Smart Meter readings

DireEmblem

Hey, so I joined the smart meter club a couple weeks ago, my electricity is with Bulb and have just logged in to start having a look at my usage, to see if I could be more efficient and make some savings.

Turns out their default setting is to request smart readings monthly(how useful is that)!!!

Luckily their website says I can switch to half hourly, but would anyone know if you can upload readings from your smart meter directly to another device?

I'm looking to do my own review, and see if I am better on their smart Tariff before switching!

Robin9

If you do switch away from Bulb don't forget (as things stand) that you will loose your Smart functionality whether that be monthly or half-hourly.

Gerry1

DireEmblem wrote: »

Turns out their default setting is to request smart readings monthly(how useful is that)!!!

Monthly is all that's needed to generate an accurate bill. Half hourly means that an unknown number of people will know when you're at home, when you're on holiday, when you get up, when you go to bed, when you have a pee in the middle of the night etc, etc. The information can be sold and used for targeting.

What could possibly go wrong?

And as for Time Of Use tariffs: electricity will only be prohibitively expensive at times when you use it !

Robin9

At times I think you can have too much info.

Concentrate on keeping on track with your bills - keep your own readings, read and understand the bills.

PS Enjoy the novelty of your IHD for a couple of days then put it away in the back of a drawer like most people.

Carrot007

DireEmblem wrote: »

I'm looking to do my own review, and see if I am better on their smart Tariff before switching!

To what end, you know the costs already and know if anything else is therefore cheaper.


Using less is nothing to do with a smart tarrif unless you think a red bar will stop you doing things!


In which case expect to never heat your house, havea shower, boil the kettle, use an oven etc etc.


Savings are to be had in the areas that a smart m,eter will not bring your attention to, unless you are of the habit of say, leaving your oven on after use.


Yes having the HH data would be helpful to people finding savings, no I have not seen a supplier offer it in any decent way (a csv would be nice). By the way they never read the data more than once a day even if it makes HH readings, and even then it is probably still once a month (just downloads more).

PennineAcute

Robin9 wrote: »

At times I think you can have too much info.

Concentrate on keeping on track with your bills - keep your own readings, read and understand the bills.

PS Enjoy the novelty of your IHD for a couple of days then put it away in the back of a drawer like most people.

Cannot see why people say the IHD is a novelty, especially when you then say keep your own readings and understand the bills. The IHD (from smart or dumb smart meters) gives you accurate daily/monthly kWh usage, which is all the info you need to ensure that you are being billed correctly and to also ensure your DD is correct.

Gerry1

PennineAcute wrote: »

Cannot see why people say the IHD is a novelty, especially when you then say keep your own readings and understand the bills. The IHD (from smart or dumb smart meters) gives you accurate daily/monthly kWh usage, which is all the info you need to ensure that you are being billed correctly and to also ensure your DD is correct.

All of which could be obtained from a £30 energy monitor instead of a £450 smart meter installation. That's why they're so unpopular.

Similarly, smart meters won't alert you to savings available from Economy 7, better insulation, switching suppliers and tariffs etc. Do the sums - saving just £11 per year, how long does it take to recoup the £450?

PennineAcute

Gerry1 wrote: »

All of which could be obtained from a £30 energy monitor instead of a £450 smart meter installation. That's why they're so unpopular.

Similarly, smart meters won't alert you to savings available from Economy 7, better insulation, switching suppliers and tariffs etc. Do the sums - saving just £11 per year, how long does it take to recoup the £450?

I never said that they were value for money, but they are with us now, love them or loathe them. Just saying that they give all the info needed to ensure you are being billed correctly and if you DD is on target.

Going out and spending another £x on your suggestion is not really VFM, considering we have all paid for the new meters anyway.

Gerry1

I never said that anyone should go out and spend £x. But the stated benefits could have been obtained at about a fifteenth of the cost. Perhaps I should have said 'All of which could have been obtained from a £30 energy monitor...'

Given that the benefits are so negligible, the project might as well be wound up now. We certainly haven't finished paying for this fiasco via our bills: so far, only 14.3m devices have been fitted (mostly going dumb) out of 50m that need to be replaced.

PennineAcute

When has any Government scheme ever been on target?