Afraid I have equally limited sympathy for landlords. Sorry.
You can say that again, I worked in the industry. I’m not convinced the privatisation of national utilities was a good idea.
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I’m not interested until at least all the kinks are ironed out, so I told them to leave me alone and they did…
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It was a condition on me getting the better tariff.
My main concern was that they might bugger up my installation. Passed without incident, 2 years ago.
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‘SSE abroad’ rang me today while I was working, ‘we have SMART meter installers in you area’. ‘Sorry I’m working and not interested currently’ was my reply. ‘Can I ring you back?’, ‘No, I’m not interested and they’re not compulsory AFAIK please don’t’ I said. Bet they will. My heart rate was up by around 30 bpm for the next hour according to my Apple Watch - interesting the effects minor stressors like this have on our physiology. Not sure 166 bpm was wise in mid 50’s yesterday during a tennis session either.
I had a smart meter installed just over 2-years ago, as it was a term of the contract. They were SMETS1 and due to faults I have had 2 electric meters and 3 gas meters fitted. In the end they were changed to SMETS2 models, which so far have worked fine but not the IHD sometimes stops seeing the electric meter until the power is removed (resetting the IHD). I changed providers recently to Octopus, as I wanted their Go product to charge my car cheaply overnight. At least the switch went well and within 2-weeks I was switched over to the Go service, which gives a 5p rate between 12:30 and 04:30. Certainly cut my electric bills down!
However, it is clear the SM rollout was rushed, and should have never started without the development of the SMETS2 meter that allows easy transfer of providers. It should also be noted the meters only have a 10-year life, so not exactly Eco friendly.
If you install the Greenely app you can monitor your usage of the smart meters on your phone in the Uk.
I have a Chameleon IHD which uses Samsung SmartThings. Gives lots of useful info.
Phil
The SMETS1 are firmware upgradable. My has so Bulb now get readings from it. I think a new IHD like the Chameleon would then improve matters. Being able to use cheap electric for cars and washing machines has benefits.
Phi
Actually mostly SMETS1 meters aren’t firmware upgradable to SMETS2 because, for a start, the hardware is different. But most SMETS1 meters can now be enrolled into the central DCC system because of changes there, so most users can change supplier without losing smart functionality.
Well that is what I understood, and I did read that there was some sort of remote upgrade (search for upgrade smets1 to smets2). If it doesn’t work they provide a new SM.
@XMB , I also understood that the 10 year life was to do with the battery. But surely they can replace that!
Phil
Well after 18 months, we have a working Smart Meter again. The Technician from Morrison Energy Services agreed that the comms module had failed but because the meters and IHD come as a set and are recorded as such in the system he’d need to replace everything. Effectively it was a new install again, so he replaced the Electric meter/comms module, Gas meter and IHD. He was going to change the Henley block splitting the meter tails for Lucy blocks but I asked him to leave that in place. He also replaced my old 100A supply fuse with a nice shiny new one and checked and tightened all the connections including those in the Henley and Earth blocks. A very thorough job.
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