Smart meters - any good?

arknor said:
They probably know exactly what your doing in your house from the smart meter readings and then they sell your data on to other companies.

lets face it, wouldn't be that hard for someone to model an AI with the various watts of a bunch of appliances etc and then have it try to work out what you're doing at various times of the day
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I recommend Bacofoil, its better than own brand.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I recommend Bacofoil, its better than own brand.
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I recommend you get clued up like supermarkets know when someone is pregnant before they do
key strokes can be read along a power line.
you really think it's that hard to determine what someones using power for and then selling that info on?

oh look 90w during the day, odd 1kw spike for a minute must be a kettle.

if you can train an AI to recognise objects etc you can make a model that can determine from total energy usage what someone is doing.

you know AI can identify you from your mouse movements? get from under your rock we are in the age of survilance now
 
SexyGreyFox said:
We gave in last Tuesday and had one fitted basically because we now can't get down to where the meters are to get the readings.
I also used to get reminder after reminder before I did it.
The two blokes who fitted it said they would never have one in their house.
My two brother in laws worked for EON and said the same thing.

I have yet to actually look at the display.
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Did they say why they wouldn't have one fitted?
 
arknor said:
They probably know exactly what your doing in your house from the smart meter readings and then they sell your data on to other companies.

lets face it, wouldn't be that hard for someone to model an AI with the various watts of a bunch of appliances etc and then have it try to work out what you're doing at various times of the day
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Why waste time doing that when my appliances connect directly to WiFi?
 
arknor said:
They probably know exactly what your doing in your house from the smart meter readings and then they sell your data on to other companies.

lets face it, wouldn't be that hard for someone to model an AI with the various watts of a bunch of appliances etc and then have it try to work out what you're doing at various times of the day
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Why is that a problem?
 
crazyDAJT said:
smart time of use tariffs. Can save you a fortune, my effective rate is less than 10p. It’s going to save my over £1500 a year at this rate.
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The only annoying thing is I deffo need a car charger as 4 hours on a 3pin charger will only put about 10 miles into the car lol.
 
crazyDAJT said:
smart time of use tariffs. Can save you a fortune
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sorry darling we need to cook the meal at 10pm when the juice is cheap, you can watch that catch-up tv series afterwards, in the meantime we are in power saving mode.

e:
arknor said:
if you can train an AI to recognise objects etc you can make a model that can determine from total energy usage what someone is doing.
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already exists saw a demo in Cambridge symposium about 5 years ago informetis
 
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jpaul said:
sorry darling we need to cook the meal at 10pm when the juice is cheap, you can watch that catch-up tv series afterwards, in the meantime we are in power saving mode.
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Nope, we have been behaving completely normally thanks to a 8kwh house battery and 4kw of solar on the roof.

Octopus GO Faster 4hr @ 7.5p/kwh starting at 9:30.

Yes I have chosen to invest in this, but payoff is looking at sub 7 years.
 
Freefaller said:
Can I jump in and ask a question...

Can a SMETS1 be upgraded to a SMETS2 remotely? Or do they need to be physically replaced?
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There was talk of upgrading SMETS1 meters to SMETS2, but I'm not sure how.

I had a SMETS1 meter and when I asked EDF if they would consider replacing it with a SMETS2 one, they practically took my hand off. The meters and IHD all seemed to work perfectly well until about summertime when it told me that my electricity supply was disconnected - it wasn't and this problem took about 2 months to be fixed. Now I just can't view my gas supply on the IHD, so I await another replacement IHD, which they swear will work.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
No but I know that one of my brother in laws wouldn't have the original ones fitted, he said that these new ones are OK.
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Yeh, I passed on the first round of smart meters, first question I asked was would they be compatible with other suppliers, and we all know the answer to that.
 
Yeah, if I could I'd have solar panel batteries. Still owing on my solar panels after but until recently I've been paying off minimum on my credit cards. I can't afford batteries or an EV and prices of batteries are too much now.
I'm still nonplussed about the prospect of a smart meter as it sounds like it'll save me a tenner or something.
 
helpimcrap said:
Yeah, if I could I'd have solar panel batteries. Still owing on my solar panels after but until recently I've been paying off minimum on my credit cards. I can't afford batteries or an EV and prices of batteries are too much now.
I'm still nonplussed about the prospect of a smart meter as it sounds like it'll save me a tenner or something.
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It doesn't exist just to save you money, it's a monitoring/reporting tool that you can use, that may help you save money, but may not.

If you want one, get it, if you don't want one, don't. You've had replies as to why they exist, so it's up to you to make up your mind about it at this point.
 
HungryHippos said:
It doesn't exist just to save you money, it's a monitoring/reporting tool that you can use, that may help you save money, but may not.

If you want one, get it, if you don't want one, don't. You've had replies as to why they exist, so it's up to you to make up your mind about it at this point.
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It's backed up my reasons for not bothering initially, and I was wondering if anything had changed. It sounds like nothing has except you can get time related deals. But none with would apply to me anyway.
 
helpimcrap said:
How does billing work?

Do you still have a set direct debit every month or does it alter based on usage? I.e. low bills in summer, high bills in winter.
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Direct debit every month.
The computer still ( deliberately ) overestimates your bill but it gives you the information to be more accurate than they want to be. If that makes sense.
 
Reasons I won't have one are that it can be shut off remotely, variable rates changed on the fly at peak times. You could be limited how much you can use per day with more strain on the grid.
You won't save money by changing to a smart meter. When energy companies have more control nothing good comes from it.

The meters are utter crap, made with poorer materials. They no longer make the LandisGyr meters in the UK, it's all made in Greece and Malaysia. The only meters that don't have shut off valves are meters made for Netherlands.
 
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