How is a smart metre connected?

Yes i will dittot that one. The old ones were quite a clever device in their heyday. I love some of this old school mechanical and electrical engineering. A motor in effect runs the timing but also winds a clockwork spring so on a power cut tge clockwork mechanism keeps the clock in time and once power returns it rewinds tge spring ready for next power cut. Not sure of spring power time cycle before depleted but it was a few hours though. Maybe 4 or even 8 at a pure guess. Quite ingenious in my humble opinion. In the days before modern electronics and computers just some good mechanical principles and maybe electrics (relats etc) or simple electronics (transistors perhaps) and they built some good stuff and it lasted well too.
Wind up clockwork record player with a centrifugal governor and your records played at a good steady speed and some with no electrics of any kind yet they worked, and worked very well.
Edwardian, Victorian and 1960s engineers knew a thing or two.
 
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Ps it would not surprise me completely if one day we discover that Isaac Newton, john Loggie Baird and I K Brunnel etc etc were all actually Greek, you never knows :giggle:
 
Maybe my age, but I could read the old meters with ease, the new smart meter, I really don't know what I need to read. Some bits OK standing charge 059 and tariff price 3131 I know where the decimal point should go so fine. But what Rate 01 Act ImP or Rate 02 Act ImP means I really don't know, I see 478 kWh and 326 kWh I also see Total Act Import 805 kWh which seems to be the two added together, but which is off peak and which is peak not a clue.

The IHD gives import and export, but does not say what the off peak or on peak use is, I don't even know if charged using UTC or DST.
 
Maybe my age, but I could read the old meters with ease, the new smart meter, I really don't know what I need to read. Some bits OK standing charge 059 and tariff price 3131 I know where the decimal point should go so fine. But what Rate 01 Act ImP or Rate 02 Act ImP means I really don't know, I see 478 kWh and 326 kWh I also see Total Act Import 805 kWh which seems to be the two added together, but which is off peak and which is peak not a clue.

The IHD gives import and export, but does not say what the off peak or on peak use is, I don't even know if charged using UTC or DST.
You're not as old as me are you Eric?
 
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Had E.on ring today about changing the Radio Teleswitch out for something - I asked about a mechanical time switch to be met with dumb silence.. Eventually she spoke then started talking about E7, I pointed out the house is on E10. (7 hours at night, 3 hours in the afternoon in theory but in recent times I know we get 10 hours a day but at very odd times - the NSH switches have indicators in and they do come on at odd times most noticeably between 10AM and 4PM for periods of about 2 hours at a time, then early evening for another 2-3 hours and then a period in the early morning. Guess that is load balancing but it's great for keeping the house warm when it's wanted!) After I started arguing the point she just ended the call abruptly.

If they do fit a stupid meter then I think they are going to have problems, the industrial meter was changed to a radio one some years ago and that needed an external antenna to work.
 
Had E.on ring today about changing the Radio Teleswitch out for something
The 'something' is a smart meter.
Radio teleswitches will cease to operate in the near future, and no supplier has fitted mechanical timeswitches for decades.

In any event, doing nothing is not a valid option.

 
1) Can be switched off remotely, or converted to pay as you go.
For smart meter.
1) It allows one to have a split tariff.
2) Allows you to be paid for export.
5) Can give you access to a variety of tariffs, cheaper than the basic tariff.
 
If they do fit a stupid meter then I think they are going to have problems, the industrial meter was changed to a radio one some years ago and that needed an external antenna to work.

That I think worked via Long Wave, the Smart Meters use the mobile mast network.
 
That I think worked via Long Wave, the Smart Meters use the mobile mast network.
They do - and if they ever try to fit a 'smart' meter in my house, I imagine that, 'smart' though it may be, the meter will probably struggle as much as our mobile phones do to get a usable signal anywhere inside the house :)
 
Maybe my age, but I could read the old meters with ease, the new smart meter, I really don't know what I need to read. Some bits OK standing charge 059 and tariff price 3131 I know where the decimal point should go so fine. But what Rate 01 Act ImP or Rate 02 Act ImP means I really don't know, I see 478 kWh and 326 kWh I also see Total Act Import 805 kWh which seems to be the two added together, but which is off peak and which is peak not a clue.

Your old meter had one, or perhaps two rows of digits. Your smart meter simply goes ways beyond that in providing you with very much more data - what's not to like?
 
The 'something' is a smart meter.
Radio teleswitches will cease to operate in the near future, and no supplier has fitted mechanical timeswitches for decades.

In any event, doing nothing is not a valid option.

I know that they want it to be a 'Smart meter' - I would prefer it to be changed to a mechanical time switch, which BTW they do still fit in certain circumstances. Like JohnW2 above I'm pretty certain it will struggle to work. As I commented the industrial one needs an external antenna to report my usage back; that sits next to the domestic meter. I found the whole conversation frustrating 'cause they have no idea what the house provision is.
 

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