Is my meter an RTS meter ?

Lifeisfun

Hi folks, would really appreciate your help to identify whether my meter is an RTS meter - photo attached. I am being pressurised by my electricity provider to change my meter to a smart meter since they say RTS is ending soon.  However, looking to the horror stories around Smart meters, I do not want to change my meter which is working well. Thanks

Mark_d

Do you have different rates - like day rate and night rate, or a heating tariff?  I can't see anything on the meter to suggest whether this meter uses radio teleswitch technology

TadleyBaggie

A 5254E is a multi rate meter, but is not RTS according to a post I found on an OVO user forum. 

Gerry1

The 5254E has a 20 year lifetime.  Yours appears to have been certified in 08/14 and therefore doesn't need to be changed for another 10 years.

An RTS unit would be in a big separate box.

Seems to be a misinformed attempt to get you to agree to a smart meter?

Ildhund

It certainly doesn't look like an RTS-controlled meter. There is a possibility that there is another feed into the property, connected to an RTS meter and to a consumer unit feeding heating circuits, but I think you'd know about that.

The meter is 'only' ten years old, so there's no saying what it replaced and what baggage was left on the various meter databases. It could be that there's some sort of 'complex meter' flag against your account, which is probably why you got the RTS letter.

The meter is probably due for retirement (other L+G models are only certified for 10 years), so you're going to have to have it replaced before long anyway. It won't be easy to avoid getting a smart meter in its place. Which horror stories are you referring to?

Hoenir

Gerry1 said:

Seems to be a misinformed attempt to get you to agree to a smart meter?

Perhaps there's a roll out in a particular locality. Far more productive use of people's time.Than ad-hoc targetting. 

Gerry1

Hoenir said:

Gerry1 said:

Seems to be a misinformed attempt to get you to agree to a smart meter?

Perhaps there's a roll out in a particular locality. Far more productive use of people's time.Than ad-hoc targetting. 

Nope, that would be scaremongering because it's just a lie.

EssexHebridean

Hey OP - looks like others have already addressed your question about the meter, but you refer to "horror stories" around smart meters - if you want to explain to us the sort of thing you are concerned about we can almost certainly set your mind at rest - there is a lot of nonsense talked about smart meters both by conspiracy theorists and those who are vulnerable to the misinformation that the conspiracy theorists peddle. Sadly there are folk in the world who get a kick out of scaring others - not a nice thing to do, but they CAN be very convincing, so it's not surprising people get concerned!

The vast majority of meters being installed these days do their basic job faultlessly - that is, to monitor your energy use to ensure that you can be charged correctly. I very much doubt there are more cases where that does not happen now that there was in the past. In the case of electricity smart meters, they have an extra component attached to the top of them which is the communication hub - and in a small number of cases that may not connect properly, and so the meter doesn't send readings to your supplier. If this happens you are in an identical position to that which you were in with your old style traditional meter - ie, you need to check and send your readings monthly. 

As an aside - a few years ago you had storage heaters, which would have most likely indicated an Economy 7 electricity set-up - is this a different property that you are in now? 

Lifeisfun

Thank you all for your useful & prompt inputs.
The property did have an Economy 7 meter & different wiring ( separate wire into the meter/ box for Economy 7 basically connected to storage heaters & separate for rest of usage ) earlier. Both the meter & internal property wiring have since been changed. The current meter is an Economy 7 meter which has two readings [ reading 1 ( daytime), reading 2 (night) and also a total reading] based on the time when the consumption takes place.

On the MSE site itself Martin Lewis has spoken about issues with smart meters - https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2024/09/martin-lewis--letter-to-the-energy-secretary-on-smart-meters/#:~:text=Complaints%20about%20smart%20meters%20are,the%20start%20has%20been%20dire.

MartinGreenwood

Just so you know what an RTS setup looks like there is one on https://www.smartme.co.uk/roll-out.html#rts.

Gerry1

MartinGreenwood said:

Just so you know what an RTS setup looks like there is one on https://www.smartme.co.uk/roll-out.html#rts.

As an aside, that site's not always very reliable.

• The Radio Teleswitch isn't necessarily a separate unit: some meters have the RTS built in.

https://www.diynot.com/diy/attachments/20220528_230536-jpg.270944/

• "RTS is being decommissioned for the following reasons:

• Low quality sound"

Hilarious !

• "Smart meters don't need a broadband connection or wi-fi in your home as they use either the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) mobile networks just like your mobile phone, or use a local mesh communications network (DCC only) to hop from meter to meter until a link to the GSM mobile network is found."

D'oh !  They've forgotten Arqiva's Long Range Radio (LRR) system used in the North of England and Scotland.  Strange, because they explain it on another part of their website.