smart meters

btengineer

I had smart meters installed by british gas but have since changed supplier and now the display is blank. The HAN and WAN lights are on.
Am I paying for the energy that this is using when I receive no benefit?

AndyPK

WhAt energy?

PixelPound

The smart meter has been dumbed down by changing over as BG have switched off the smart functions. You now have a dumb meter that you need to provide readings regularly to your supplier.

matelodave

afaik any energy taken by the smart meter is derived from the supply, before it goes through the metering ciruitry so no you dont end up pay for it

MeterMan

btengineer
smart meters
I had smart meters installed by british gas but have since changed supplier and now the display is blank. The HAN and WAN lights are on.
Am I paying for the energy that this is using when I receive no benefit?

Yes it does use energy, but it is wired up on the incoming side of the meter so you won't pay for it.

YESTERDAY 9:41 PM
nic_c The smart meter has been dumbed down by changing over as BG have switched off the smart functions. You now have a dumb meter that you need to provide readings regularly to your supplier.

Oh no, the horrors. You could have written this more negatively if you tried.

badmemory

MeterMan wrote: »

Oh no, the horrors. You could have written this more negatively if you tried.

Yes indeed, nic could have written that this ex-smart meter is much harder to read manually than the old meter it replaced.

AndyPK

Are they?

Why are they more difficult to read manually ?

Raxiel

AndyPK wrote: »

Are they?

Why are they more difficult to read manually ?

Depends on the model, and what they are replacing, but yes they are.

The old mechanical dial type (I mean the string of numbers, not that clockface nonsense - that is still the worst) were easy, if you had a bit of light you just look at it and read it.
The newer digital ones (and this applies to some non-smart digital meters too) only display the number when you press a button, and might only display it for a limited period of time. If it's one without a backlight you might have to press the button while also holding a torch and a pen because LCD's don't work as well in dim light as white paint on black plastic (or vice versa).

Worse, some meters (like mine) require you to hit the right button on a fiddly keypad, then wait for irrelevant info to scroll past, then note the number before it disappears, then wait for it to scroll through other info before you can get the second register (if you have one) or to repeat the number to check you got it right. All with a display that has to be read bang on square because the slightest angle means you can't tell a 4 from a 9

It's not 'walking 8 miles to the well every day' difficult, but it is tedious, and it was one of the reasons I was willing to pay an extra £3 a month to switch back to E.ON so they could re-activate the smart functionality.