EDF direct debit

A couple of thousand /every/ year? The average UK bill for gas and electricity is only around £1750 a year.

What are you heating, Downton Abbey?!

There are a lot of small houses, and these days even more flats. My bills are around £3,500 per year but I have an old house and a wife that feels the cold.

Dave

My original smartmeters communicated via wireless M-BUS, I never had an issue with gas->elec->ihd but my house isn't particularly challenging.

My replacement smartmeters use zigbee for internal communication, and the location of the gas meter has been changed (further from the elec meter) communication was trickier, during the first month there were several days of no gas readings recorded, I re-positioned the ihd at a mid-point between the two meters to improve reception (zigbee acts as a mesh) since then, there have only been 4 days in the 11 months where no gas usage was recorded (normally it records 1p of gas per 30 minute period for pilot light usage).

I do have various other zigbee devices, but I suppose my mesh is separate from the smartmeter's mesh, but energy suppliers could presumably provide plugin zigbee routers to dot around the house to improve communication between gas and elec meters?

I see from David Wade's post that Octopus (maybe others?) do just that.

Yes, but even if you moved from the most expensive tariff to the cheapest one could you save more than half your yearly bill?

They do. I had a smart gas meter installed in May, and it's quite a distance from the electricity meter, along the same brick wall. (Worst case point to point the route is through 30ft of bricks/blocks !) so I'd pre warned Octopus that I might need a booster. When the chap came, he could see on a hand held device the Zigbee objects in my house, and that included the Octopus Mini that I have (by chance) in a position that can 'see' both meters. He said no issue with the gas to electricity meter comms, so I assume the Mini might well act as that relay device in my house ?

Anyway, after a few hours I started getting 30 min Gas usage data on my Octopus app, and the bills ever since have has 'Smart Meter Readings' for gas, so it seems to be working.

Without an electricity Smart meter, there's no way I can charge my EV at

(Pedantic) Not the electricity meter, the comms hub which takes power from before the meter. I had a smart a gas meter before smart electricity.

Interesting. I too abandoned Duracell in favour of Amazon Basics. The Amazon ones have been fine, but I did recently buy a box of Qty 100 AAAs, so I'll see how they perform.....

With my first smart meters, the mobile uplink was within the electricity meter, now it's bolted-on to the electricity meter ...

could be charging an EV?

Interestingly the I believe the Zigbee protocol that the octopus mini and smart gas meters use mean that an Octopus mini can be used to help bridge a weak signal (as mesh capability is built in).

Seemed to work for me back in the days when I had gas meters comms issues.

Tim

Yep. EV charging alone saves me over £1000. Now I have a heat pump too.

Tim

I suspect it's a reference to solar, differential pricing, and EVs - all of which benefit from smart meters directly or indirectly.\

I have a friend with an EV and one of Octopus's smart tariffs, and he says he has a fixed monthly payment, however much electricity used for the EV. I think it was £25, which sounds very low.

Mine switches to wifi calling (when enabled) at a fairly low 4G signal strength. Non adjustable.

Do you really believe that?

Well that is more expensive than gas or oil, so more fool you

I think it’s £30 and I think there’s a “fair use” rule should you really go to town on it. I don’t think you get cheap power to the house on that scheme so it wouldn’t suit me.

Currently unavailable though. https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-drive-pack/ Tim

Same order of magnitude.

If most of your trips are within 30miles, should pass that test.

Indeed, it's for EVs only.

That's the problem with these 'deals' (and not just from Octopus) they come and go so frequently it's virtually impossible to keep up.