Smart Meters...

[JamesL]

Hi all, at the risk of this being utterly off topic I wondered if anyone had a smart meter fitted and if so what's the feedback? We've just had the enthusiastic note from the electricity supplier saying we're about to be 'upgraded'... There seems to be lots of recent press comment about rogue meters billing people thousands, rotten customer service and the main beneficiaries are the supply companies and Lowry Beck; and we have the right to refuse to have one fitted.

So I wondered what a more balanced response might be... Any thoughts? Ta as always, James

[popsky]

My mum and dad just had a new dumb meter installed, when asked about smart meters the guy said he wouldn't have one fitted at his house, don't know why but if the man who's only job is fitting meters says no then I think that's good enough for me

[milleplod]

We were 'upgraded' last year - I still have to submit meter readings though! I think that might be because our current (see what I did there.... ) supplier, Iresa, might not be smart-meter compatible. Anyway, no problems at all with the readings, they're accurate as far as I can tell.

Pete

[Britisherspy]

Mum in laws had them, only thing is you can't see the meter wheel turning, you have to press a button to view the load. So you can't see the leccy meter going backwards on a sunny day , just says -xxkw/hr

[ianbcr]

We had smart meters fitted last year through british gas for both gas and electric after going through Martin Lewis`s site and saving over £400 a yr, the meters send readings every half hour but you can change that to what you want, Had an email from them in December saying they were cutting my monthly bill again.

[JamesL]

Interesting, thanks all. While there do seem to be issues with them, nothing sells like bad news so I guess that's what the press are majoring on. I'll keep looking, but it looks like they should be 'mostly harmless' in the short term. Longer term they certainly enable the power companies to charge based on demand, like Uber, so one to watch out for...

J