Why are people suspicious of smart meters?

[ilkleymoorbartat]

We're thinking of getting one, but there seems to be such a mix of opinions. People who are against them, can you explain why?

Most of the problems that are coated seemed to have been with the first generation of meters and not the new ones.

Because it hands complete control to the power company, and they already have quite enough control. With an ordinary meter, the co. know I use x amount of power. With a smart meter, they can adjust pricing depending on when/what I use, turn off the power remotely etc.There is no benefit to the consumer and the project is wastefully expensive

This. with bells on.

i also resent the aggressive marketing of it all- i know the government are insisting on the aggressive roll out, but they can fuck right off with throwing away a perfectly usable meter and the vague THREATS that i "must" upgrade, bombarding me with emails and texts to upgrade for the "benefits" - it's verging on harassment from my utility company, i can't even opt out of the spam they send.

what benefits?

they are selling me a fix to a problem i don't have - we're extremely frugal and not a fucking idiot, i know that the kettle uses more than a lightbulb.

there's nothing for me to gain here other than giving them more power to control my usage. no thanks.

i won't ever agree to having one installed. i wish more people were resisting.

It was a royal ‘they’ ;)

See what gets me with this logic is power companies can ALREADY see when peak times are from their end without the need for a smart meter to see it in finer detail.

They know how much a house on x street in y Town uses from their billing algorithms. That stuff about how the average 4 person household uses thats on your bill?

I personally like mine, and having solar panels means I'm less likely to be in this situation where the power company has more of a hold over us. I can see my usage and I can see how much electricity I have coming in. This means I can use electricity at the times when it's cheapest for me.

I think part of the problem is precisely having peaks and troughs in the daily demand and the expectation that we should be able to max our usage at any time of the day without thought.

Arguably there should be a higher rate tariff for households that have excessive usage for the number of people living there / type of property to try and tackle unnecessary high consumption.

I read some of the figures that people are saying about their KWH usage atm, and my jaw drops at some.

It shows the lack of understanding over a) how you hack and b) who can hack.

If you are smart enough to be able to break security into someone's system, why would you then go and break in? Much easier to start breaking into your computer system are steal things without physically having to be in a building where you are more likely to get caught.

In reality hackers 'hack' because you've got crap Internet security and poor passwords. Not because they are some computer wizz who can out programme other people.

Trust me, if you are a good enough hacker to get into smart meters, you aren't going to be stealing cars or jewelry that's easy to trace and identify when you've got the option of bitcoin and off shore bank accounts.

This is the real world not a TV drama.