Smart Meters

[revjames]

Just had a letter through saying I should expect a scottish power visitor soon to inspect my property for potential installation of smart meters.

Not 100% sure I want one, not completely happy about the idea. These are being pushed out across the whole of the western world. They will have the ability to control appliances and monitor a lot of things about daily life. Am I alone in thinking there is a sinister side to all this? Not to mention quite a large emission of microwave energy.

Anyone had any dealings with this?

 

[betty swollocks]

All I know is you can decline their invitation supposedly without prejudice

They can only force you to have it installed if the said equipment is faulty

In the same way anybody who installs a water meter thinking it would cost effective can ask for it to be removed if they find the 'rates' system was cheaper

 

[pewter]

What a coincidence as i was talking to a customer today, which i thought was interesting enough to start a thread about.

The customer a Dry cleaners who is moving in the next month, we have been planning and chatting.

He shows me his existing installation. 3 phase 100A supply.

Customer-' I had one of those smart meters fitted. they gave me a £5000 bill after a couple months when it is normally £100 a month. They then phoned up and asked for a meter reading.As they had been estimating it '

the customer said he gave them what for as he thought thats what the smart meter was for. They said it was not working properly. 

They sent someone out to change it back to normal type as the 'Smart meter' was giving inaccurate readings

the customer asked the meter man about the Smart meters when he was changing it back to a normal type. 

the meter man told my customer  

'These smart meters are rubbish, inaccurate readings, not sending readings back to base, they will probably all end up in the bin like this one'

:slap

 

[betty swollocks]

Im working on a new build at the moment and from day 1 the meter has read 0000000100 with error in the top corner, it's a self build and it's been like that for 6 months, customer has paid one £28 bill but then received a letter to say they are in credit?!?....... And before anyone comments nope not guilty

 

[Evans Electric]

Good Grief  not another cock up from our rulers . 

First cock up ...( can we say cock up? ) as we all know ...no built-in isolator .

Now this .

Should be a nice earner for the mobile phone operators ,  one was fitted on my job the other week , the guy stood a gizmo by the meter , then wrote something down .  When asked, it was to find the best mobile signal ( TMobile)

 

[Blue Duck]

ANother white elephant but this one will keep on screwing us for many many years to come...

I don't know how they get away with it?

Just another step closer...........

 

[Marvo]

If you can decline to have the smart meter installed then I'd strongly suggest you do so. There's no value for the customer that can't be achieved with an owl monitor or equivalent and there's lot's of down sides and potential security issues (as per links in Canoeboy's post).

In a nutshell tell them to get knotted if you have the choice.

*Edit* I assume the inaccuracy issues are because of incorrect installation and setup probably due to inexperienced contractors. If they're correctly set up then being accurate is the one thing they are good at.

 

[Blue Duck]

Can you have the meter reverted? maybe soon you will be able to buy analogue meters in B&Q?

:coat

 

[revjames]

havent got a smart and will refuse to have one as long as I can! its going to cost £11bn to roll them out! dont tell me our bills wont be going up!

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Just had a letter through saying I should expect a scottish power visitor soon to inspect my property for potential installation of smart meters.

Not 100% sure I want one, not completely happy about the idea. These are being pushed out across the whole of the western world. They will have the ability to control appliances and monitor a lot of things about daily life. Am I alone in thinking there is a sinister side to all this? Not to mention quite a large emission of microwave energy.

Anyone had any dealings with this?

As I have said before on other related posts...

we've had smart gas & electric meters fitted since 2008..

No problems...  No estimated bills..... 

and can see off the little display thingy what we have consumed over past 24hrs / 7days / month & year..

As for monitoring things about daily life....

Well if anyone is worried about having some up to date data collected about them by a.n.other company...

Then I guess you should start by being more worried about...

1/ any mobile phones, especially if you have loads of apps running sucking your personal info.. not just tracking your movements around the country.

2/ any shop loyalty cards..

3/ any internet usage..

4/ any Non-Cash payments..

5/ any bank accounts..

6/ walking anywhere outside in the UK, as we have more CCTV cameras watching us than most countries...

7/ Keep off the electoral register..

8/ Don't register a ltd company...

9/ Don't purchase any web site domains.. 

10/ And don't have any children who you may have to register for schools, clubs etc..  

Far more personal details are already flying about in great data warehouses waiting to be mined by some geek with an App to work out when I may next need some toilet roll or if i need reminding that my Car Mot is due up six days before the wifes birthday and don't forget to order the special offer flower arrangement with complimentary wine ..  etc... etc... etc..  

than for me to be worried about a few bits of power consumption data for our house!!

:coat

 

[NozSpark]

My thoughts exactly

Things will have to become very grim for anyone to take that much interest in my life