Silly question time regards smart meters

B0bbyEwing

Just noticed that a little over 3 weeks ago my Octopus fixed deal ended & I went on to one of their flexible deals.

So time to start looking whether it's 1) best to stay with them or move and 2) stay flexible or fixed.

While I was on the fixed deal I had them install a smart meter. 

Should I find that it's best for me to move to another provider - is the smart meter an Octopus smart meter or is it a house smart meter? Just wondering whether it ties me in with Octopus in any way at all or not?

spot1034

No, your smart meter will be taken over by the new supplier. In my case when I moved suppliers, it had been taken over and updated by the time I got up on the morning that the supply changed over. 

Netexporter

Smart meters are universal, so no problem changing supplier.

The "flexible" tariff is just the standard tariff that Ofgem set quarterly, and isn't the best value. Another Octopus fix would almost certainly be cheaper. 

A smart meter gives you access to Time of Use (ToU) tariffs, of which Octopus offer the greatest selection. There may be one that suits your pattern of usage that could save you money.

By all means look at other suppliers but some can be a bit flaky, so look at other threads, here, to get an idea who is reliable as well as cheap.

Qyburn

Did they give you an In Home Display, or the little pink Octopus Mini?  The Mini won't work with any other supplier.

Reed_Richards

It's not a silly question because in the early days of smart meters it was sometimes found that a smart meter installed by one supplier would not operate "smart" for another supplier.  But that won't be a problem with any smart meter installed in the last several years.  

B0bbyEwing

Qyburn said:

Did they give you an In Home Display, or the little pink Octopus Mini?  The Mini won't work with any other supplier.

They did give me something. It didn't work. 

They gave me another thing. That didn't work either. 

Then they gave me something else. Which eventually worked. 

cannugec5

Have you got the Octopus Compare app? 

Without actually changing your tariff it can look at your daily usage and compare it with a variety of Octopus tariffs and show you both with graphs and numbers the difference over a day, week or month. 

 I used it before moving onto the Octopus Cosy tariff and it showed me I would save approximately 50p per day by swapping to Cosy compared to the fix I was on. 

You get to choose what Octopus tariffs to compare. 

Spoonie_Turtle

cannugec5 said:

Have you got the Octopus Compare app? 

Without actually changing your tariff it can look at your daily usage and compare it with a variety of Octopus tariffs and show you both with graphs and numbers the difference over a day, week or month. 

 I used it before moving onto the Octopus Cosy tariff and it showed me I would save approximately 50p per day by swapping to Cosy compared to the fix I was on. 

You get to choose what Octopus tariffs to compare. 

And if you do the free trial you can compare to other suppliers' offerings by putting in the rates and times of their tariffs manually.

B0bbyEwing

cannugec5 said:

Have you got the Octopus Compare app? 

Without actually changing your tariff it can look at your daily usage and compare it with a variety of Octopus tariffs and show you both with graphs and numbers the difference over a day, week or month. 

 I used it before moving onto the Octopus Cosy tariff and it showed me I would save approximately 50p per day by swapping to Cosy compared to the fix I was on. 

You get to choose what Octopus tariffs to compare. 

I have the Octopus app but never heard of an Octopus Compare app so I'll take a look at that. Thanks.