Smart meters again

[nowty]

We should be getting to a point where we run things at the time of least carbon intensity which is currently mostly at night, but in the future it could change, like mid afternoon between peaks with a grid more full of connected solar. Some folk recently were getting long cheap periods in the daytime on the Octopus IO tariff in the windy weather.

The point of a smart meter is that it facilitates TOU tariff incentives, free power hours, energy saving payments, smart battery charging and rebates for exporting.

I’ve done very well out of my smart meter so far, both in the reduction of carbon emissions and in cash savings. Soon I hope to cash in on exporting with it too.

[Tay]

What data is there to prove that washing machines like to catch fire at night rather than during the day?

There is no increased risk of fire at all dependant of when the devices is running, I think the issue is the threat to life of a fire at 3am would be greater than a fire at 3pm for example.

But with most things in life, all you can do is mitigate the risk as much as possible, working fire alarms are key in my mind to mitigating that risk somewhat.

[Tay]

We should be getting to a point where we run things at the time of least carbon intensity which is currently mostly at night, but in the future it could change, like mid afternoon between peaks with a grid more full of connected solar. Some folk recently were getting long cheap periods in the daytime on the Octopus IO tariff in the windy weather.

The point of a smart meter is that it facilitates TOU tariff incentives, free power hours, energy saving payments, smart battery charging and rebates for exporting.

I’ve done very well out of my smart meter so far, both in the reduction of carbon emissions and in cash savings. Soon I hope to cash in on exporting with it too.

I'm glad you get some benefit out of your smart meters, only one of mine is providing 'any' value, its a shame that the service BG provides is shocking in comparison to others.

I have SMETS1 devices (along with a few million others) and British Gas despite telling me they dont need me to provide meter readings, ONLY know how much Gas I'm using BECAUSE I provide readings (I've had too many surprises in the past with enormous surprise bills.

There is nothing smart about that.

[nowty]

I waited until I was guaranteed a SMETS2 meter.

Although both my mum and brother have both got SMETS1 “secure” brand and that seems to be ok with Octopus.

If the gas meter is not near the leccy meter, that can be no good as the gas meter piggy backs onto the leccy meter for the comms.

[AGT]

Nobody is saying don't bother with a smoke alarm - we have 2.
Just if the fire services say they have seen a pattern of risks it seems silly to ignore them. I suppose things that have to run have to run, but there's no point adding risk from things which don't need to run.

We have a mixture of 9 smoke/heat/carbon monoxide detectors
Due to the wonderful Scottish government regulations..

[Tay]

I waited until I was guaranteed a SMETS2 meter.

Although both my mum and brother have both got SMETS1 “secure” brand and that seems to be ok with Octopus.

If the gas meter is not near the leccy meter, that can be no good as the gas meter piggy backs onto the leccy meter for the comms.

When the backend comm system was all geared up for SMETS1 it worked perfect for a few years or so, SMETS2 came along and suddenly smart meters weren't so smart anymore. we got conned by the providers, govt, suppliers, designers or whomever, but we got sold a lemon and we're still paying for that incompetence now.

[Tay]

I waited until I was guaranteed a SMETS2 meter.

Although both my mum and brother have both got SMETS1 “secure” brand and that seems to be ok with Octopus.

If the gas meter is not near the leccy meter, that can be no good as the gas meter piggy backs onto the leccy meter for the comms.

Less than 12 inchs away from it.

Its a crap system, bodged to try and make it less bodged, then broken.

Come Feb, it will be 12 months since somebody broke something in BG and my GAS SMETS1 stopped reporting home, if they can't get this pretty fundamental element working, what else is broken.

[Tinbum]

Less than 12 inchs away from it.

I asked about that for my father in law when the installer installed my meter. He said you can get 3 different 'dongles' to fit on the meter dependant upon the distance apart. The longest range would do about 10m with the house between.

[Tay]

Less than 12 inchs away from it.

I asked about that for my father in law when the installer installed my meter. He said you can get 3 different 'dongles' to fit on the meter dependant upon the distance apart. The longest range would do about 10m with the house between.

I take it back, its around 50cm to the trialiant WAN device.

I suspect BG tried to enabled the SMETS2 firmware to it (Which would be a long download, not too disimilar to sending commands to the moon rovers etc) and borked it. hence the SMETS1 leccy meter is working and the GAS isnt.

[Tay]

Just found a handy little site that confirms I'm still on these dodgy old SMETS1 crappy meters running in Smart mode, which is a contradiction in terms for my setup at least.

Just confirmed my Gas and Electricity meter or SMETS1 and its running in 'SMART' mode which isnt smart at all and not been migrated.
eg: cant move to many other suppliers without having to give manual reads (not big deal I have to do that with BG) - this would be a problem if I wanted to change suppliers to get SEG for example, yes I have a compatible meter but nobody else can read the damn thing.

Also seems that if they dont migrate it by the end of this year (all migrations 'should' have happened by the end of Dec 22), then they should be replacing the meters to SMETS2 meters.

If your meters have not been migrated then there is a risk that you will have to provide your energy supplier with meter readings, if they are unable to obtain the information directly from your meters. We are preparing for the closure of the DCC’s Migration Service and the transition to in-life operations. Energy suppliers have a licence enrolment obligation to have taken all reasonable steps to enrol SMETS1 meters onto the DCC network by 31 December 2022 or within 12 months of the meter becoming eligible. Separately they have a complementary replacement obligation to replace any un-enrolled SMETS1 devices with SMETS2 devices by 31 December 2023.

https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/