had a smart meter. After 20 years of having bills no more than £100 pm his first bill was over £5000, he is elderly and came to me in tears. The new supplier said that they were acting on the figures from the old supplier and the old supplier said 'it is what it is' despite having a long record of steady useage figures. Obviously clerical error somewhere.
This went on for a year, the old bloke had to borrow money to pay the bill.
I know people that complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the wording of the advert who upheld the complaint and the wording was changed.
ARHarh said:
You missed "The energy company fitted one and it doesn't work"
I had a call asking if I wanted one fitted. I said yes but I must warn you there is no O2 phone signal here so it is unlikely to work, they said they will be able to make it work. They couldn't and after the fitter spending hours trying to get it to connect, and borrowing my phone to phone up HQ as his phone had no signal he gave up and went home never to be heard from again. 4 years on it still doesn't work.
Bulb fitted two new meters to my house eighteen months ago....., smart meter still does not work....no signal...I had a call asking if I wanted one fitted. I said yes but I must warn you there is no O2 phone signal here so it is unlikely to work, they said they will be able to make it work. They couldn't and after the fitter spending hours trying to get it to connect, and borrowing my phone to phone up HQ as his phone had no signal he gave up and went home never to be heard from again. 4 years on it still doesn't work.
Now Octopus....must chase them up.
K87 said:
Had he not been persuaded by false advertising then he would not have been stuck with an incorrect bill. The reference is not to the smart meter.
Where is the 'false' advertising? Either way, we do not even know the bill is incorrect. It could be that, for years, he has been underpaying due to estimated readings, so a smart meter would have been a bonus. The addition of a smart meter is irrelevant. He could have changed suppliers, kept his 'old' meter, and this issue would still have occurred. For the pros and cons with smart meters.
As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
I like having one. Partly because I am a sucker for data and have spreadsheets for everything but also having a smart meter has been a really useful part of a strategy of energy efficiency improvements.
It means I can use an app to set an energy budget which is a good way to keep an eye on it. It also means I can easily see things like how much it costs to have a shower, which meant I could test running it at different temperatures to see if it made any meaningful difference (spoiler: it absolutely does).
When I worked out where the significant losses were, I brought in smart home tech to improve those areas and through all this I've got our electricity usage down 35% and gas down 32% compared to 2021 figures without any noticeable lifestyle changes.
That's worth around £850 at today's prices so it's been very effective.
It means I can use an app to set an energy budget which is a good way to keep an eye on it. It also means I can easily see things like how much it costs to have a shower, which meant I could test running it at different temperatures to see if it made any meaningful difference (spoiler: it absolutely does).
When I worked out where the significant losses were, I brought in smart home tech to improve those areas and through all this I've got our electricity usage down 35% and gas down 32% compared to 2021 figures without any noticeable lifestyle changes.
That's worth around £850 at today's prices so it's been very effective.
Overall positive. Had a nagging doubt that a meter was over reading so at least now there is a daily trail of readings rather than a snapshot every few months to try to unpick.
I use the Loop app to monitor.
Why this can’t be incorporated into the standard British Gas app, lord knows.
Slightly depressing to get up in the morning to see that you are already a few bob down on the day however.
I use the Loop app to monitor.
Why this can’t be incorporated into the standard British Gas app, lord knows.
Slightly depressing to get up in the morning to see that you are already a few bob down on the day however.
In the interest of balance, the flipside to my positive experience above is that my smart meter was working absolutely fine but when I switched to another provider, it suddenly didn't work half the time and quite often I had to manually submit readings.
They eventually rolled out an update (at their end) and it has been fine for several years since then.
They eventually rolled out an update (at their end) and it has been fine for several years since then.
Road2Ruin said:
K87 said:
Had he not been persuaded by false advertising then he would not have been stuck with an incorrect bill. The reference is not to the smart meter.
Where is the 'false' advertising? Either way, we do not even know the bill is incorrect. It could be that, for years, he has been underpaying due to estimated readings, so a smart meter would have been a bonus. The addition of a smart meter is irrelevant. He could have changed suppliers, kept his 'old' meter, and this issue would still have occurred. FMOB said:
For the pros and cons with smart meters.
As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
But if they need to cut you off, they'll cut you off regardless of what meter you've got. The threat of being cut off also won't come as a surprise. You'll either have missed payments (which you should be aware of) and/or the company will have contacted you about it to state their intention.As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
All the smart meter does is make the actual disconnection easier for them. And I guess the people who want to make disconnection harder are the ones more likely to not keep up with payments.
Being able to monitor in greater depth with a smart meter has got our gas down from 35,000kwh about three years ago to a rolling average now of about 14,000kwh. Similarly with electric we’re down from abour 5500kwh to 4500kwh.
Maybe there are some legitimate concerns but they don’t affect me. I don’t even mind Scottish Power currently holding £1200 of my money from the accumulated direct debits over the summer!
I’ve just got bigger things to worry about than a smart meter.
Maybe there are some legitimate concerns but they don’t affect me. I don’t even mind Scottish Power currently holding £1200 of my money from the accumulated direct debits over the summer!
I’ve just got bigger things to worry about than a smart meter.
Silvanus said:
We have one and have actually managed to reduce our energy consumption slightly, it makes you think twice regards certain electrical items, it's amazing how power hungry some appliances are.
An old PH thread about devices consuming energy when just plugged in - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...Go through each room individually and think about what's plugged in.
Oh - I'm a smart meter 'owner' and have no qualms about it - just a shame the 'Customer' unit won't receive the data signal from the smart meter when it is in our lounge, so I can't routinely / easily monitor it.
xx99xx said:
FMOB said:
For the pros and cons with smart meters.
As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
But if they need to cut you off, they'll cut you off regardless of what meter you've got. The threat of being cut off also won't come as a surprise. You'll either have missed payments (which you should be aware of) and/or the company will have contacted you about it to state their intention.As I see it, the mains pros are it gives visibility to your energy consumption and access to smart tariffs.
The downsides really come down to how competent the energy company is because they can remotely change you to PAYG or actually cut you off without a visit.
The energy companies have already been in trouble over the remote switching of customers to PAYG, add in the £8.1bn of customer cash they are unecessarily hoarding it is not inspiring much confidence..
All the smart meter does is make the actual disconnection easier for them. And I guess the people who want to make disconnection harder are the ones more likely to not keep up with payments.
We have had the PAYG swap over scandal where most people with smart meters did not know that was possible as the capability wasn't advertised to anyone.
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