Smart meters

[Angie169]

Oh wise and honest MNers.
Please tell me about your smart meters .
At the moment I am on a pay-as-you-go metre however if I accidentally let the gas run out the bloody thing conks out on me and I need to get an engineer to come and reset it so I want it replacing completely I'm wondering if a smart metre is the way to go.

So does anybody know if I can get a pay-as-you-go smart metre or are they standard metres ? do they make any difference to the amount of gas or electric you use ?

Any useful hints or tips will be gratefully received
TIA

Well I know it's not the most riveting of subjects but I did expect to get one or two comments about meters

No help but I have quite literally booked for one to be installed in a couple of weeks.

Was a bit  when the questionnaire on line said that I could chose whether to have daily meter readings to be sent to them or half hourly and when I chose daily, it said that they would prefer me to chose half hourly meter readings !!!

So, have booked but still not convinced by it all so I too would like some advice 

Hi mizu
I wonder why on earth they would need half hourly readings ! I envisage a huge room with 1,000,000 of people in just to keep a track of all the half hourly readings that are coming in.

lets hope someone else joins us to give advice

As far as I am aware, the only people that benefit from a smart meter is the energy provider. They will save money not sending out meter readers.

As domestic users, you will probably still use the same amount of power. I don't think anyone on a budget wastes it.

....I'm not having one fitted. It's of no benefit to me.

I would make sure the one you are getting is SMET2 if it is SMET1 you are best off waiting. SMET1 meters lose all the smart functions if you change provider.

They want half-hourly readings so they can eventually move you onto Time of Use pricing, ie charge you peak price in the evenings.

Obviously if you only send readings once a day, obviously they can't do this.

Hang on, I'll dig out the big thread I did about it...

Here you go. I started this thread in 2011, but the basics haven't changed.

Anyone having a gas/leccy meter replaced with a Smart Meter? Something you need to know
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1327330-Anyone-having-a-gas-leccy-meter-replaced-with-a-Smart-Meter-Something-you-need-to-know

Never get a smart meter , data can be hacked. People can know when to burglar your home. Energy suppliers can switch of your supply as they wish.

I don't know much about the current state of smart meters for gas, as opposed to smart meters for electricity, but know they're intended to be similar.

In which case, to the best of my knowledge (and I'll welcome corrections):

• you'd still be able to have PAYG on a smart meter;
• you'd still run out of gas if you didn't put enough money on it;
• you'd still need an engineer to come and reset, because unless regs have changed the gas companies aren't allowed to restart supply without a staff member being at the premises, for the sensible safety reason of not turning the supply back on while some forgotten gas appliance has been left on.

Smart meters for gas or electric make absolutely no difference by themselves to the amount of power you use. The claim they're "energy saving" is simply a claim that you'll read the display more often and decide to turn the gas central heating down and boil less water in the kettle.

I love mine. We moved into a house with prepayment meters and I hated messing about going to the shop and loading the card into the meter.

I moved to Ovo (Now Boost energy). They fitted smart meters and I now get an email and text when my balance gets low so I open an app in my iPhone, click two options and in under a minute the money is put directly into my meters straight from my debit card. Done. So easy.
I can also see how much I'm spending each day.

I don't think you can have smart functionality on a gas meter without having the electric one changed too. Something to do with the communications.

And yes surge pricing will become a thing - there are already smart tariffs in the UK that change by the hour. I believe Octopus offers one that does free electric at some point in the middle of the night. These are of course a different kettle of fish to eco 7 tariffs etc.

Smart meters can be switched from standard credit meters to payg remotely - this will suit some and scare others.

As for saving money then they will only really help if you dont already watch your consumption.

Thank you all for the reply's .
Tianic
lots of very useful information , it is scary to think that the system can get hacked so easily .
If the only way that they are money saving is that they display how much I am spending I can do that on my own thank you very much all I have to do is look at the meter each day to see how much money I have got left on it .

I have now had a nice chap come out and look at my meter and he said good grief that's a old one ! I will put a new one in for you , I was about to protest saying I dont want a smart meter when he explained it is the same as the one I have just a better / newer model .
I asked him what he though about smart meters and he said DO NOT get one , its a bugger to change suppliers and you lose the 'smart' bit ( as pp have said ) they are notoriously faulty , he gets one or two calls a week about meters like mine but 10/20 About smart meters and all him and his colleagues hate them .

Do you need mobile Signal for it? I was told this and i dont have a fab one. Its so shit i drive to the next village snd I get texts through.

I won’t be getting onex

It always makes me laugh when people blame the energy companies for smart meters. It is a government initiative, i am pretty certain the energy companies could do without the hassle and the expense.