Unsurprising article on smart meters

They have a plan. The comms unit can be replaced, so not the whole meter... ... but typical british corner cutting on the original spec...

Dave

Yes, but most grown-ups have no problem distinguishing between something that they buy out of their own pocket and something provided by a utility company that is paid for by all electricity users. No belief in “magic money tree” involved.

Most people would not regard these as being directly equivalent.

Tim

Like the water meter batteries you mean? Bi-annual "please supply a reading" now the battery is flat.

My gas meter only has a digital display requiring a source of power to be able to read it. It's only source of power is the battery.

It’s just a current clamp round a meter tail.

No, it over-reads by 17%.

It also reads the cumulative consumption during the current day, and can display the energy consumption in terms of £ or, for some reason, kg of CO2, as well as kWh.

Same here, but I don't read it by illuminating the display, I use the IHD (which SMETS1 seem to keep alive better than SMETS2?).

Once the battery fails, the ultrasonic measuring circuitry will fail too, after a zero reading I'm sure the supplier will take notice ...

...and produce an inflated "estimate".

...but not for individual appliances, which is what would be needed to make informed decisions about consumption.

I rented a house in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1991. Each month, the meter readers read the Electric, Gas and Water meters, all outside the house. For the first 6 months, the Electric meter readings were always the same. Clearly a dead meter. One evening, there was a knock at the door, and a technician was there, holding the guts of a new meter in his hand. He explained that he was there to change the meter, the power would be off for a few minutes, and we would then start to be charged. After a month, the power company sent us an estimated bill for the previous chargeless months. I complained to the relevant State body, but they said that was how it was done, the company were legally permitted to do it that way, and that the amount they were charging was within the acceptable limits, based on the use we had demonstrated since the installation. But it was, as I said, months before they did anything about it. At least they let me pay it off in instalments.