Smart Meters

GillyFlower

Good afternoon - I am with OVO and being told I need to change my old meters that we have had for years and also have a tariff for Off Peak Storage Heaters.  If we don't change the our Off Peak will not work properly. 

We are in our 80's and it concerns me, even though the phone call this morning assures me I will have no problems when I explain -

1. Our internet is still on the old copper line and the speed is so minimal we have a reduced rate. (Most of the village have gone over to satellite internet.)
2. Our landline often drops and signal is poor - so sometimes no problems sometimes you get hissing, etc.
3. Our mobile signal is useless.  Our cottage has thick walls and to get a signal I have to go upstairs and for example if i buy something online, and it wants to send me a code, I have to go upstairs and hope it comes through.  More often than not I have to get it resent because the time has expired for the code that arrives.

She said it will run off a Radio Waves and it will have a small SIM card.

So my question is - how can I feel confident that this new change will help me?

I also have a letter from BT, saying I don't have to do anything yet, but our home phone service will change to Digital Voice.  It states it will run on a broadband service.  Our copper line????

Any thoughts would be appreciated - thank you

carl.waring

Smart Meters use their own network so your own broadband speed is irrelevant. So you should be fine.

bob2302

In Scotland and the North of England they use a separate longer-range radio system, but in the rest of the country O2 phone reception is a good indicator.

That said smart meters still work as dumb meters if they can't connect.

Qyburn

GillyFlower said:

I also have a letter from BT, saying I don't have to do anything yet, but our home phone service will change to Digital Voice.  It states it will run on a broadband service.  Our copper line????

Voice is really low bandwidth by recent standards, less than 100k (bits per second) even with overheads.

You can make the best of it by making sure there's no extension cabling on your phone line, use decent router and microfilter, and connect the router with a short cable to the master socket. We're at the end of 5.3km of copper with a zillion joints but the improvements I made at home pushed our speed up from 1800k to 4.5meg.

GillyFlower

Thank you all for your thoughts.  It helps me to be more informed than only having the advice from OVO.  I have only heard horrible stories of huge bills and trying to get your money back and they are unreliable.  The Digital Voice info is also very useful. 

victor2

GillyFlower said:

Thank you all for your thoughts.  It helps me to be more informed than only having the advice from OVO.  I have only heard horrible stories of huge bills and trying to get your money back and they are unreliable.  The Digital Voice info is also very useful. 

You do only hear the horror stories and "a man in the pub said..." tales. Everyone who has got a working smart meter doesn't really shout about it - it just means they no longer have to provide readings and are billed for what they have actually used.

bob2302

GillyFlower said:

 I have only heard horrible stories of huge bills and trying to get your money back and they are unreliable. 

Some of them are general billing problems where the meter is incidental, but the main problem is people just assuming that the meter is reporting usage. Some go for years on estimated bills. 

FreeBear

victor2 said:

GillyFlower said:

Thank you all for your thoughts.  It helps me to be more informed than only having the advice from OVO.  I have only heard horrible stories of huge bills and trying to get your money back and they are unreliable.  The Digital Voice info is also very useful. 

You do only hear the horror stories and "a man in the pub said..." tales. Everyone who has got a working smart meter doesn't really shout about it - it just means they no longer have to provide readings and are billed for what they have actually used.

I've had a smart meter for a few years now. Initially a SMETS1 that went dumb as soon as I changed supplier. Needed to provide monthly readings - Being able to access the readings via the in House Display meant I didn't have to go outside to take meter readings.
Now on a SMETS2 meter and have switched to a Time of Use tariff with Octopus (Tracker). Currently saving around 20% over the standard variable rate. Wouldn't have been able to do that with antique mechanical meters.

GillyFlower

What is an Octopus Tracker - is that something OVO would let us use?  Would it help with our Off Peak Tarriff - she did say she was going to offer something that matched the prices. Yes - we have the old meters I guess and been in our cottage for 30+ years.  Just concerned about change - I guess - used to giving our meter readings on time.

carl.waring

https://octopus.energy/smart/tracker/

I assume you have to be with Octopus to use it.