Octopus API - Almost enough to get a smart meter!!??

LeesArt

Does anyone on here use the Smart Meter API from Octopus?

I have and will continue to resist getting a Smart Meter for the simple reason that the whole project has failed to deliver the promised benefits of the Business Case of the original programme. 

It has been totally one side with all the benefits going to the Energy company, sacking meter readers, move from quarterly to monthly billing, ability to convert to a debt meter remotely without customer control, selling of customers data.  While the customers got SMET1 tat meters that have left millions* without the ability to even use the naff in home display, never mind upload reads automatically.

SOURCE: LBC Consumer hour

Then I came across the API that Octopus is developing and started to research energy meter API's in general.

This looked promising but I think that there is a fundamental flaw which I think affects all UK smart meters and that is the interval, for Electricity this apparently every 10 seconds for electricity and every 30 minutes for gas.  This makes them useless for live usage and profiling, apparently the reason for the gas interval being so long was to preserve battery.  

There should be an option to monitor the usage live, this would allow one to "fingerprint" devices by the change in the load and then work out patterns (such as boiler errors) as well as usage.    

Maybe there will be some devices that will be developed, even if they sit between the main meter and the house supply.  I would have thought they would have allowed on to add a booster battery to the gas.

So for the foreseeable future it seems that Smart Meter resistance shall continue.

Petriix

The Octopus API is useful for analysing historical data. There are some useful triggers for home automation which lots of people us in Home Assistant for things like charging their home battery when prices are cheap.

Smart meters are extremely useful for accessing time-of-use tariffs such as Octopus Agile or Intelligent etc. Some of us save thousands through discounted off-peak rates. And don't forget export payments for solar and Demand Side Response trials through which smart meters can earn you money.

Otherwise I totally agree that the roll-out has been a massive waste of all our money. We're all paying through increased standing charges. SMETS1 should never have existed. 

MultiFuelBurner

Without smets 1 there couldn't have been smets 2.

Smets 3 will undoubtedly cast a shadow over smets 2 when released and so on.

It's been an interesting journey with hopefully some lessons learned.

I feel sorry for those that want and need a working smart meter and cannot get one or have it working. 

I have no sympathy for those that don't want a smart meter paying for the roll out and I hope they get charged more for refusing them as a consequence in the near future (please note I don't mean charging those who want one or have one and it doesn't connect)

The Octopus mini is a nice little addition for being with them and that combined with tapo energy usage smart plugs gives me everything I need to know how much it costs per appliance and when to run them on Agile to keep my electricity at 13p kWh 

Peter999_2

I agree that the rollout has been shocking, I was involved in commercial heating controls at the beginning of the announcement of the rollout and it was plain to see that it wasn't going to happen within 10 years.  Unfortunately when governments get involved in this sort of thing it starts off well and then goes very badly.  They never seem to listen to the right people.

We used to put our own clamps on the electric/gas feeds which were connected to a modem which would give live energy usage for our customers.  It worked really well and the energy companies would use our figures to generate bills for the customers (they didn't have much choice as it was practically impossible to get the meters read).

I disagree that you say the benefits are one way, it's possible to save a fortune with smart meters.    If you can time shift your usage then Octopus agile can save you quite a bit of money.   Also, the Octopus gas tracker is currently nearly half the price of the capped gas (I'm paying 3.92p per kWh today) .     If you have an EV then you can be quids in - I can charge overnight between 00:30 and 04:30 for 9p per kWh.  I personally have a V2H charger which means I can charge my car very cheaply through the night and then discharge that electric to power the house for the rest of the day.

I used to spend over £100 a month just on petrol before my EV and now my electricity costs £62 a month for everything.

In my experience, like anything in life, if you do a little bit of work you can easily reap the benefits.

Personally, I couldn't really care less about the gas usage in real time - 30 minutes is fine for me.   I know that if I put the heating on, have a shower etc.  it will cost me but it's always about the same amount - I don't feel that you can have phantom device using all the gas that you don't know about (and if you did you'd soon know with 30 minute reads).       Electric is totally different, it's very easy to have "vampire" devices sucking up the power and wasting your money and it is very useful to have updates in usage every 10 seconds (Octopus supply a free Octopus mini on request which you can use to get the live 10 second readings from the meters).    You can then use the excellent Octopus API to feed into Home Assistant and know exactly what you are using.  Within Home assistant you can set up alerts to let you know if you're using a lot of electric - it's quite fun playing with it and it runs great on a 3w Raspberry Pi.

Bendo

Perfectly happy with my adopted SMETS 1 meter. Combined with Octopus mini, the data is great. Not sure why updates every 10 seconds would be an issue, hammering the API more frequently to get data wouldn't be appropriate.

Gerry1

Peter999_2 said:

I don't feel that you can have phantom device using all the gas that you don't know about

You can...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80146917/#Comment_80146917

Peter999_2

Gerry1 said:

Peter999_2 said:

I don't feel that you can have phantom device using all the gas that you don't know about

You can...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80146917/#Comment_80146917

That is a bit of a selective quote - you've missed the bit where I said that you'd see it on the 30 minute reads if there was a problem.   I don't think 10 second reads would alert you any quicker than the 30 minutes ones.

Alnat1

Smart meters have allowed me to have zero energy costs for the last 2 years.

I am able to access tariffs that make import of gas/electricity cost less than SVT and solar export pay higher rates, and then there's saving sessions that pay me to use less electricity at certain times. I build up enough credit over summer to cover the GCH costs in winter.

Without smart meters I'd have no access to this type of saving. Seems to me there is plenty to benefit customers who get them fitted.

njkmr

My Octopus smart meters have never worked correctly since they were installed a few years ago.
The Gas meter has never sent them readings and the electric meter is hit and miss. Missed from last September until I sent a reading in last month. 
Total waste of time in My opinion.
Technology used is substandard by the look of it.

MultiFuelBurner

njkmr said:

My Octopus smart meters have never worked correctly since they were installed a few years ago.
The Gas meter has never sent them readings and the electric meter is hit and miss. Missed from last September until I sent a reading in last month. 
Total waste of time in My opinion.
Technology used is substandard by the look of it.

How did your complaint about this go and or the ombudsman decision?

Gerry1

Peter999_2 said:

Gerry1 said:

Peter999_2 said:

I don't feel that you can have phantom device using all the gas that you don't know about

You can...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80146917/#Comment_80146917

That is a bit of a selective quote - you've missed the bit where I said that you'd see it on the 30 minute reads if there was a problem.   I don't think 10 second reads would alert you any quicker than the 30 minutes ones.

The point at issue is that you CAN have a device that ends up using a vast amount of gas.