Any downsides to a smart meter?

Minstadave · 6 Feb 2024 at 13:19

Currently on Octopus Economy 7 with a conventional meter. Have been thinking about a smart meter to allow access to EV tariffs.

Any downsides these days to a Smart Meter?

Minstadave · 17 May 2024 at 18:00

Smart meter went in last month, smart charging finally setup with Octopus. Half the cost to charge my car, not bad.

Minstadave · 23 Jul 2024 at 09:52

dlockers said:
Disagree - time of use tariffs have already proven to make a huge difference.

Yeah seems a pretty obvious upside to smart metering. Encouraging smart EV charging and load shifting to have less spikes in usage means less fossil fuel based generation needed to meet short term demands - it's mostly gas used for that I recall.

Minstadave · 30 Aug 2024 at 19:14

Semple said:
Yeah I'm not sure the IHDs do real-time? Do they just average out over the last 30 minutes.

I know octopus promote the Home Mini as a way to view real-time - not sure if that gets updates every 30 seconds or 60 seconds. Gas doesn't have a real-time view.

No IHDs are real time but don't store info. The Octopus app is 30 mins windows.

Minstadave · 26 Sep 2025 at 09:50

ivrytwr3 said:
My meters are old school and i am with Octopus. They are offering free upgrade to SMETS2 in my area.

Haven't signed up yet, but worth doing? There was a lot of negativity when smart meters were first introduced and i haven't really looked into it since.

Seems a no brainer.

Intelligent Go has saved me loads.