Smart meters

Aye, me thinks the same.

My parents have just had one installed.

It goes into overdrive when the kettle or shower is on. Ignorance is bliss imo.

My quarterly electric bill is circa £75.  I only use as much water as I need for a cuppa in my kettle.

Why would I want a smart meter?

there you go saddo,oddly ive been told anything that starts with "smart"including of course phones gave off unhealthy waves

the bit you need to know is that the power consumption can be monitored remotely ,the meters talk to each other wirelessly  and pass info on and one is a master that sends the info back ,so must be a gsm modem or connected to the  phone network ,so not sure how that works for the punter that has that one ,the power for the wireless will not be at the grids expense imo but not certain .But the real "smart" bit is once the entire country is covered and some foreign GOV that is supplying your energy cartels up  and ups the ante on everyone to keep the shareholders happy ,you dont pay ,computer says no and sends a signal to master and it passes the message down the line and the meters motorised switch does a rotation and yor lighting candles .
how smarts that

it's a way of weeding out the mad scientists. they look at the kilojoules and can see immediately if you are running an octilerian neutronium generator.
they then send Doc Savage round to shut it all down.

Easiest way to save money is to switch to LED light bulbs.

not good for you either according to some doctors,is there a trend here?

newspapers told you these new bulbs affect your eyesight,
you need a few hours of daylight to repair the damage done to
your eyes by them. conspiracy to stop you reading?

As with smart cards on the railway
they are only as smart as the people using them

When you say not compatible with some suppliers you mean they don't have the software to read them remotely ? You seem to be confusing the term smart ,the smart bit they are selling the public on is the ability to see on a panel the real time usage,or do you mean some don't have the capability to accurately do this ? That option  is good but can be had with other types of retro attached  tech ,a mini clamp induction sensor simply fitted at the meter which bluetooths info to a panel ,the reason they don't want these is the way they charge for the electricity ,it's non standard and set up to confuse and make breaking down and converting khw into an understandable format ,ie usage over time ,they all charge differently ,so many kwh at one rate and then another,a separate clamp meter and comp app should be the way forward so customers can see a standard cost and judge/compare with other suppliers ,too much estimation of costs in this sector ,all hiding things imo. The smart bit seems lost in the idiosyncrasy of the nature of electricity pricing. You mention gsm modem but did not mention the how the data is finally  transmitted  ,my understanding is its by SMS , the SMS system is far from flawless or reliable  and  can be overloaded and back up ,texts lost ,unencrypted data intercepted ,corrupted ,ect ,its reliability is dependant on many factors and could see failure in this area causing problems ,of course there will be safeguards but there must be big question marks over this smart technologies  usefulness compared
with the total loss of control to the consumer ,the energy industry wants it all its own way,proper regulation and standardisation of tarrifs is overdue ,deregulation has not not worked for consumers as well as it has for providers and that's the reason it was done supposedly ,increased choice in a competitive market leading to value ,it's worked other way ,it's a rip off sector .

Y2k was a completely different scenario and  bares no comparison of relativity to  smart meters phobia.         I have deliberately kept away from irrational reasons to oppose them ,perhaps I should have went down that road ,poor trolls are starving.                                    Did I mention the wireless interfering with hearing aids ,causing probs with pacemakers ,causing TV signal to breakup ,cancer ,causing false teeth to be swallowed ,hairloss ,keeping the hamster up at night ,erection dissfunction,loss of phone signal ,eyeball boiling if meter can't com with cell tower base station or causing old fluffy cats with micochips to  spontaneously  combust

The main distinction between a 'smart' meter and a 'dumb' meter is that the former can be configured remotely and in turn can send the reading remotely to the supplier. The 'SMD' is an OPTIONAL extra, the meter can still be 'smart' whether the customer chooses to have the display device or not. Configuration is the key here if the meter could NOT be dialed into via the config' team whilst you were onsite then the meter would not be able to send any information to the supplier remotely and subsequently it would not pair with the SMD it would be deemed 'DUMB' as any information from the meter would have to be accessed manually. The difference between the energy monitors you can buy online etc that often utilise a clamp on the consumers live cable and the SMD supplied with the smart meter is that the SMD is configured to that particular customer's tariff and displays information based on their correct unit price and standing charge price, the more generic energy monitor gives a more general indication of energy usage especially as in most cases customers' do not know their unit price or daily standing charge. The SMD is supplied with rechargeable batteries and uses a miniscule amount of electricity.
The meter is equipped, as mentioned with a GSM modem which utilises a free roaming sim card that locates the nearest mobile phone mast and sends the information via WAN (Wide Area Network), to be honest I am not au fait with the whole data capture process but don't think the info is sent via SMS but could be wrong. What I do know is that the inherent problem with these meters is their capability to gain a signal in order to work as they are designed, if the signal was not between the parameters of 0 - 90 db then remote configuration was nigh on impossible. I fitted many in rural areas where no signal was obtained and customers' were not happy.
"When you say not compatible with some suppliers you mean they don't have the software to read them remotely ?"
Basically the suppliers were getting further and further behind in getting the required amount of meters' in customers' properties as they did not agree on one particular type of 'Smart' meter, they started fitting their own prototype with their own data capture system which other suppliers would not be able to tap into hence the need for a major data capture overhaul.
Do I think the whole idea is a massive waste of time and money ? Yep. Will we all foot the bill whether you have one or not ? Most definitely.

My thoughts exactly, Dr.

Exactly JC mate, and very good point about 'snake', that would've been the clincher for me, but no snake no smart meter as far as I'm concerned

They can Remotely cut off the Supply ,is a bit of a Downer .

Why are they useful?

The problem we have is infrastructure limitations and peaks in demand. So we either build loads more power stations and power lines, or we use what we have more efficiently.

Roll forward a few years. Your white goods will all be intelligent and will communicate with your meter to operate when electricity is cheapest. The price of elec will vary every half hour - maybe even across suppliers - so you could switch your washing machine on overnight and the machine will effectively put out a contract to the elec companies to buy X amount of kWh over the next 3 hours. The cheapest wins.

Then what about fridges - they could have a battery in them to store elec from overnight to have enough to get through the next day without using the grid. The saving in power would outweigh the extra initial cost (maybe!).

Lots of options. But having worked in the industry, they will just feck it up as usual.

I have got a smart meter and health reasons aside, I like it. 

I find it handy when i go to sleep or go away to see that everything electric is off without going around checking sockets etc.  I now shower by heating the electric immersion heater instead of using the central heating boiler as it is far cheaper.  You can see exactly how much it is costing you and I now find I only need to have it on for thirty minutes.  Again instead of using the central heating I use the fan heater as I only need to use it for an hour or two in the depths of winter as I live in a modern block which is very well insulated.

Also I am billed monthly with the exact amount I have used so I always know what I am using.  You can also tell easily when it would be better if you were on economy 7 as the two rates are displayed and then added together for your bill.

I don't like the health scares about them, but I will look into that when I have time.

My bills are around £6 a week for heating, hot water and electric.

Yes that includes winter!  I only put my fan heater on when the temperature roughly is below ten degrees. And that doesn't happen a lot lately.

As I said I live in a modern block built only three years ago with the latest in insulation.  It also helps that I live right in the middle of the block with two flats below and two above and one each side so I am getting the benefit of their central heating.