What experiences have members had with smart meters. My personal view is that they will be used for variable pricing, to disconnect individual customers and to gather data on our occupancy habits, among others. All the ads on the telly are rubbish, they tell us nothing and make us believe we will use less electricity and gas if we know how much we are currently using. I think, like most of us, I use the electricity I need. What does the community think?
I have to agree with all your points.I have not had any experience with them and I will not have, because I will not allow one to be fitted,even without a sim card.
A woman phoned me recently from EDF asking if I would like them to fit a smart meter for me, I said no and she asked why, I said "because I don't think your company would be doing it for my benefit, only theirs". She didn't put up any argument, she just said, "that's ok, thank you"!
I keep getting moody letters from first utility...They word it in such a manner that makes it come across that it's mandatory to have them fitted. I know it's ****** and just ignore them.
Interesting on Watchdog tonight. Seem 16 (I think they said) fires this year due to failure in installation of them. London FB will be wanting them changed to steel if this keeps happening.
There is now a middle man in / coming into play to collect all data from the various protocols and send it off to your provider, so that issue is going away I fully agree about usage, mine did not change in any way, infact I think the monitor unit lasted 2 days before it was filed
Yes, it is not 'The Law' that you have to have one fitted, but the supplier might then tell you that your old meter is unsafe, Bull **** I know but it's a scare tactic.
Watchdog had a piece on Smart Meters yesterday (BBC1 TV). Seems that there have "only" been 15 house fires recently as a result of smart meters - suspect on bad installation by badly trained / in a rush installers. The implication was that most of the problems were with gas smart meters. The message was that the government needs to revise the roll-out programme as they just do not have sufficient trained monkeys to install the things. I am not having one, any time soon.
A woman phoned you ?....I would have thought you would keep her on the phone as long as you can.....lol Rs
Many years ago I had a current transformer from Scottish Power which did for me the same as a smart meter, OK the smart meter may do more for the supplier, but for me electric wise no point. To my mind the plug in energy meter does a lot more good, as that tells you what each bit of equipment uses rather than a whole. As to gas it only supplies central heating and hot water, in both cases they are automated, so very little I could do to alter how much I use, I have considered doing some experiments like turn off one bedroom and see how much it saves, but the standard meter would do that, no need for so called smart meter. If one considered what the Smart meter could do, it is limited, however I would think it could be set to auto switch off when the power exceeds a limit, so could auto shut off when a pipe bursts, or a oven is left on, even the ability when you go on holiday and realise you have left something on you could switch off all power with phone. Of course auto linked to fire alarm for gas, but with electric you don't want lights to go off. However it seems these smart functions are not available. At least not yet so until the smart meter does some thing to help me the user, no thanks.
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