What is the point of the smart meter monitor?

[Mister Banks]

A smart meter won’t save us much, if anything

I will have to take your word on that as I don’t know how much energy you use or what you pay per kWh.

 

[Mister Banks]

Present SVT is 27.39p and 7.35p. We are paying 14.83p (-47%) and 3.44p (-53%), today's rate. That alone is a good enough reason to have smart meters.

Same here just a bit more on electric

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

A smart meter won’t save us much, if anything

I find that almost impossible to believe, unless you live off-grid.

Are you paying close to the SVT?

 

[Murdochcat]

I find that almost impossible to believe, unless you live off-grid.

Are you paying close to the SVT?

Depends on what the sun is doing. Yesterday most of our electricity was free

 

[ericmark]

I was talking about the monitor not pros and cons of the smart meter, and I have to admit until I found the instructions, the smart meter display was telling me a lot less, but the same could be said for the solar software instructions, only today did I find out by clicking on the four icons at top, they show more.

As to it showing useful information that is another question. I expected there to be an on line display for the Smart meter same as for solar.

I know we wanted the ability to monitor my late father-in-laws smart meter, if we can see spikes which relate to kettle being used, then we know he is OK without ringing him up, or going around. He died before we ever got it set up, and now wonder if it could have been set up.

I have seen pictures like this and had assumed I could view the smart meter with phone, tablet, or PC as well as the little display unit. As said since I have solar software doing the same thing no real problem, but due to solar the display tells me very little, it just shows what electric is being charged at. It does not help identify power using equipment.

 

[Mister Banks]

I was talking about the monitor not pros and cons of the smart meter, and I have to admit until I found the instructions, the smart meter display was telling me a lot less, but the same could be said for the solar software instructions, only today did I find out by clicking on the four icons at top, they show more. View attachment 334453
As to it showing useful information that is another question. I expected there to be an on line display for the Smart meter same as for solar.

I know we wanted the ability to monitor my late father-in-laws smart meter, if we can see spikes which relate to kettle being used, then we know he is OK without ringing him up, or going around. He died before we ever got it set up, and now wonder if it could have been set up.

I have seen pictures like this View attachment 334454and had assumed I could view the smart meter with phone, tablet, or PC as well as the little display unit. As said since I have solar software doing the same thing no real problem, but due to solar the display tells me very little, it just shows what electric is being charged at. It does not help identify power using equipment.

Does your energy provided have an app?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I know we wanted the ability to monitor my late father-in-laws smart meter, if we can see spikes which relate to kettle being used, then we know he is OK without ringing him up, or going around. He died before we ever got it set up, and now wonder if it could have been set up.

I suspect doing that now, might be a possibility. Back in the day, you would have been able to check on line, the data with a resolution of 30 minutes, but you would not have been able to review it until the early hours, of the following day. If my understanding of the Octopus mini is correct, then that is able to instantaneously upload data, with a 10 second resolution, which you could subsequently check online for anomalies.

 

[ericmark]

Oh dear, it gets worse, after reading looked and found the British Gas app, and I can now view my electricity use, upto two days ago. What the good is that?

 

[blup]

Had to get a smart meter installed to get payment for export, and when installed given a little monitor, it shows View attachment 334208View attachment 334209 most of the time, from when sun comes up, until battery is discharged except for when having a shower, or battery is full, with the latter it does show export, but little I can do with the info, and shortly after battery is fully discharged we go to bed, so the meter shows our power use for around 10-20% of the time in Winter, once summer is here, it will only show export, which is more down to sun shine than any appliance used.

And in the evening we are hardly using much extra power which we could turn off, leaving lights on will not show up, plug in monitors may show how much the tumble drier is using View attachment 334211 and I can see looking at the solar panel monitor View attachment 334212 my wife selected a day with loads of solar power to do the washing. But that's using the solar panel software, nothing to do with smart meter or the smart meter monitor, we see all the adds, and as said before clapping hands will not turn lights on/off, need to say hey google turn the lights on/off to do that, the meter clearly has a use, it allows payment for export and multi tariffs, but the monitor, no wifi so will not connect to PC or phone, and it can hardly train people how to reduce energy use when for 90% of the time it is not showing any power use, or we are in bed sleeping.

Yes it shows me when the battery has fully discharged, but that is hardly going to change what I do, now a monitor on the TV stand which says when battery is 80% charged, yes that would help, but the monitor may help if we had mains gas, but with just electric does next to nothing it seems.

If you need to use electricity you use it, a meter makes no difference after the novelty has worn off. Likewise the move towards cheaper electricity at off peak hours within the peak, you are not going to put off boiling the kettle if you want a cup of tea.

 

[JohnD]

I have monitors that enable me to save electricity, because I have solar panels and in some cases I can schedule my usage for times when they are generating.

I have enough experience now to make an estimate by looking out of the window

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

If you need to use electricity you use it, a meter makes no difference after the novelty has worn off. Likewise the move towards cheaper electricity at off peak hours within the peak, you are not going to put off boiling the kettle if you want a cup of tea.

To a large extent quite true, but there are lots of energy consumers, use of which can be delayed until low cost times. EV's can be charged, washing, driers run when it's especially cheap - none of which are available without the smart. A smart meter also opens the door, to the near half price tariff which I am on, without having to consume at any particular times of day.

 

[Mister Banks]

Oh dear, it gets worse, after reading looked and found the British Gas app, and I can now view my electricity use, upto two days ago. What the good is that?

Sounds like you have lucked out with your energy supplier. I am with Octopus and the app tells me the energy I am using in half hour increments.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Oh dear, it gets worse, after reading looked and found the British Gas app, and I can now view my electricity use, upto two days ago. What the good is that?

The IHD shows instant data for electricity use, the gas they say, updated every 30 minutes - though mine seems much more frequent than that. Suppliers usually get the previous days consumption, arriving with them the next day, soon after midnight in my experience, when it appears on your account. If you want more detail than the IHD, you can buy gadgets to feed it to a spreadsheet, and Octopus supply something similar, but even quicker to present the data.

What more do you want?

 

[ericmark]

I have all the meters I need, however surprised at the on line reader, this shows two days ago second one is the solar software for same day which also shows feed in. There is a discrepancy 7.76 kWh to 8.6 kWh in my favour so no complaints there. It was a rather bad day for solar. I have yet to get the forms for export, likely tomorrow, and I need to have a look at variable tariffs, I see British gas do them, it seems if we use them for both import and export we get a better rate. If I get a cheap night rate then I can charge battery over night so in the morning I will use battery until the sun comes around I can use battery, as panels are aimed more for evening that morning.

 

[ericmark]

Oh dear, it gets worse, after reading looked and found the British Gas app, and I can now view my electricity use, up to two days ago. What the good is that?

I can't believe it, the phone still shows 26th Feb 2024 as latest reading. 7 days delay! OK don't need it as my solar software shows it all, but rather pointless being so far behind.