Smart Meter

Why do you keep telling me what I already know? Read my post, it describes a half-way house option. I know what it connects to because I connected it!

Ok, I’m done you are heading to getting this thread shutdown, there’s no need for arguments it’s disrespectful to the OP.

After the OP the and following 3 posts all clearly referred to smart meters you posted "I fitted my own…". You didn’t state you fitted a monitor but created the impression you’d fitted a smart meter - something we know is not legal. Unfortunately, you omitted to explain to the OP that yours was a "half way house" measure rather than a smart meter and possibly confused the OP and others.

I hope the ambiguity has since been clarified.👍🏻

dont see a problem with a smart meter, well not totally true, the nice little monitor they give you to sit on your worksurface gets confused by the Solar panels so i put it in the draw, but using SSE i can go on line and they tell me how much power I have used per day, per 30 mins during any day and also a monthly total, so although i cannot see how much power we are using in real time, go on line and all will be revealed.

The web data always 24 hrs behind but dont care about that, the handy bit is being able to see the monthly total for both gas and lecce to see if our monthly direct debit payments are keeping in step. 

fitting was very easy, meter in broom cupboard just inside kitchen door, so out with spinning wheels in with digital meters, couple of hours to fit and set up, they send a reading every 30 minutes to SSE, been using them for 10 years, no problems thus far, never had the need to change supplier so not sure what would happen if we did.

Each supply has its own mains meter. However the energy used is displayed on one unit, inside the house if you want it,  showing both gas and electric. The display can be toggled to show either gas or electric but we leave ours to show a combined display, see picture below.

David

If you want to just keep an eye on energy consumption you can buy a small portable monitor which will give readings of power used. (We've tried one in the past but it's just basic common sense, turn things off etc.!) You can also buy Hive plugs and adaptors if you want to control energy via an app. There are all sorts of things out there to help with power and cost reduction.

Most of the energy provider web sites give information on reducing power consumption and subsequent costs. With big hikes in energy prices on the way it's going to be an ongoing topic of conversation (54% rise in April?)

The early SMETS 1 and i believe the SMETS 2 were not known for their reliability particularly, as mentioned above, in areas of poor signals.

Also should the householder wish to change supplier then there  were problems if not refusal by the new supplier meaning that the householder could be stuck on a dearer tariff.

As for the domestic monitor - who wants to spend time looking at that just to see how much a heating kettle of water costs you, cooking a roast dinner etc.?

Domestic monitors can be more sophisticated than that. For example, if you have a solar system and care about energy consumption some might find the following useful:

Access your energy usage from anywhere using your smartphone;

See how much energy you are generating, using and exporting in real time;

See the amount of energy your solar power system is generating;

Compare solar production to energy consumption;

Use historical data to track energy consumption and energy exported;

Get a view of electricity used in a set time period.

However, if you want a less sophisticated system with potentially unreliable comms because supplying a meter reading is a lot of trouble, there’s something out there for everyone.

The main reason for me opening this tread is, my energy supplier keeps Eon ( the company I was automatically transferred to when my company went bust) contacting me to have a Smart Meter fitted . But what they haven’t told me how they work , what work is required to fit them , how long it takes , how much disruption and whether there is an internal display . In fact they’ve told me nothing.So thanks everyone who have contributed to this thread.

As for the domestic monitor - who wants to spend time looking at that just to see how much a heating kettle of water costs you, cooking a roast dinner etc.?

I find it quite interesting so see what is happening. I recently experimented with the heating both in timings and temperatures. Just dropping the temperature by half a degree can make some saving on the amount of gas used, for example. Days of cheap energy are behind us and as those bills get bigger and bigger I suspect it will bring the various appliance use into sharper focus. Earlier some mentioned LED lights which offer a massive saving over their incandescent alternative. It has been suggested that Slow Cookers will make a return as they off low usage of electricity. The little monitors are just an available tool.

David