Smart meters - good or bad.

Author
Discussion

RichB

51,434 posts

283 months

Thursday 26th May 2022
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Condi said:
They've never tied you into an energy supplier. The first generation didn't work "smartly" if you moved supplier, but still worked as a "dumb" meter. The second generation (almost anything over the last 4 years, maybe more) work fine moving around between suppliers and a lot of the first generation are being given software updates. As for not working accurately, they are as accurate as a normal meter, there is very little reason not to get one.
+1 and as for saving money, they['re as good or bad as you want them to be. No different to a fuel gauge on a car, it goes down when you drive hard biggrin

Evoluzione

10,345 posts

242 months

Thursday 26th May 2022
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Had one fitted, dhead still comes and bangs on the door unannounced, requests to read the meter so a waste of time.
There is a thread on that too hehe

CarCrazyDad

4,280 posts

34 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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I hate ours.

It was reading high for a while
Absolutely smashed our bank account. Complaining to EON about it.

But, no sir they're accuracy. Funny enough a day after the call, it started reading correctly saving us 30 quid a month (had been high for 4 or 5 months)

Now it randomly packs up and stops sending meter readings. Currently the Electricity is reading fine but the Gas hasn't updated for a month.

fking awful and to think they've upped all of our bills!

rodericb

6,660 posts

125 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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Arnold Cunningham said:
We had them fitted at the beginning of the month.

By using the hour by hour view, I’ve managed to reduce summer gas consumption by 25% through turning the hw temp down and reducing the hours. Pre-meter, I thought I had it as good as I could get it.

So right there is a good reason to have a smart meter.
If one doesn't have a smart meter they can still turn the hot water down. Not too far downwards as stored hot water needs to be above a certain temperature so as to not create a primordial soup of sorts inside the hot water tank.

rodericb

6,660 posts

125 months

Friday 27th May 2022
quotequote all
CarCrazyDad said:
I hate ours.

It was reading high for a while
Absolutely smashed our bank account. Complaining to EON about it.

But, no sir they're accuracy. Funny enough a day after the call, it started reading correctly saving us 30 quid a month (had been high for 4 or 5 months)

Now it randomly packs up and stops sending meter readings. Currently the Electricity is reading fine but the Gas hasn't updated for a month.

fking awful and to think they've upped all of our bills!
There is probably a sequence of systems between your meter and your bill, all of which can be playing up and result in you getting estimated meter reads and thus estimated bills.

Jamescrs

4,450 posts

64 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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Just works for me, it's great as I used to have to pull the fridge freezer out to see the electricity meter and now I don't so its worth it for that alone.

I've given up with the additional plug in display monitoring unit they provide as it didn't really benefit me thats thrown in a drawer

S17Thumper

4,226 posts

185 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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We have them, they work fine.

Don’t see why people get so suspicious tbh.

HTP99

22,443 posts

139 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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Evoluzione said:
Had one fitted, dhead still comes and bangs on the door unannounced, requests to read the meter so a waste of time.
There is a thread on that too hehe
Is this still a thing, I honestly cannot remember the last time that someone came to read the meter, it's got to be at least 10 years ago.

PositronicRay

26,958 posts

182 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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James6112 said:
Ordered mine today through EDF
Being installed early July
We're with EDF dual fuel, bizarrely they only installed smart electricity but not gas meter.

Arnold Cunningham

3,758 posts

252 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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rodericb said:
If one doesn't have a smart meter they can still turn the hot water down. Not too far downwards as stored hot water needs to be above a certain temperature so as to not create a primordial soup of sorts inside the hot water tank.
Of course. But what I could see was not just whether the hot water was "on", but whether it was consuming gas. It wasn't necessary, but it was useful.
Shaving half an hour off each end of the schedule and turning it down 5 degrees means we still have enough hotwater all throughout the day, but I can see a nice dip in gas consumption.

I'm calling it out just to encourage people to not be fearful of a smartmeter and for those that do have one, use it to help you.

I just did the sums againm, it almost seems to be too good to be true:
From 7/5 to 15/05 we consumed an average of 3.33 m3 per day
From 16/05 to 26/05 we consumed an average of 2.10 m3.

Based on that pattern (although it's an assumption that week 1 is "typical", I believe it is), that's nearly 400 per year saved I think.
Yes please.




Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Friday 27th May 08:20


Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Friday 27th May 08:20

snuffy

9,661 posts

283 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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Uncle boshy said:
Can be an issue if you live in an area of poor mobile coverage since they rely on mobile networks for connectivity.
Or not, depending on which part of the country you live in.

The North of England uses long wave radio, whilst the rest of the UK uses 2G/3G.

And in 2033, 2G and 3G get turned off, which means all smart meters using it will need modifying.

Tigerj

324 posts

95 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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CarCrazyDad said:
I hate ours.

It was reading high for a while
Absolutely smashed our bank account. Complaining to EON about it.

But, no sir they're accuracy. Funny enough a day after the call, it started reading correctly saving us 30 quid a month (had been high for 4 or 5 months)

Now it randomly packs up and stops sending meter readings. Currently the Electricity is reading fine but the Gas hasn't updated for a month.

fking awful and to think they've upped all of our bills!
Has EON moved you over to EON Next? Is so that probably why it’s stoped working, they sent an email about it, said they should come back online at some point soon.

LordGrover

33,532 posts

211 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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Paired with the Hugo app, you can get a great view of usage against budget.






I've found it very useful since installing EVSE for BEV.

Arnold Cunningham

3,758 posts

252 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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That's interesting. You burnt 10kWh of gas yesterday. We still burnt 17.
That was 5 showers (4 of us, but I had a shower when I got back from the gym, too).

I need to try harder. It's not an obsession, but our house is 100 years old and basically it's like trying to heat the garden in the winter. So aggregating savings over the year to spend on heating in the cold months is all good. Was originally forecasting 9K on elec & gas based on current prices - let alone the next rise!

Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Friday 27th May 10:59

GT03ROB

13,209 posts

220 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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We can't have one as apparently the mobile coverage is not adequate (it is rather dire!)

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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snuffy said:
And in 2033, 2G and 3G get turned off, which means all smart meters using it will need modifying.
There are an awful lot of things which still rely on 2G (not 3G), including all the EU mandated in car emergency call services, smart meters and such like. It wouldn't surprise me (or anyone else) if the government contracted one mobile company to keep providing a 2G service after 2033.

cayman-black

12,625 posts

215 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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I have one its small like the normal reading item yet they still got my bill wrong and billed me nearly £600 for one month!

alock

4,224 posts

210 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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mike74 said:
Not good if you want to provide slightly exaggerated readings prior to price hikes.
Not even half way through my pre-paid units from March biggrin

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Friday 27th May 2022
quotequote all
alock said:
mike74 said:
Not good if you want to provide slightly exaggerated readings prior to price hikes.
Not even half way through my pre-paid units from March biggrin
It's amazing that presumably otherwise upstanding people admit to fraud on a public forum, especially when they can be easily personally identified via the registration plate of the car in their profile.

rustyuk

4,568 posts

210 months

Friday 27th May 2022
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cayman-black said:
I have one its small like the normal reading item yet they still got my bill wrong and billed me nearly 600 for one month!
I've worked on a few energy billing systems and to say they are complex is an understatement. Most of the bugs get surfaced and fixed due to the sheer volume of bills they generate. Most issues are usually caused by mis-configuration such as incorrect tariff, start / end dates and meter serial numbers.