Any downsides to a smart meter?

Stu999 said:
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Just to explain, I’m happy to have a smart meter but I live in a rented flat and the electricity meter is under the stairs (along with those of the neighbours), right under the diagonal of the stairs. I understand the meters need a bit of space around them.

Also, I would have to deal with my landlord and managing agent.

Scottish Power will only take me off the pester list for 6 months at a time even though this situation won’t change.
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Unexciting update. I gave in and let them come around to try to install and there was actually enough space to fit the electricity meter. Now the fun part is they don't seem to have been installed correctly. Tried to register with the 'Bright' app to see if the data was being received and they say it looks like (in the DCC data) the comms hub has been commissioned but not the electricity and gas meters.

I knew the gas meter was unlikely to be working because the engineer said it was too far away from the electricity meter. The electricity meter is in a communal cupboard (ground floor) and the gas meter in my flat (second floor). The distance is between 10m - 15m, probably closer to 10m.

I will have to get on to my supplier. I was sort of interested to see the consumption data but I'm not getting it. :D
 
Stu999 said:
Unexciting update. I gave in and let them come around to try to install and there was actually enough space to fit the electricity meter. Now the fun part is they don't seem to have been installed correctly. Tried to register with the 'Bright' app to see if the data was being received and they say it looks like (in the DCC data) the comms hub has been commissioned but not the electricity and gas meters.

I knew the gas meter was unlikely to be working because the engineer said it was too far away from the electricity meter. The electricity meter is in a communal cupboard (ground floor) and the gas meter in my flat (second floor). The distance is between 10m - 15m, probably closer to 10m.

I will have to get on to my supplier. I was sort of interested to see the consumption data but I'm not getting it. :D
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When were they fitted????
 
Stu999 said:
Unexciting update. I gave in and let them come around to try to install and there was actually enough space to fit the electricity meter. Now the fun part is they don't seem to have been installed correctly. Tried to register with the 'Bright' app to see if the data was being received and they say it looks like (in the DCC data) the comms hub has been commissioned but not the electricity and gas meters.

I knew the gas meter was unlikely to be working because the engineer said it was too far away from the electricity meter. The electricity meter is in a communal cupboard (ground floor) and the gas meter in my flat (second floor). The distance is between 10m - 15m, probably closer to 10m.

I will have to get on to my supplier. I was sort of interested to see the consumption data but I'm not getting it. :D
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Pm me your MPAN (Meter point access number 13 digits on your bill, should be clearly labeled) and I will see what the DCC system says
 
BigBoy said:
Pm me your MPAN (Meter point access number 13 digits on your bill, should be clearly labeled) and I will see what the DCC system says
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They say this apparently:

Elec:
- Warning: Device Configuration has not been completed [WHITELISTED]

Gas:
Warning: Device Configuration has not been completed [INSTALLED_NOT_COMMISSIONED] - OK if no Gas Meter is installed
 
Stu999 said:
They say this apparently:

Elec:
- Warning: Device Configuration has not been completed [WHITELISTED]

Gas:
Warning: Device Configuration has not been completed [INSTALLED_NOT_COMMISSIONED] - OK if no Gas Meter is installed
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Ok so yeah they can triage and remotely configure the meter, Whitelisted means the meter is connected to network but one of the sha hash checks has failed. It will retry until it's complete.

Installed not commissioned for the gas will need an installed to revisit or a phon call from supplier and you to press some buttons on the meter to activate its search function.
 
BigBoy said:
Ok so yeah they can triage and remotely configure the meter, Whitelisted means the meter is connected to network but one of the sha hash checks has failed. It will retry until it's complete.

Installed not commissioned for the gas will need an installed to revisit or a phon call from supplier and you to press some buttons on the meter to activate its search function.
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Thanks, I’ll let them know. I think the gas meter is a lost cause because of the distance between the meters.
 
Stu999 said:
Thanks, I’ll let them know. I think the gas meter is a lost cause because of the distance between the meters.
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It'd be interesting to know what they can do, if anything, to fix this. Antenna upgrade for the comms hub next to the electric meter?
 
‘Smart’ gas meter is only really a ‘nice to have’ and doesn’t really have the same benefits as an electricity meter because the ‘real price’ doesn’t fluctuate through the day.

Over the medium term we’re going to see a huge number of people disconnecting from the gas grid anyway and because of this the costs of maintaining the network per person will only go up which will encourage more people to disconnect from the network.

With that in mind, I’m not even sure why we’d bother spending a load of money on it in the meantime.
 
I had my gas meter changed twice. Second time due to the distance between meters and them not communicating.
They replaced it with a dual band meter which I believe uses zigbee and swapped out the comms module on the elec meter.
 
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darael said:
It'd be interesting to know what they can do, if anything, to fix this. Antenna upgrade for the comms hub next to the electric meter?
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The engineer says he had fitted the dual band meter (edmi gs-68b) so not sure there is much more that can be done.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
‘Smart’ gas meter is only really a ‘nice to have’ and doesn’t really have the same benefits as an electricity meter because the ‘real price’ doesn’t fluctuate through the day.

Over the medium term we’re going to see a huge number of people disconnecting from the gas grid anyway and because of this the costs of maintaining the network per person will only go up which will encourage more people to disconnect from the network.

With that in mind, I’m not even sure why we’d bother spending a load of money on it in the meantime.
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It can vary day-to-day, though, so having the reading daily rather than monthly can be a big help.
 
blueacid said:
It can vary day-to-day, though, so having the reading daily rather than monthly can be a big help.
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Only if your on the gas tracker from Octopus and even then, if you don’t have a smart meter, they just average your usage. You’ll lose some in the averaging but you’ll also win some.

The vast majority of people are on a flare rate tariff and gas doesn’t have half hourly time of use pricing to make reads against.
 
darael said:
It'd be interesting to know what they can do, if anything, to fix this. Antenna upgrade for the comms hub next to the electric meter?
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AltHAN is a thing, basically a powerline adapter to take the HAN signal to into a property (for Flats specifically) for the IHD/PPMID/CAD and to better support the Gas meter. there are several variants depending on how far the signal needs to travel and if it required boosting after that. Project is currently on hold by the DCC and AltHAN co, as they need to modify the 1st device.
 
Stu999 said:
The engineer says he had fitted the dual band meter (edmi gs-68b) so not sure there is much more that can be done.
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As long as the Comms Hub is Dual Band too then it will increase the range and penetration of the signal, basically DB hubs use two bands of ZigBee 2.4ghz being primary and ultra low 868Mhz (I think cannot remember off hand) being secondary, if primary cannot connect it will auto retry secondary.
 
Well, my electricity smart meter just randomly started working properly yesterday. :D

Not sure the gas meter will ever work.
 
Stu999 said:
Well, my electricity smart meter just randomly started working properly yesterday. :D

Not sure the gas meter will ever work.
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Mine has a split screen with electric on the left and gas on the right. Quite irritating actually as we are electric only so the right side just shows a constant 'waiting' error (or something like) and I can't see a way to turn it off.
 
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