Author Topic: Electricity Smart Meter  (Read 57179 times)

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #225 on: 04 December, 2020, 01:31:41 pm »
I'm still enjoying the novelty of accurate billing without performing keyhole surgery to access the gas meter.

ian

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #226 on: 04 December, 2020, 01:43:43 pm »
I won't argue with no longer needing to insert my iPhone into the cupboard, arm outstretched, in the hope of getting a picture of the electricity meter readout*.

*our fault. In olden times, back when the Asbestos Palace was a mere castle, everything in the hallways was en-cupboarded in fabulously crappy dark wood that was favoured in the 60s and 70s and reminded me of schools and hospitals, which turned the hallway into a grimly dark institutionalized intestine that squeezed you from the front door to the kitchen. Rip it out, declared we. Unfortunately, then we had to minimally box in the meters which our destructive processes had left cruelly exposed.

robgul

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #227 on: 04 December, 2020, 05:29:54 pm »
Novelty over. I put the gadget in the cupboard with the meters (it kept losing connection anyway, but as previously discussed, The Asbestos Palace is impervious to weasily little radio waves).

Told you!!   We should have Smart Meters shortly, I'm not even going to bother to get the reader gadget out of the box.

ian

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #228 on: 04 December, 2020, 08:07:29 pm »
The instructions said the gadget didn't need to be connected to the wifi for billing but please connect it to your wifi for billing. I assume this means it uses the wifi as a backup, but it preferred the elegance of a quantum superposed instruction.

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #229 on: 04 December, 2020, 08:10:23 pm »
Neither of the smart meter display gadgets we've had had any sort of WiFi functionality.  They were able to obtain tariff data (in order to display in Currency Units rather than something intuitive like kW) via the meter.

Feanor

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #230 on: 04 December, 2020, 08:12:53 pm »
I think it means it gets its useage from the meters in the usual way, and can present this in kW.
But to be able to present this to you in £, it needs to know about your tariff, so it needs to be able to go online to the supplier to get this info.

The meters connect to the suppliers by themselves to supply usage info, and don't need the display device to do this.
The display device is cosmetic to the metering.

ian

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #231 on: 04 December, 2020, 08:45:27 pm »
I suppose that makes more sense than the instructions. It wanted to be connected to the wifi for some reason, though from this point on, I'm blaming it if any p0rn gets downloaded.

Feanor

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #232 on: 04 December, 2020, 09:52:11 pm »
That's fair enough, I look forward to an Oglaf series where in some other-world smart meters have become sentient and have their own p0rn, subjugating hapless homeowners and their guests in some mass orgy where inserting 50p coins is a historic-fantasy fetish.

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #233 on: 17 September, 2021, 08:05:59 pm »
In smart meter news, it appears that the Octopus API isn't returning any data for our gas meter since midnight on the 6th.  The electricity is fine.

Obviously, I've been somewhat distracted, and am very much not in the mood for digging out the meters in order to see what's going on, but feel free to take bets on whether this is due to:

a) Wireless notworking.
b) A bat flattery in the gas meter.
c) Some sort of IT incompetence, either industry-wide or cephalopod-specific.
d) I can't believe it's not brexit.
e) All of the above.

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #234 on: 17 September, 2021, 08:27:43 pm »
Octopus website has been telling me it doesn't know what gas tariff we're on, even though it's the same as the electricity and neither of them are smart meters.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #235 on: 17 September, 2021, 09:10:44 pm »
That, combined with the readings suspiciously stopping at midnight, would lend weight to hypothesis (c).

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #236 on: 18 September, 2021, 02:04:46 pm »
I dusted off the stupid energy display thinger.  It seems to have gas readings for the week, which would eliminate a meter problem.  I also read the meter directly (because the display thinger is rubbish and doesn't show the absolute readings, like the nPower one did).

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #237 on: 12 November, 2021, 10:06:54 am »
I finally gave in to the emails from So Energy asking to install smart meters. In my response I pointed out the electricity meter is under the kitchen sink unit and the washing machine has to be pulled out to access it.

Fitter turned up this morning, hummed and hah'd, and decided he couldn't manage it. To be fair, he was a very large guy who'd have had difficulty squeezing into the available space, but the meter has been replaced before.

Waiting to see what response I get, if any.

hellymedic

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #238 on: 12 November, 2021, 03:38:15 pm »
I have been too lazy to change my electricity supplier, so I've been with Eastern Electricity -> Powergen ->e-on since I moved here.

They installed a Smart Meter 4 years ago and this has been sending readings to the mothership every 3 months/month without issue, until August this year.

My electricity bill for September was estimated, which I thought was strange.

The meter was read on 23 September, according to my online account (It's in an outside box so I wouldn't see a meter reader.)

There have been no further meter readings.

I asked my cleaning lady to read my meter for me earlier this week. The display was blank.

Looked at the e-on website. Looks like the system crashed when it absorbed all the failing power companies.

Hope things get rebooted...

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #239 on: 03 August, 2022, 11:13:51 am »
REsurrecting a zombie

I hadn't realised that smart meters rely on their own data signal (via mobile phone masts or radio).  Seems that only one company, Craptiva, run this. Complete monopoly of shite, by all reports.

My brain did a 'wtf' over this. Security is cited as the reason, but since comms such as WhatsApp, that use end-to-end encryption, are secure, really can't see a reason why a dedicated network has had to be created.

Oh, wait. Craptiva and outsourcing. There is the reason. I wonder how much the contract is worth.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #240 on: 03 August, 2022, 12:07:01 pm »
Regular readers will be completely unsurprised that our gas meter never regained its smartness, and I've been obtaining monthly readings using a bike light and a pokey thing.

ian

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #241 on: 03 August, 2022, 12:12:51 pm »
I thought the logic was that there would be no guarantee of an established mobile network being available, so they baked their own (whether this offers a better, more effective solution in the real world, I leave as an exercise for the reader).

Security seems, indeed, to be a shit reason. Encryption exists and is used practically everywhere already, you don't need to build a new network, just use existing protocols.

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #242 on: 03 August, 2022, 12:22:49 pm »
Possibly they created a network that can roam to everyone else's?  That might make sense, I think the usual way of achieving that is to use a network from ABROAD.

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #243 on: 03 August, 2022, 12:57:57 pm »
This has some details:
https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

I don’t know why there are two separate networks with competing technologies.

Kim

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #244 on: 03 August, 2022, 02:19:26 pm »
This has some details:
https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

I don’t know why there are two separate networks with competing technologies.

Ah, that makes sense.  Presumably because a cellular system is vastly cheaper, where it's available, which is most of southern England.

Beardy

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #245 on: 03 August, 2022, 02:38:29 pm »
I’ve received emails and texts from my (unchosen) energy supplier to book an appointment to have smart meters fitted. I shall continue to ignore them until it becomes a legal requirement to have one fitted.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #246 on: 03 August, 2022, 06:47:35 pm »
This has some details:
https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

I don’t know why there are two separate networks with competing technologies.

Thanks for that. Makes a lot more sense than the previous info I read.

So it is either MESH (good luck with that up here), or mobile comms. Not bad around my house, but not available in many areas.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #247 on: 03 August, 2022, 09:07:49 pm »
Despite the push for efficiency ( and cutting costs), operatives in something data cars are around and about physically reading meters in these parts.

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #248 on: 09 August, 2022, 03:42:31 pm »
We got smart meters fitted last month because I'm hoping we might get solar panels one day...
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FifeingEejit

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Re: Electricity Smart Meter
« Reply #249 on: 17 August, 2022, 12:40:18 am »
This has some details:
https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html

I don’t know why there are two separate networks with competing technologies.

Ah, that makes sense.  Presumably because a cellular system is vastly cheaper, where it's available, which is most of southern England.
I would take a stab at it being geography and population density, or in ither words signal gaps in Wales are easier to plug than the vast nothingness of places like yad moss and the far north.

That they've achieved 99.55% coverage of Scotland and Northern England isn't quantified as to whether its population or land mass however given that the BBC manage to have Radio Scotland available in 810 medium wage from almost everywhere using a single transmitter when there are many places of bugger all mobile signal and even places such as Strath Tummel where there is 4g but not 2g or 3g is quite impressive.

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