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Originally Posted by Taf
Someone, somewhere, is getting a big backhander for pushing these "smart" meters. I read our meters every week, using a triangular key, my eyes, a pen and paper. A damned sight cheaper than a smart meter. Would a "smart" meter change my energy use habits? Not all all, as with most people I reckon.
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The cost of making a meter "smart" is negligible these days compared to the cost of the meter itself.
Plus, you read your meters every week? How long does it take you to do? 2 minutes? Which adds up to, 2 hours a year or so?
Two hours of my time is worth more than the incremental cost of a smart meter, oddly enough.
---------- Post added at 21:31 ---------- Previous post was at 21:25 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhyds
My problem with smart meters is they're trying to be too smart. All the metering/supply company needs to know is how much electricity you've used for billing purposes. I wouldn't mind that being relayed back via powerline networking or the meter's own mobile connection (if available).
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Some say it's a problem, some say it's an advantage. Because of how flexible general-purpose computing chips are these days, once you have the hardware in place you can do just about anything (including remotely upgrading and adding more features). If the capability is there, might as well use it any way you can.
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I'd grudgingly accept a connection to my broadband, but only if I was to have full control of the meter's networking settings.
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Smart meters are unlikely to ever use your home broadband for anything other than backup, and most likely not even that.