Forums Forums Local News Smart meters

Just had these installed. We had a smart electricity meter but it proved incompatible with the new gas meter so both had to be replaced.

My motive is selfish. I want to avoid the chore of meter reading. It is a little alarming to see the cost of staying warm clicking up, penny by penny, but I expect we'll soon learn to ignore it.

Has anyone else experience of these things and is prepared to share their experience of them?

Ex, you started a thread about smart meters back in December post 1050361. We have one for electric which I unplugged after a week or so as it meant nothing but it does send readings, Two companies have failed to install smart gas meters as it would involve bending the pipe and the people they sent are not registered for such work.

Software on British Gas one is ridiculously buggy.

If the gas meter stops talking to the hub, the electricity caries on reading on display unit but you can't top up the electricity over the smart meter system (ie online nor from the display unit), you are back to entering long codes using two buttons on the meter itself.

The display unit is also either buggy or programmed by an alien, when it says its displaying daily consumption its actually showing weekly consumption (or it may be vice versa) and the same with all the other units of time.

We've found no reason for the gas meter to stop communicating, its not related to rain, temperature, time of day, position of other objects or anything, it just randomly works or doesn't work when it wants. It can be off for three days, next time its off for half an hour. A lot of people are reporting this problem.

There are loads of budgetary monitoring facilities built into the display unit but no instructions on what they mean are how to use the plethora of settings.

Display unit is ridiculously light and falls over easily, it needs power all the time so has to have the power lead which is enough to drag it off a smooth surface. Why there isn't a facility to run it off battery I have no idea, even if it was just for 10 minutes at a time so you could go round to switch things on and off to see how much power they draw.

Hub loses its mobile signal sometimes.

Think its this combination:-
Landis+Gyr E470 electricity meter.
Landis+Gyr G370 gas meter
Trilliant SEAP-2000-V Hub (may be 2001)
British Gas Smart Energy Monitor (rectangular one)

I have both electric and gas installed by British gas or there agent, I can not fault the workmanship which involved new pipe in a very tight space.
As for the monitor that sits in a draw i was becoming a Grinch complaining about the use of side / table lights currently 11 on every night.

just switched from scottish power to together energy to save £400+ a year and avoid the scottish power continuous phone calls about getting smart meter "as we are in your area"

Ours was supplied by a cheap power company called Toto, They used as contractor for the installation. I usually switch every year to the cheapest supplier I can find, so hopefully, they will all be able to use the same meters.

I think the various companies cooperate on data from meters as the old company was able to work with the old smart electricity meter installed by the previous lot.

Apart from ordering Mrs E. to "Press button B on the gas meter" whilst I was out - which she failed to find and ignored the order after which it reset its count of how much we had spent in the first few hours it seems to be working OK. We pay for both fuels by direct debit, but what I would really like is a monthly bill covering what I've used in that month with the company taking just that amount. I have yet to find a cheap company that will do that.

I have never been to BT as they seem to be expensive. Usually, I find new companies are keen to get the business and offer lower prices. I switch routinely once a year at least.

That will come and is one of the objectives of the smart meter program, they will eventually be varying the rate depending on time of day and load on the system to encourage domestic users to use off-peak hours where possible.

As long as we don't end up with something like the triad system for industrial users whereby the overall rate you pay is set by your consumption at unspecified peak times which is wholly unfair.

British Gas have appeared to have updated the devices remotely in the last few days, unfortunately in this process all historical data has been lost from the smart meter.

One improvement is that when the gas signal is lost it doesn't wipe out the other functionality BUT, its not apparent now if the Gas signal is down or there is no gas being used.

Well even more madnesses on the smart meter today.

Electricity disappeared on the smart monitor, tried to do a manual top-up on the E470 electricity meter but the "B" button doesn't appear to be working so no top-up possible. Luckily there is quite a bit of credit on the meter.

Reset the smart monitor and both gas and electricity came back up.

But something has gone way wrong with the gas as it thinks the usage was £26 yesterday which is impossible. If there wasn't more than £26 of credit on the meter, the gas would have been cut-off!

Quote DD" If there wasn't more than £26 of credit on the meter, the gas would have been cut-off!"

I think Sundays can be different with some meters, they are kinder to you and dont cut you off on a Sunday (or during the night other times for that matter) but give you a bit Sunday friendly credit to get you through the whole day. (Not that that explains your meters odd behaviour )