British Gas smart meter in house display no longer working & B Gas not doing anything about it

EssexHebridean

badmemory said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the way that energy companies try to pressurise people into taking smart meters.  They should be forced into ensuring that the customer has a way of accessing the info without the useless IHD before they are allowed to leave the premises.  The basis of this whole smart meter thing was supposed to be that both parties would know exactly where they were & not just the energy company.

They do, you can look at the meter readings.

True but as the smart meters I have seen are much harder to read that isn't always a viable possibility.

If you have an existing old style meter and it is in a place where it is difficult to read, it is true that a replacement SM may well also be difficult to read - this is the fault of the placement rather than the meter though. I could just as easily sing the praises of SMs on the basis that my smart gas meter where I live now is far easier to read than the "stupid" gas meter where I lived before - it's true that it is, but it's nothing to do with the meter itself! 

If you can easily read your existing meters, then there would be no reason why you would find a smart meter any harder to read - yes, gas meters do require a button press to "wake up" the screen, but we have disabled users on here who cheerfully agree that it's simple enough even if it can't be reached directly, to press the button with something like a pencil, or even if it's more of a stretch, the end of a walking stick! If you were much further away than that then it would most likely be the actual reading of the numbers which gave you the problem, not pressing the button! 

victor2 said:

chrisw said:

badmemory said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the way that energy companies try to pressurise people into taking smart meters.  They should be forced into ensuring that the customer has a way of accessing the info without the useless IHD before they are allowed to leave the premises.  The basis of this whole smart meter thing was supposed to be that both parties would know exactly where they were & not just the energy company.

They do, you can look at the meter readings.

True but as the smart meters I have seen are much harder to read that isn't always a viable possibility.

How are smart meters more difficult to read? Mine just gives a number eg 12345Kwh, whereas reading my old meters involved trying to figure out where the needles were on the little dials.

E7 electric smart meters can be a bit trickier to read and smart gas meters "sleep" when not being read, so a button press is necessary to read one.

Is the button press sequence on an E7 smart meter much different to that on a smart one then? 

Gerry1

chrisw said:

badmemory said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the way that energy companies try to pressurise people into taking smart meters.  They should be forced into ensuring that the customer has a way of accessing the info without the useless IHD before they are allowed to leave the premises.  The basis of this whole smart meter thing was supposed to be that both parties would know exactly where they were & not just the energy company.

They do, you can look at the meter readings.

True but as the smart meters I have seen are much harder to read that isn't always a viable possibility.

How are smart meters more difficult to read? Mine just gives a number eg 12345Kwh, whereas reading my old meters involved trying to figure out where the needles were on the little dials.

Smart meters weren't designed to be read by ordinary people, it was blithely assumed that all readings would be taken automatically.

Low contrast displays, buttons that need to be pressed, confusing and illogical menu options, irrelevant quantities displayed, microscopic decimal points; most smart meters are far from customer friendly !

Worst of all are gas meters that show kWh readings, use of which can result in seriously inaccurate bills.

MeteredOut

EssexHebridean said:

<snip>

If you can easily read your existing meters, then there would be no reason why you would find a smart meter any harder to read

<snip>

Not necessarily. My old electricity meter (in a cupboard) was the spinning disc style and and could be easily read, even in ambient light, or I could just point my phone at it and take a photo.

Its now been replaced in-situ by a smart meter. If my IHD was not working and I had to read the new one, I'd now have to press a button and wait for it to cycle to the meter reading (10-12 seconds) or press some more buttons to get the reading. And, because of the display size/angle/contrast in the digital display (it being in a cupboard does not help), its a more difficult to get a decent photo.

So, not onerous, but definitely more difficult to read.

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

Low contrast displays, buttons that need to be pressed, confusing and illogical menu options, irrelevant quantities displayed, microscopic decimal points; most smart meters are far from customer friendly !

I don't know what model of smart meters you've got, but my smart meters have nice clear backlit LCD displays. The electricity meter is much easier to read than the previous digital non-smart meter was.

Gerry1 said:

Worst of all are gas meters that show kWh readings, use of which can result in seriously inaccurate bills.

And my gas meter defaults to reading cubic metres. You would need to delve into the menus to find anything else.

Gerry1

QrizB said

I don't know what model of smart meters you've got, but my smart meters have nice clear backlit LCD displays. The electricity meter is much easier to read than the previous digital non-smart meter was.

And my gas meter defaults to reading cubic metres. You would need to delve into the menus to find anything else.

@QrizB Fortunately I'm not cursed with smart meters !

Gas meters showing kWh certainly do cause problems:-

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5686055/eon-smart-gas-meter-displaying-kwh

Smart meters even confuse suppliers: page 29 of Utilita's instructions says that 'Import kWh' should be used for a meter read...😳

https://utilita.co.uk/downloads/user-guide/dualfuel.pdf

Spoonie_Turtle

Our smart meter isn't constantly backlit (I don't know how to wake it up and don't want to have to faff about attempting anything) - but a photo with flash does the job, just like with our non-smart meter (which is why I've not bothered finding out how to wake it up).

Edit: however that is because we've only used one register since having it installed; if we had used any others for whatever reason I acknowledge it would be less simple and would require pressing buttons to look through the different screens.