Smart Meters

oldandwizend

carl.waring said:

Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed; except death and taxes. If that were the measure, no-one would have anything.

Agreed but surely there must be some form of fallback in case of firmware update failure so that customer and/or supplier are immediately aware of the failure and hopefully minimise any potential detrimental outcome. In the example given earlier of a flooded residence it would make an interesting conversation between one's insurer and the utility company as to who should pay!

On the subject of batteries, no matter how long they last, did I not read somewhere that there is no warning of failure. That being the case there should be an automatic scheduled battery change well before an anticipated expiry date as, obviously, it could take days, if not weeks,to arrange a replacement plus the need for the customer to be available. Maybe a SMETS3 could be designed so customer could change battery and supplier could provide a spare battery replaced on a, say, annual basis.

And in my 5 years working in Customer Service for one of the former "big six" I never had anyone call to ask for their battery replacing.

Judging by some of the comments being made maybe there are quite a few people who need their battery changed!

Gerry1

Dolor said:

Gerry1 said:

@murphydavid Apparently the battery can't be removed from the meter when it runs out, the whole shebang has to be replaced.  Just another example of the colossal waste of money caused by the smart meter fiasco.

Similarly, a mountain of scrapped meters and batteries won't be good for the environment.

If that was the case, then why does the technical manual for my GWi G4 SMETS2 gas meter state:
Quote: Primary Battery: 3.6V Lithium Thionyl-Chloride (can be replaced in-service) Unquote

And, according to smartme.co.uk:

Quote: The gas meter battery can be replaced by a smart meter installer Unquote

The manual may say that it can be replaced, but that doesn't mean that it will be replaced.

Several forumites have reported that the whole meter has been replaced when a battery fails.

murphydavid

carl.waring said:

Because Gerry1 is usually wrong?
And in my 5 years working in Customer Service for one of the former "big six" I never had anyone call to ask for their battery replacing.

Not surprised to hear that.
Gas is cut off without prior warning and nothing on the smart meter to say why. You call (if you can) and say "I'm all soapy in the shower and the water ran cold and no pilot light on my boiler. Don't seem to have any gas".
Not surprised at all that they don't say "can you replace my battery". Especially if they have never considered they might have one.
I hope you are not saying you never had anyone tell you they don't seem to have any gas.
Also meters having batteries is relatively new and initially were scarce. As you are using the word "former" indicating it was in the past - which 5 years were they?
Just spent 7 months exchanging emails with a variety of Customer Service workers in Shell Energy and Utility Point and guess what they inferred most of that time?
I or mainly the other company was always wrong. I know who were wrong.

matelodave

murphydavid said:

I hear from a number of sources that batteries in smart gas meters are not monitored by anyone and the meter gives no warning of the battery getting low. This always seems to result in the gas supply being cut off unexpectedly and remaining off till a maintenance engineer arrives after a day or so.
I find it strange to hear people say that you need an engineer to change a battery. Its like the light bulb joke.
So save money get rid of gas meter reader man. read it yourself. then get smart and Employ an engineer to change batteries. D'oh!
Rather go back to have a meter reader man thanks.
I don't know if the most recent design of smart gas meters do this but if they do its a bad bad design and needs sorting.
I believe they come with a monitor that sits in your kitchen that tells you all sorts of amazing energy saving prompts but can't tell you your battery level.
I have all sorts of control devices and bluetooth devices with apps (some very cheap to buy). Gas fire control. Thermostat. Plant watering probe. Heart rate monitor. etc on and on and every one of them has a little battery monitor on the hand device or app page. Hm when I think my TV zapper doesn't. Its the only one.
If any of them was to loose battery power the effects are small compared to having my gas cut off. And with all of them I can charge or replace the battery myself but it seems you can't do that with a smart gas meter.

You must be hearing from the wrong sources then (the anti-meter brigade perhaps?)

The specification for SMETS2 isto provide a low battery signal see here
4.3.5.1 Battery capacity
Where GSME includes a battery, it shall be capable of estimating the remaining Battery capacity in days (to facilitate replacement of the Battery before it is fully depleted) and storing the estimate in Remaining Battery Capacity(4.5.4.16).
 If the Remaining Battery Capacity(4.5.4.16) falls below ten percent of the nominal Battery capacity GSME shall be capable of: i. generating an entry to that effect in the Event Log(4.5.4.8); and ii. sending an Alert to that effect via its HAN Interface.

Whether the supplier does anything about it is another matter. One can assume that if the battery dies, the meter stops communicating with the HAN which should also be a bit of a signal that summat is wrong. However, based on the tales of woe that abound on this forum some (most) suppliers dont seem to be all that bothered about gas meters giving up and not doing what they are supposed to.

to save you hearing from the wrong sources and spreading disinformation in the future you can get yourself fully up to speed by reading this - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/68898/smart_meters_equipment_technical_spec_version_2.pdf

You might even deduce that they cant actually tell what sort of tumble dryer, electric kettle or tooth brush is in use as they only store info in half hourly chunks which is far to coarse to evalute what is in use

carl.waring

murphydavid said:

carl.waring said:

Because Gerry1 is usually wrong?
And in my 5 years working in Customer Service for one of the former "big six" I never had anyone call to ask for their battery replacing.

Not surprised to hear that.
Gas is cut off without prior warning and nothing on the smart meter to say why. You call (if you can) and say "I'm all soapy in the shower and the water ran cold and no pilot light on my boiler. Don't seem to have any gas".
Not surprised at all that they don't say "can you replace my battery". Especially if they have never considered they might have one.
I hope you are not saying you never had anyone tell you they don't seem to have any gas.
Also meters having batteries is relatively new and initially were scarce. As you are using the word "former" indicating it was in the past - which 5 years were they?
Just spent 7 months exchanging emails with a variety of Customer Service workers in Shell Energy and Utility Point and guess what they inferred most of that time?
I or mainly the other company was always wrong. I know who were wrong.

"I hope you are not saying you never had anyone tell you they don't seem to have any gas."
Can't remember the last time. Didn't happen often.
"As you are using the word "former" indicating it was in the past - which 5 years were they?"
Finished April 30 just gone.

Gerry1

matelodave said:

murphydavid said:

I hear from a number of sources that batteries in smart gas meters are not monitored by anyone and the meter gives no warning of the battery getting low. This always seems to result in the gas supply being cut off unexpectedly and remaining off till a maintenance engineer arrives after a day or so.
I find it strange to hear people say that you need an engineer to change a battery. Its like the light bulb joke.
So save money get rid of gas meter reader man. read it yourself. then get smart and Employ an engineer to change batteries. D'oh!
Rather go back to have a meter reader man thanks.
I don't know if the most recent design of smart gas meters do this but if they do its a bad bad design and needs sorting.
I believe they come with a monitor that sits in your kitchen that tells you all sorts of amazing energy saving prompts but can't tell you your battery level.
I have all sorts of control devices and bluetooth devices with apps (some very cheap to buy). Gas fire control. Thermostat. Plant watering probe. Heart rate monitor. etc on and on and every one of them has a little battery monitor on the hand device or app page. Hm when I think my TV zapper doesn't. Its the only one.
If any of them was to loose battery power the effects are small compared to having my gas cut off. And with all of them I can charge or replace the battery myself but it seems you can't do that with a smart gas meter.

 If the Remaining Battery Capacity(4.5.4.16) falls below ten percent of the nominal Battery capacity GSME shall be capable of: i. generating an entry to that effect in the Event Log(4.5.4.8); and ii. sending an Alert to that effect via its HAN Interface.
Whether the supplier does anything about it is another matter. One can assume that if the battery dies, the meter stops communicating with the HAN which should also be a bit of a signal that summat is wrong. However, based on the tales of woe that abound on this forum some (most) suppliers dont seem to be all that bothered about gas meters giving up and not doing what they are supposed to.

Well, it seems that in @Matthaus73's case the system didn't work when the battery went below the trigger level: the gas meter went haywire, claiming stratospheric usage even when shut off, but the energy company didn't want to know, even when repeatedly challenged. A mechanical gas meter couldn't do that.

matelodave said:

murphydavid said:

I hear from a number of sources that batteries in smart gas meters are not monitored by anyone and the meter gives no warning of the battery getting low. This always seems to result in the gas supply being cut off unexpectedly and remaining off till a maintenance engineer arrives after a day or so.
I find it strange to hear people say that you need an engineer to change a battery. Its like the light bulb joke.
So save money get rid of gas meter reader man. read it yourself. then get smart and Employ an engineer to change batteries. D'oh!
Rather go back to have a meter reader man thanks.
I don't know if the most recent design of smart gas meters do this but if they do its a bad bad design and needs sorting.
I believe they come with a monitor that sits in your kitchen that tells you all sorts of amazing energy saving prompts but can't tell you your battery level.
I have all sorts of control devices and bluetooth devices with apps (some very cheap to buy). Gas fire control. Thermostat. Plant watering probe. Heart rate monitor. etc on and on and every one of them has a little battery monitor on the hand device or app page. Hm when I think my TV zapper doesn't. Its the only one.
If any of them was to loose battery power the effects are small compared to having my gas cut off. And with all of them I can charge or replace the battery myself but it seems you can't do that with a smart gas meter.

You might even deduce that they cant actually tell what sort of tumble dryer, electric kettle or tooth brush is in use as they only store info in half hourly chunks which is far to coarse to evalute what is in use

Well, that doesn't stop Onzo stating that from a very thin stream of energy consumption data, they deliver significant business value, i.e. highly targeted sales campaigns and monetising the customer, based on the customer's identified character.  Yuk !

oldandwizend

There was I thinking that a move to smart meters might improve the customer experience when dealing with utility companies. Judging by some of the horror stories on this forum it looks like some companies still have no idea about customer service. Am I surprised? No!

carl.waring

I wouldn't take posts on a forum as any kind of indication. People are always more likely to post to complain than compliment.

bobbob052

Last October (2020) we changed our dual fuel supplier, after checking energy prices, to Eon.  We were required to have a smart meter with our new supplier.  This was arranged by them and a couple of months later Morrisons Utilities came and did the work.  When completed they called for another colleague to check their work and our smart meter was working.

In January we noticed our lights occasionally flickering, like a drop in voltage.  It got worse over time as we sometimes heard our fridge and freezer stopping and restarting.

One dark and cold night mid-January all out electricity went off at 5pm, just as I was about to get dinner.  My husband checked the obvious things then phoned Western Power.  Fortunately they were not too busy and arrived about two hours later and after an hour or so repaired the fault.  

Morrisons Utility who were employed by Eon had not properly connected a cable in our external electricity supply box and it had been arcing.

All this evening time we had no heating, or lighting or food.  By the time it was sorted it was almost 9pm so too late to begin cooking dinner.  We are both “pension age” and had been very worried about what had caused the power failure and how it would be repaired.

For all this we were offered £10 compensation.  Eon couldn’t have cared less!!!!!l

embers123

People are likely to complain on these posts but its still a good indication of the types of problems people face with the services and devices