Any downsides to a smart meter?

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.
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Yes and it’s not really optional in reality.

Like the above poster, I’ve saved a fortune from being able to access tariffs which change price up to every 30 minutes.

All staying on a dumb meter guarantees is that you’ll pay the most for your electricity.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Yes and it’s not really optional in reality.

Like the above poster, I’ve saved a fortune from being able to access tariffs which change price up to every 30 minutes.

All staying on a dumb meter guarantees is that you’ll pay the most for your electricity.
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I am also on the old SMETS1 smart meter and with Octopus too, but I haven't been offered an upgrade to SMETS2.

Is it worth prodding Octopus for an upgrade? Would I save much from the upgrade? I know it really boils down to your energy usage, but if upgrading helps, then worth it?

That being said, I haven't had many issues with my SMETS1 meter in terms of reporting readings. I have a feeling Octopus will turn round and say they don't upgrade working SMETS1 meters.
 
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To some degree all maintenance, upgrading and reading of meters is done in geographical chunks if possible, obviously safety will over ride that if a meter is sparking or leaking gas....

I work for one of the biggest providers of these services and a key part of my job is making sure that when such projects are undertaken, where possible, we create density of work to minimise the cost of driving all over the country between jobs.
 
Nabinium said:
I am also on the old SMETS1 smart meter and with Octopus too, but I haven't been offered an upgrade to SMETS2.

Is it worth prodding Octopus for an upgrade? Would I save much from the upgrade? I know it really boils down to your energy usage, but if upgrading helps, then worth it?

That being said, I haven't had many issues with my SMETS1 meter in terms of reporting readings. I have a feeling Octopus will turn round and say they don't upgrade working SMETS1 meters.
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The offer is on my online account, "book your smart meter appointment".

When i click into it, i can see calendar dates for a fitting. Says it takes about an hour.

ETA: sod it! Just booked an install :)
 
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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.
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Same, got the email from Octopus the other day and have them booked in sometime in October to replace my SMETS1 meters.
 
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Nabinium said:
I am also on the old SMETS1 smart meter and with Octopus too, but I haven't been offered an upgrade to SMETS2.

Is it worth prodding Octopus for an upgrade? Would I save much from the upgrade? I know it really boils down to your energy usage, but if upgrading helps, then worth it?

That being said, I haven't had many issues with my SMETS1 meter in terms of reporting readings. I have a feeling Octopus will turn round and say they don't upgrade working SMETS1 meters.
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SMETS 1 will be replaced but they’ll contact you when it’s the right time. No need to take any action.

Grim5 said:
remotely?
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Yes.

Some old V1 meters comms hubs will stop working as the mobile signal they use is being switched off so they will be replaced. If you have one, you’ll be contacted.
 
Do you guys also have some weirdos who refuse meter upgrades, because they claim the wireless signals is giving them cancer or some other ridiculous crap like the meter is a brain control device being run by the government
 
Yes...

And also because there are meters people tamper with and so they dont want anybody to see them.

Some of the things our people see are terrifying. Such as bypassing gas meters before the pressure regulator with rubber inner tubes hose clamped to pipes.
 
Molep said:
Pretty sure SMETS1 are being moved onto the updated network , so maybe no reason to update to SMETS2
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SMETS1 "were" added to the S2 network but they are now non upgradeable, what this means is as the actual S2 meters can be software upgraded the S1's cant.

Also S2 meters will (in the south Telefonica area) be getting 4gLTE comms hubs, they will also have WIFI enabled PPMIDS (in home displays) that can share your WiFi back to the comms hub in areas where signal is poor. Far more advantages to having S2 than keeping S1 meter now.
 
Wondering if I can have some insight from the forum experts.

To share some context, we are with Octopus and have a SMETS1 smart meter. Both the electricity and gas meters are very close to each other outside the house (not sure if that makes a difference). Over the past year or so, we've had issues with our gas data not showing usage data on the app/account intermittently. Electricity usage has been completely fine, just the gas data not appearing on random days.

Raised this with Octopus and they came back to say that they've been experiencing intermittent connection issues with our gas meter, but they are still able to get readings every month just fine. And they said that the intermittent issue is very normal for gas meters.

Since that conversation, it seemed to have improved and gas usage was showing every day for a few months... until last month. Over the past month, we've had consecutive weeks without gas data, which I just find unacceptable, especially as we've started using the heating now. It's important for me to know how much gas we're using in the house. Went back to Octopus and they came with an offer of upgrading the smart meter to SMETS2:

Thank you for your email and I do totally understand your concerns regarding the gas meter and its usage not being displayed.

One possible solution we could have is to upgrade your s1 meter set up to an s2 meter set up which could improve the stability of the connection.

The engineer should also have home mini in stock on his van and could provide one at the time of install?
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I'm assuming that I should probably take that offer of upgrading to SMETS2, but their email suggests that the upgrade won't guarantee that the connection will improve. Will I regret upgrading, i.e. it ends up being worse somehow?
 
Nabinium said:
I'm assuming that I should probably take that offer of upgrading to SMETS2, but their email suggests that the upgrade won't guarantee that the connection will improve. Will I regret upgrading, i.e. it ends up being worse somehow?
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Its the first step. If that doesn't work then there's an antenna module they can add but that wouldn't happen on install. They can't do anything about SMETS1 as it has to be removed before things progress.
 
Nabinium said:
Wondering if I can have some insight from the forum experts.

To share some context, we are with Octopus and have a SMETS1 smart meter. Both the electricity and gas meters are very close to each other outside the house (not sure if that makes a difference). Over the past year or so, we've had issues with our gas data not showing usage data on the app/account intermittently. Electricity usage has been completely fine, just the gas data not appearing on random days.

Raised this with Octopus and they came back to say that they've been experiencing intermittent connection issues with our gas meter, but they are still able to get readings every month just fine. And they said that the intermittent issue is very normal for gas meters.

Since that conversation, it seemed to have improved and gas usage was showing every day for a few months... until last month. Over the past month, we've had consecutive weeks without gas data, which I just find unacceptable, especially as we've started using the heating now. It's important for me to know how much gas we're using in the house. Went back to Octopus and they came with an offer of upgrading the smart meter to SMETS2:



I'm assuming that I should probably take that offer of upgrading to SMETS2, but their email suggests that the upgrade won't guarantee that the connection will improve. Will I regret upgrading, i.e. it ends up being worse somehow?
Click to expand...

There's a lot of learning gone on since SMET1, one of which is that the batteries die far more quickly than expected due to poor signal meaning the meter is constantly trying to connect and uses more power doing so.

We're now testing signal strengths when we do certain visits to identify problem areas and have plug and play devices to address problems in some cases.

Maintenance and upgrade isn’t in my division so I'm not sure of Octopus's specific plans but I know as a group we expect to do a lot of work across the industry around replacing non comms meters or trying to resolve the connection issues of modern meters.

The regulator is coming in hard on suppliers who don't get these issues fixed, they'll soon be liable for repeating fines payable to the end user if the meters dont do what they're supposed to do.
 
touch wood never had a problem with my smart meter both gas and electric , was a bit frantic when fitted trying to get the figures lower switching off things etc but 2 years on nps.
water meter ...now that is another story nearly 12 months on and they still try to bill me as if i havent got one ,spoke 8 times to there various switchboard /departments, always promise to get back to me and nothing , i have now refused to pay anything till sorted. south staffs .....
 
Looking at moving from EDF to maybe Octopus but we currently have an old Economy 7 meter, is it worth changing this to a new smart one with EDF or after? I'm also going to look at getting rid of Economy 7 as we don't have storage heaters etc etc so no benefit to having cheaper electricity overnight.
 
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