We're constantly being told, "turn off electrical appliances and equipment that aren't needed, save electricity."
So to help the population understand this they want people to have...
...a smart meter.
Which is never turned off, and very rarely looked at.
I'm going to do my bit for the planet...
...I'm not having one!
Gosh, I feel so empowered by all this eco-warrioring.
:angel:
I think the main eco effects of a smart meter are actually ..
save having to employ people to go round and read meters
save having to give them cars or vans so they can get to where they are going to be reading meters
of course there is a downside ....
those :censored: annoying TV smart meter adverts which result in millions of people heading to the kitchen and putting the kettle on :hmmm:
The older I get the less I trust anything that is prefaced with 'Smart' in front of it. :D >:(
there is one other positive to a smart meter .......
the remote part which lets you worry about how much you are using came with batteries, which are exactly the right size for my central heating control box :thumbsup:
I was therefore able to recycle them .... into the central heating controller, and save having to buy fresh ones. :D
it's a win win situation :smiley-laughing:
They want people to have a smart meter ...
... because they are so inaccurate it is de facto a 500% price increase. :worried:
https://www.powergrid.news/2018-10-17-smart-meters-are-wildly-inaccurate.html (https://www.powergrid.news/2018-10-17-smart-meters-are-wildly-inaccurate.html)
(The study is three years old but I doubt that there have been significant improvements.)
Quote from: Hiawatha on November 15, 2021, 10:34:40 AM
They want people to have a smart meter ...
... because they are so inaccurate it is de facto a 500% price increase. :worried:
https://www.powergrid.news/2018-10-17-smart-meters-are-wildly-inaccurate.html (https://www.powergrid.news/2018-10-17-smart-meters-are-wildly-inaccurate.html)
(The study is three years old but I doubt that there have been significant improvements.)
:stop:
I would suggest caution linking articles like that.
As an electrician I would suggest that the only likely way a 'smart meter' is going to cause you harm is:
A: You swallow it.
B: You fire it at yourself from a cannon.
You probably get more emf from your model railway controller.
:telloff:
I wasn't referring to the health issues but that they found them to be inaccurate up to 581%. And the two involved Dutch universities are not The Sun or Fox News ...
The linked article sneakily tries to conflate a genuine study on the accuracy of smart meters with alleged health effects, and the video in the middle of that page titled "Smart meters cook us with microwave pulses every day, while collecting our private information" doesn't exactly inspire confidence in it as a source.
Here's the IEEE link (which should be free of "OMG teh radiation!!"-style pseudoscience): Static energy meter errors caused by conducted electromagnetic interference (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7866234).
Quote from: Hiawatha on November 15, 2021, 11:01:04 AM
I wasn't referring to the health issues but that they found them to be inaccurate up to 581%. And the two involved Dutch universities are not The Sun or Fox News ...
Rubbish! Ignoring the click bait article just think logically, do you think anyone switching to a smart meter would just accept a 6-fold increase in their bill? Even a 50% increase would raise eyebrows. Why would they be inaccurate anyway, it's not like people were on estimated bills, you just didn't get the insight as regularly.
Our electric smart meter, fitted in the summer, is excellent. It doesn't talk to the power company, so they don't know how much we're using. It also doesn't talk to the remote display, or respond in any way to the buttons on the front of the meter itself, so we don't know how much we're using either. ???
Does some numpty out there in 'Power World' think I'm going to change my habits?
"Oh, dear – I'm using too much power so must reduce the temperature/times on my thermostat and become cold"
Do they believe I'm going to discumknackerate my self attempting to crawl into a TV cabinet to unplug items that are on standby and then do it again when I have need of them?
Should I unplug my cordless land phones and only plug them in when the battery is flat and I can't take/make calls?
The answers are all "Of course not"
All the appliances I have are necessary for me to live and I don't waste power so it's pointless telling me how much I use. I see the amount on my bills and can use that to change supplier if I wish. That's all I need to know.
Perfectly happy with our smart meter on the leccy. If it save a bloke coming round in a van and knocking on the door for permission to read the meter that's fine by me.
OK the little display box has never managed to pair with the meter but that doesn't bother me as I'm not desperate to watch our usage every waking moment. The meter itself is talking to the power company and logging regular readings should I want to go and take a look at my account (I never do).
I've honestly never understood what some folk have against them, seems to be mainly the tin-foil helmet and conspiracy theory brigade :D
My objections are thusly...
...I'm a time served electrician of 30+ years, and an Electrical HNC.
I'm not allowed to do anything with the meter. But the powers to be see nothing wrong with some 'jobber' having a fortnight's course, and sending them out to fit meters.
I've had quite a number of calls from the public at large to problems that have occurred since smart meters have been fitted. Bare copper showing, night storage heaters no longer working, meters not fixed securely, and my favourite, "is the cable supposed to be smoking?." The electrickery companies response is, " you'll need to have the problem looked at by a qualified electrician before contacting us."
Not likely. I don't know of any electrician that's dumb enough to get involved. As the next thing is, "ah well, your electrician has done something, so he needs to sort it out, it's not our responsibility."
The electrickery people's attitude is like playground tag, the last person to touch it, is 'it'.
As for their point. If it's turned on, and you're not using it, turn it off.
They also won't work in most stone houses, 50's council houses with a steel frame, and a lot of new builds where the stud walls are made of steel sections.
A friend of mine on the inside of the energy industry told me to avoid the 1st generation meters as they only work with some suppliers, mainly the one that supplied it to you. To avoid 2nd generation for much the same reasons. And to await the 3rd or 4th generation ones if/when they come out.
The issue was that, when they were introduced no proper standard was dictated by the regulator, so each supplier started with a clean piece of paper. The resultant beggars muddle is still with us.
And all that means is that if you swap supplier (which of course you can still do exactly the same) you lose the smart-ness and you're back where you started.
Like ntpntpntpntpntpntpntp I also struggle a bit with why people are so against them. Ours does pair with the 'monitor' and give feedback. I don't really heed it insofar as I don't rush around the house turning things off, but I find it interesting to look at, because I like data.
Quote from: njee20 on November 15, 2021, 01:32:50 PM
because I like data.
I prefer Counsellor Troy myself :D
John P
Quote from: jpendle on November 15, 2021, 01:37:57 PM
Quote from: njee20 on November 15, 2021, 01:32:50 PM
because I like data.
I prefer Counsellor Troy myself :D
John P
Dr Beverly Crusher can come and take my readings any time!
As I'm the OP I was considering flagging 'off topic', but I'm interested to see where the Forum elders and faux Americans are going with this.
;D
I think that's a Star Trek joke...? I'm out of my depth :worried:
Quote from: njee20 on November 15, 2021, 04:46:09 PM
I think that's a Star Trek joke...? I'm out of my depth :worried:
You are correct. I'm just curious to see where this tangent is going to end up!
Quote from: Intercity on November 15, 2021, 06:11:50 PM
If you have a shelf or small space to one side of a room some like Sutton St Annes, small fiddle yard and the equivalent of the north west "club" trains the served Liverpool, Blackpool, New St and the North Wales coast (class 31,37 and 4 or 5 mk2s in blue/grey, NSE or regional railways)
Not just drift, but bleed over from parallel
universes threads.
John P
You may want to at least tell them where it should have gone. Report it. Or much more easily just delete your own post and put it in the right place!
I don't have a smart meter, having told EoN a few million times (hyperbole makes me feel good) I don't want one. As revenge for them ignoring my pleas to be left alone with my standard meter I went green. Or more properly, Green. Green wanted me to have a smart meter one day. But then they went bust in September. Since then I've heard I'm now with Shell Energy, but so far no meaningful contact other than the tariff name. I wonder if they'll want me to have a smart meter?
Thing is, you see, is that I have a device of my own that works very well to keep a check on our electricity usage. It's not connected to the mains - God forbid! - and so far has not needed any replacement parts or re-boots. It also has many other functions (too many to list here) and is good at many, not so good at others, and fails dismally as a language translation device.
They are not generally on sale but if you get a good one hold on to it.
So far in my life it must have saved me thousands of £££s worth of electricity.
I recommend everybody uses one for this and in all manner of other ways to help us through the climate crisis.
;)
Quote from: daffy on November 15, 2021, 08:41:41 PM
I don't have a smart meter, having told EoN a few million times (hyperbole makes me feel good) I don't want one.
The crazy thing is I've had smart meters for years from EoN. The first year the gas meter didn't work at all and they never twigged I'd used no gas so I had free central heating for a year.
This year EoN moved to become EoN Next. They rang me to see if I wanted smart meters and I said "Yes" only for the loony on the other end of the phone to say "Sorry, but we don't have any at present as the old ones are not compatible with our new systems. Maybe by the end of 2021"
So I'm back to the old 'check your own reading and phone it through' malarkey ::)
Quote from: Newportnobby on November 15, 2021, 09:19:55 PM
Quote from: daffy on November 15, 2021, 08:41:41 PM
I don't have a smart meter, having told EoN a few million times (hyperbole makes me feel good) I don't want one.
The crazy thing is I've had smart meters for years from EoN. The first year the gas meter didn't work at all and they never twigged I'd used no gas so I had free central heating for a year.
This year EoN moved to become EoN Next. They rang me to see if I wanted smart meters and I said "Yes" only for the loony on the other end of the phone to say "Sorry, but we don't have any at present as the old ones are not compatible with our new systems. Maybe by the end of 2021"
So I'm back to the old 'check your own reading and phone it through' malarkey ::)
:thumbsup: Smart.
We enter our meter data on our page on the Eon Site.
Smart meters won't work for us because.
A. The meter is in a brick built cupboard, so well screened.
B, Mobile phones don't work here anyway..
Oh don't people want smart meters?
Because it'll likely they will bring in load charging..
I.e. when the load is high on the electricity network, they will increase the price.. (some commercial users have been on this for years) It's very likely this will happen once electric cars come in fully, as the network is way behind coping with the expected full load. So the only way is to reduce users at high load periods..
Actually, as smart meters can be turned off remotely, it just needs a state actor with sufficient leverage to hack the IT systems of the supply companies and remotely cut off whole cities, presumably.
Whatever. I'm not happy about the prospect of anyone being able to cut off my fuel at the touch of a screen.
Bring back 'Economy 7' so when we all have to charge our electric golf carts overnight we shouldn't pay through the nose for it
Quote from: Yet_Another on November 15, 2021, 12:16:39 PM
Our electric smart meter, fitted in the summer, is excellent. It doesn't talk to the power company, so they don't know how much we're using. It also doesn't talk to the remote display, or respond in any way to the buttons on the front of the meter itself, so we don't know how much we're using either. ???
Are you sure it was fitted? Sounds like it's still in the box to me :hmmm: