Inside a smart meter, and the REAL problem with them.

[@rogerborg]

Opens meter. Removes microphone and Mind Control Gas module. Reassembles and starts filming. You're fooling no-one, Agent Clive.

[@Whigu]

Nope... He removed the mic on 6:44

[@A3203503]

And that was the last time anyone heard from Rogerborg.

[@Whigu]

And most electronic has mind control gas inside... It's that blue smoke... When you smell that you normally start to feel angry...

[@MrCordycep]

@@A3203503 who is Rogerborg? I see no Rogerborg. You must be imagining things. I think you might be suffering from stress and you will benefit from an all expenses paid vacation to Guan... err Guam. Yes, Guam. 😶

[@ElectraFlarefire]

Oh, it's all there and easy to see.. Mind Control Gas module is the big silver box he 'doesn't want' to open.. The 'crusty' look is typical of holding an organic effecting gas and it's delivery system.. And pull apart a modern mobile phone and find the microphone in that.. Modern MEMS microphones are TINY! It's a mm or two square component. Look up the SPQ 1410 for example. No need to 'remove' it.. Just not zoom in on that section of the board.

[@Liberty4Ever]

An electrical engineer and my biggest concern with smart meters is my privacy. By monitoring power usage in very fine time detail quite a lot can be discerned about my lifestyle by analyzing the meta data. It's nobody's business when I go to sleep or cook my meals or take a shower. It's nobody's business how many house guests I have. It's nobody's business when I'm away on vacation.

[@richardd3663]

Then don't have one fitted!

[@gabbermaikel]

and then when the other criminals that visit your house to borrow your stuff when you are not home get good with their laptops they might be able to get to that data as wel. And guess what? Now they can know exactly until what time you work, they can kind of guess how long your vacation still lasts and all that stuff.

[@drogomuircastle7175]

You think the spooks have the manpower for that?

[@Liberty4Ever]

@Nob the Knave - The point isn't that a person is monitoring my energy usage. The point is that a computer is monitoring everyone's energy usage. The automatically collected metadata is very valuable. It doesn't cost much to collect and can reveal a lot about a person's lifestyle and that information can be monetized by selling it to advertisers and marketing companies. Combine it with other data from other sources and it's even more powerful. The point people need to understand is that computers automatically harvesting all of this data that probably seems useless or innocuous is actually very creepy and a much larger invasion of privacy that most people can imagine. Humans are accustomed to thinking in terms of human actions, so we tend to think, "nobody cares about these things because you aren't important enough", but from a Big Data perspective, if ten million people's data is worth ten cents per month per person, that's an annual revenue stream of $12 million. Give away a million little bits of your personal information, none of which seems important or valuable, and you'll be left with no privacy at all.

[@ElitesEngineering]

I keep all my shit on 24/7. So pretty much it'd be very hard to know when I am home or not.

[@pyotrleflegin7255]

My smart meter has started calling me Dave and saying it can't do things ...

[@WaltonPete]

"Open the bay doors..." "I can't do that, Dave."

[@mrmrsgamer6938]

perhaps you need to reboot it so Motivation.exe runs more smoothly

[@buddyclem7328]

If things go wrong, just enter 99999999 square root on this calculator, and a guillotine blade will cut the umbilical cable.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

"I'm sorry Dave, but this customer service conversation can serve no further purpose."

[@rogersowers9837]

They really belong in space....like a black hole!

[@ivanmayer1353]

A couple of years ago,I used to put together smart meters for Honeywell's in Stafford. They shipped them everywhere,all over the world. It was a slightly different design than the one shown here,but I think their all supposed to do the same job. It was quite interesting to see the inside of them,but when I managed to do approx 100 every night shift,I was sick of the sight of them. Even though I saw it done,I didn't get to do the technical stuff. I just put all the bits and pieces together,then packed them. There was one thing I enjoyed. I had the drill just a tiny hole, approx 1mm onto part of the circuit board. I think it was to stop people changing whatever information was on there.

[@bami2]

My "smart" meter tried to bill me for using around 8GWh in the span of 3 hours. Appeareantly, it lost signal and the energy company "extrapolated" the results, then trying to bill me over a million euros. Nevermind the fact that I have a 25A/230V main fuse and my electricity bill never exceeded 60€/month in the 7 years prior. I told them to go pound sand and actually use the readings instead of just making shit up as they go, after a couple of months I got a letter that they made "an error" and I should disregard the previous bill.

[@lbochtler]

Ahhhh, the good old days where you could draw the entire power of a city through a wall outlet, and no one noticed the street erupting into flames...

[@bigclivedotcom]

I received a bill like that too, when their estimated usage had drifted so far above by actual usage that they assumed the meter had rolled over and the bill was massive. They corrected it themselves though.

[@hanvyj2]

@@bigclivedotcom I used to do data analysis on meters and rollover was such a pain!

[@extrastuff9463]

Sounds like you're building some kind of miniature death star in your basement, how far are you from being able to test fire it on the moon?

[@james2k2]

I programmed a database/billing system for a business energy company and I concur that rollover is a nightmare. To be honest the whole energy calculation and all the different energy factors etc etc is a nightmare!

[@HazyJ28]

Using a smart-meter as a bug? What a dumb conspiracy theory. Thats what your smart phone is for 🙃

[@aucklandnewzealand2023]

Smartphone is too

[@flatsun2132]

Exactly and mine is Chinese so yeah

[@lowek7773]

Monitors your usage patterns to target you , not listen to your voice lol

[@ME-ru4hv]

@Just a person I dont know.. what if you decide to drown all your phones?? 🙄

[@angebrowne1730]

Hazy J Lol yeah. Not everyone has one though.

[@hene193]

Just wait until they start to sell the usage data to advertisers.

[@totherarf]

There is a whole section of society that would be Very interested to find out times when homes are empty!

[@kirkfranks1]

Already a whole section of commerce that is Very interested to know when you are home too. Now maybe I know why I get the telemarketing phone calls just after arriving home and turning the lights on.

[@andyowens5494]

There are very strict controls on what the data can be used for. They cannot sell it. Once all the meters are on the DCC (data communications company), then security will be even tighter. Whilst the meters have the capability to record consumption every half hour, the comms costs are sufficient deterrent to mean they’ll only download daily reads at most. Tariffs are set to get way more sophisticated, especially for people who consume off peak, or have connectable devices - like turning off half a million fridges for an hour. Not internet connected, will need to be zigbee. Tariffs are still a decade off, they cant even do all the current tariffs yet.

[@Mehrunes86]

@@totherarf As an electrican, when we build houses today, the smart meter is on the outside, it has a led which blink speed, depends on usage, that's for sure a nice feature, if you want to break in.

[@eddiehawkins7049]

@@andyowens5494But a whole day's usage patterns could be stored in the meter and downloaded very rapidly once a day.

[@bigern73]

Unfortunately, I work in this field. The bit on the top that you took off and set aside is the bit that talks to the outside world. The big / main PCB is just a current monitor that passes readings to the modem part (that you took off). I think this is a SMETS1 meter and the main (meter) PCB may have been electrically connected to the communications hub (that you removed from the top). SMETS2 (as pushed by all energy suppliers now) are similar, but the interface betwixt meter and comms hub is actually Zigbee (sorry wireless interface), even though it is a matter of centimeters between the 2 PCBs. Regardless, it is Zigbee that is used between meter / CH and IHD or gas meter

[@YouTubeSupportTeams]

the meter here is easily bypassed now i've seen it's internals and detection

[@EoinHealy]

Zigbee? Interesting.. I'm guessing the answer is probably no, but could this be connected to the ZHA protocol and see power consumption or other info from the device through the likes of SmartThings?

[@Scottwhatleybates]

@@KZbinSupportTeams please tell 😂

[@TheDamianDixon]

@@EoinHealy I went looking when I had a SMETS2 fitted and while it is zigbee its encrypted. Sad really as it would have allowed me to collect the data locally if there had been some way to connect. The in-house displays are IMHO pretty useless. Some of the connected displays have WiFi connections or the capability to add. I tried to get one from my supplier but ran into the the usual customer service knowledge void.

[@raybob49]

As a Bog-standard consumer I'm well fed up. I started with SMETS1 in 2015 & with British Gas and they co-operated with the supplier viz sending consumption readings. Then I changed supplier, a few years later. My dashboard continued to work for a while then stopped - of course! I complained to the new supplier and they came and installed SMETS2 meters (last October -'20) The electricity meter supplies readings to the supplier but the installation team (came twice) could not get the Gas meter to syncronize and submit readings. Now I still have to go outside and press button A, then B to read and send to the new supplier. I didn't even have to do that 50 years ago. Thanks for your submission, by the way.

[@skumhesten78]

Ok, story time: Just recently (about a month ago actually) I had one of the modern smart meters fail on me in a somewhat unusual way. The bill I got in late september for the months of april-june was higher that usual - like a lot. The good thing about these meters is that I can log in to a website and see the usage on a day to day and hour to hour basis. Normal it's usually no more than around 200 kwh and most months it's less than that. But the usage for june: 2050 KWh...and for july and august (these two will be on the next bill): 3588KWh and 5214KWh...as in more than 5 MWh for a single month. Yeah.... 5214KWh means that I used in excess of 7000W around the clock for an entire month....only for stuff like light and cooking (heating is with natural gas). Since a quick glance revealed that no part of my house had recently been on fire and since my Flir cam did not find any hidden hotspots I quickly came to the conclusion that the smart meter had to be faulty. However I must be mistaken, because the power co first suggested that I get wall adapter meter and checked the various power supplys and such - because they can use a lot of power when plugged in all the time. In all fairness I am not an electrician - I don't even have a kitchen fitter certificate, but I should think that 7000 watts in waste heat would be a challenge to hide in a few power supplies, but that's just me. :Sidenote: As is common in the Denmark - my house gets three phase power. At the consumer unit in my house this is then made into 3 circuits that cover the house (2x10amp at 230 volt and 1x16amp at 400 volt). So there is not way I could ever draw 7000 watts on the 230 volt circuits continuously... In trying to convince the power co that this did not make any sense what so ever I cut the power to entire house for 15-20 minutes...and the meter (with the appropriate name "Echelon") still counted 2-3 kwh in that period...Also the meter also indicated that there was a return current...implying that there was a net production of power at my location - except I don't have any solar cells or anything like that...clearly not a happy meter. For now, the story does have a happy ending, as the meter was replaced and found to be faulty and all is well now...or so I hope. But the thing is this...when they analysed the meters internal log, they found that it had been acting odd since april. So while the huge increase in reported power usage did not begin until the middle of june, the numbers for april and may were also...suspect. I guess my point is...keep an eye on your bill. Almost forgot the most important bit: Thanks @bigclivedotcom for a great channel. EDIT: The numbers from april-mid june were a little higher that usual, but not alarmingly so. But suddenly there's a huge increase. From 9 KWh on 17. june to 155 KWh on 18. june. By august it was 170-180 KWh per day. It has ended well enough, in that they used last years numbers to replace the entire period from april-replacement of meter, so all is well. Because of some weird readings at first they thought that the problem was in the...ehh...not sure of the name...(terminial block?)...it's the block the cables to the house go into and to which the meter is attached. Essentially it's just a block of metal with plastic around it, so they had me replace that one at first. But since that clearly wasn't the problem, they paid for the replacement as well. All in all they were very nice about it and I didn't really have any big problems. Except for that fact that many of those involved didn't seem to comprehend that 7000W has to turn up as heat somewhere. If you around the clock dump 7000W into a piece of metal about the size of an external harddrive ...good chance it won't be room temperature. One problem with this perticular brand of meter and setup is that it only shows total usage. The only indication of the power draw at the moment is a lamp that blinks everytime a 1Wh has been used. So you can't really just cut out a circuit and then check the meter for how much that section uses.

[@franglish9265]

I wonder why the failure mode defaulted to an impossibly high usage... You sure you don't have 6-8 1kWH HPS bulbs throughout your place? Lol

[@Bomag]

I take it they recalculated your bills since april based on average use and gave you a hefty refund? I hope you didn't end up out of pocket because of that.

[@ElizabethGreene]

I'm envious that you have three phase power. Getting that delivered to a residence here in the states is non-trivial.

[@KarlHamilton]

Newsflash. Your son is growing.

[@DryLog420]

Did they adjust the rate for you? I'm interested in knowing this :-)

[@TarrelScot]

I’ll have one when it will automatically monitor all the electricity co’s tariffs and switch me onto the cheapest one. Now THAT would be smart!

[@tehf00n]

yeah these ain't smart meters. Definitely not smart enough to stop me intercepting the wireless data and sending custom packets to reduce my bill. Aside from health risks, I always thought they were idiots to send usage data over wireless.

[@Monkeh616]

@@tehf00n Ah, you have all the appropriate keys on hand to do this, I assume? Or are we just assuming it's a totally cleartext system with no thought into security whatsoever?

[@tehf00n]

@@Monkeh616 I would be surprised if there were security tbh. But lets say there is as there's a good chance there might be. It's gonna be basic wireless security. Lets presume WEP. Now unless they change keys remotely at specific time periods, I have all the time I need to brute force it. Lets say it goes one step further and uses WPA2. That's already broken using KraCK. The fact I have access to the device in a short range scenario helps. Not to mention there seems to be two setups, WAN and LAN/BT means I have extra holes I can abuse. Its not rocket science now we have the internet.

[@Monkeh616]

@@tehf00n I'd be very surprised if there weren't. Actually, I know there is, I bothered to look.. And no, it's not basic wireless security, it's not WEP, it's not even WPA2 - IT'S NOT WIFI AT ALL. I'm sure the security can be broken, everything gets broken eventually, but it's not likely to be as amusingly trivial as you want it to be.

[@tehf00n]

@@Monkeh616 my triviality is just confidence. I don't believe there are many encryption systems that are safe against a volatile attacker until you get to the breakpoint of time vs computing power available. And serious encryption should be using one-time pad. If it used that, my confidence would drop to none.

[@jackking5567]

They're being installed not to your benefit but for the suppliers. I'm seeing people having the smart meters fitted because they'll 'save money'. Nope - there is no actual saving - just the customer realising how much they use and trying to use less. If my supply company paid me to have one installed I'd still say no.

[@gordonlawrence4749]

My thoughts exactly

[@weeman1357]

Hear, hear well said.

[@ratchet1freak]

When the meter send the data directly over the cellphone network the customer cannot lie about the meter state. This means it does save them money by not having to send out meter readers to verify consumption when they suspect people are lying. And they can lighten the load on the analysis team that is selecting people to get checked.

[@ElectraFlarefire]

Problem is, your choice is often 'smart meter' or 'no power'.. By all means hold off as long as you can, but be prepared for that choice one day.

[@jpdemer5]

"Just the customer realising how much they use and trying to use less" is not a bad thing. I'd like to be able to plot my usage over the course of a day, if the meter were configured to tell me (or if the utility gave me access to the data.)

[@EdgyShooter]

I'm waiting for an April fools episode where Clive disassembles something like this and pulls out a full sized microphone, oversized bottle labeled "nerve gas" etc 😂

[@MrMikomi]

never gas?

[@EdgyShooter]

@@MrMikomi fixed it 😅

[@ReptilianLepton]

These sumbitches are chock-full of magic smoke. Don't let it out.

[@greenaum]

Yup, in a style following Mary Poppins's carpet bag would be good. Or the old Vaudeville gag of pulling out ladders and hatstands, etc. Complete with Groucho Marx-style eyebrow waggling. Do it, Clive!

[@EdgyShooter]

@@greenaum Damn, I want to see it even more now! You've put such a great image into my head 😂

[@highlandsprings5752]

Why would they put a microphone in a meter, that's what your smartphones for

[@richardsandwell2285]

That is why I do not have a smartphone.

[@Bob3D2000]

All putting a microphone in a meter in my house would do is tell them whenever someone's using the stairs.

[@SnowBunneh]

They are a bunch of stair fetishists O-O

[@yeezywesty3651]

you cna probably call the base from the unit

[@GRBtutorials]

@@richardsandwell2285 Then what do you use when you're bored and don't have your computer?

[@KarlHamilton]

So where does the magnet go? Asking for a friend.

[@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637]

there's no way for single phase meters, they use a shunt to measure, 3 phase ones may have a sort of transformer to have a single signal output for automatic averaged reading on the 3 phases, they reported that you can put a (really strong) magnet on it and contrast the field (if you don't increase it) don't try anything like that, bad move and quite likely not working

[@KarlHamilton]

False.

[@AKAtheA]

If you want to "override" the NC relay, just destroy the meter with high voltage... you can't get a false reading with a magnet...

[@vylbird8014]

To head off the misinformation, I looked this up a long time ago. Yes, certain very old meters can be slowed down by placing a powerful magnet in the right place. This will either place an eddy current drag on the rotating disc in the electromechanical meters, or saturate the core of the current transformer in an electronic meter. This used to be a well-known way of stealing electricity - which is why every meter you might find today is either proofed against this method, or fitted with active countermeasures.

[@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637]

first of all i said "they reported", infact a technician of our national company said that to me as well, another article said that and... here's an attempt www.blogsicilia.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG-20170803-WA0002.jpg really devoted people i say, bless em.. LOL... that's an italian 3 phases i don't know EXACTLY how 3 phases wound on the same core will act, it makes sense that gives an averaged continuous field on the core that can be measured with an hall sensor maybe overriding the relay will let the company know that something is wrong considering that there's power on the output yeah, i know that old meters can be tricked that way, but i vould be concerned about residual magnetization, and i've seen a technician when i was a kid checking for regular metering with a giant heater with fans, it was the house of some my relatives, not inhabited

[@tormodjoh]

That big relay is a bi-stable relay, use power only when changing state, two coils, one for turn on and one for turn of

[@durexyl]

or just reverse the polarity on the same coil to switch over between states. slightly different construction.

[@chrismooneyham5279]

]p

[@davearthur514]

That's a Pay As You Go meter, and the keypad is there so if you loose your payment card you can enter the code you get from the shop therefore getting your electric.

[@ymmvcouk]

It's a full smart meter, prepay or monthly, with the ability to cut people off and make them phone for credit. I also sent Clive a PAYG meter.

[@feartheturnip]

It's also used to pair up the lekky meter with the in home display and gas meter, as all pair to the lekky meter, and send the data (up to half hourly if agreed) to the data collector and then on to the supplier. You can also top it up via the in home device. I used to install these but I can't remember the company name, bit they specialised in prepay. Remember people if you cab afford it and budget, never go prepay, it's always more expensive, partially due to the tech in the meters, but with smart, that shouldn't really be an excuse as any smart meter can be modded to be prepay remotely (same as cutting you off or offering cheaper/more expensive prices at different times - British gas have been doing that for years to encourage smart meter take up.

[@pierreuntel1970]

I expected you to power it on...

[@EpicLPer]

SandPox Ohey

[@DavidinEssexUK]

Another vote to power it on. And perhaps try bypassing it to see what happens.

[@jk9554]

Right... "don't turn it on, take it apaaart!" is not _your_ motto! :p

[@arcadeuk]

@@jk9554 I don't like EEBlogs motto, I like to see what happens when things are powered up

[@kir0nz]

Leave that stuff to AvE or Bad Obsession Motorsport. /runs and hides from people who don't realise this is a joke.

[@TheUnclestein]

A while ago we had one of the industry standard Landis & Gyr energy meters fitted in place of the old disc type induction meter. Almost immediately our "usage" increased. I queried this with our electricity provider and the manufactures. My main concern was that the inductive meter disc will absorb peaks from switching on appliances etc due to the inertia of the disc but the modern meters are capable of measuring the whole peak and calculating it as energy consumed. They directed me to the user manual which states there are a number of programmable variables affecting the "peak measurement" and it's response to spikes. This is adjustable by the electricity company via an IR opto-interface and highly encrypted firmware/software tool. The electricity supplier got back to me and stated they were set to record "average" peak value (this depends on the supplier).

[@thetruthwillwinoneday]

Smart meters can also measure power factor. Settings can be carried out remotely and yes, with a change of law will be able to be remotely disconnected. Already happens with pre payment meters, same meter, different program. Say NO to these dangerous devices.

[@johnallan1134]

I'll settle for the grinding disc type lol ain't changing

[@sibalogh]

Smart meters are horrible junks to annoy and upset our lives. They are the globalists' voodoo magic boxes to F...people around the clock with...

[@randy1ization]

ohh they didnt use the regular excuse, that your old meter was reading low?

[@todortodorov940]

If that is the case, this means that your "switching on appliances etc" were using electricity, which the old "disc" meter could not correctly detect. It is only fair to say that you were pulling electricity out of the grid without paying for it, and it is only fair that you pay for what you use.

[@TheArmygirl97]

I worked for the company this meter belongs too, if the meter moved beyond a very small parameter we were alerted, also if the cover was removed we were give a tamper warning which we would have to respond too. On the top cover it has WAN (wider area network) and HAN (home area network) the WAN was what we used to be able to connect to the meter from head office, and HAN was it used to connect to an in home real time display. I do believe the SIM cards are actually connected to Vodafone. The little keypad allowed people to type in update or top up codes. We were able to disconnect and reconnect a customer in a matter of seconds using the WAN network. We only offered three different tariffs, none of which offered a standing charge or higher peak hours charge. They were definitely no microphones in the meters! We didn’t want to hear about your problems!

[@londontrada]

What is the response to the cover being removed? Ive removed loads of them

[@itaamelia6715]

why its called "smart" I dont see any intelligence stuff on the device? it is just a digital remote meter

[@londontrada]

@@itaamelia6715 it talks directly to the company and there's also a device you can use to see exactly what your electricity is costing in real time

[@PVflying]

meg north my meter also has a HAN connector but I haven't yet been able to find any energy meters which offer this feature. Do you know where they can be obtained from?

[@itaamelia6715]

@londontrada thats not the definition of smart. smart is a device that could learn without being program

[@thumbwarriordx]

Honestly the problem for me when my old meter got smashed out by ice from the roof and replaced with a smart meter... there's no longer a worker from the power company who would take cash on the spot instead of cutting the power. Which was an opportunity I have availed myself of more times than I'm proud of.

[@mcfcguvnors]

always used to be a pikey for old meters - or my fave a super strong magnet off ebay nailed to the old meter to slow that copper wheel :P

[@davelowets]

@@mcfcguvnors Magnets don't work BUT they will end up getting you a court case from your service provider for attempted theft.

[@AnonAnonAnon]

@@davelowets Magnets DID work but on the old electric meters with the spinning wheel. A magnet slows the wheel, doesn't stop it, but slows it enough so you get billed less money

[@davelowets]

@@AnonAnonAnon They don't... The meter is better shielded that that.

[@hydeparkist]

@@davelowets Ok, then magically my bill went down and the slowing down of the wheel was just an illusion witnessed by my whole family for years. Thanks for pointing that out;)

[@brotangyoust9252]

They tried to put one in here.....I told them to piss off and used the conspiracy theories as an excuse. The main reason is tho.....my 60 yr old meters bearings must be a bit dry because 1kwh only spins the wheel .75 kWh so I'm happy with that. As they keep upping the price my meter gets a little slower😁😁😁

[@howtowithelizabeth7513]

Brotang Youst they may FORCE u to switch if u keep refusing 😕

[@brotangyoust9252]

@@howtowithelizabeth7513 possibly in the future but until then I'll stick with my old meter till I can't any longer. If I have no choice I'll ask for it to be put off the house as I'm on my own line from a transformer and 2 poles off the road because this place used to be a commercial property running high voltage machines etc

[@gantmj]

They came through my neighborhood one day, and changed them all without prior notice. I happened to be home, and the power was only out for the few seconds. I didn't even notice the new meter for a few days.

[@brotangyoust9252]

@@gantmj dirty buggers.....ya need a big ass pitbull like mine😁 not much gets past him aye😉

[@angebrowne1730]

gantmj Wow!

[@MegaWayneD]

I used to work for a very well known power utility company (the one with the bright orange Fiestas and vans) and if I've learned one thing it's NEVER trust the people who knock on your door claiming they can save you money. I've seen all sorts of tricks, including conning pensioners by simply lying to them. Smart Meters were just starting to be trialled at the time and even then it was well-known that it's for the company's benefit and not the customer. That was eons ago....

[@danmackintosh6325]

I like how long ago it was, I couldn't put a "name to the face" until that point lol

[@_Piers_]

"NEVER trust people" I fixed that for you....

[@JustAnotherThisDJ]

Eon

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

Well, one small benefit is that the power company doesn't come into your house without your knowledge when you probably aren't home...

[@andyowens5494]

Ese Callum Incorrect. The specs are published. Check before stating “alternative” facts.

[@Llamarama100]

If these meters were all about saving energy and putting money back in consumers pockets, they wouldn't have ever been rolled out. The main beneficiary of these devices is the power companies who can now remotely cut off your electric should they decide to do so, and add new peak rates whenever they want more revenue.

[@frank1847]

Exactly right.

[@Cowcow211]

Companies can already apply peak rates if they want. See Eco7 rates. Electric companies have already rolled out signal meters for triple rate meters. If you think your current meter can't do that. Sorry you're too late since the 90s.

[@k1ortia]

Iv always said the same thing from day one, the customer isn't saving shit..its so the company's can monitor and control you even more. If for any reason people start using less electricity then the companies thought, guess what people, the price of electricity goes up. What ever happened to going to the meter physically, pushing the bloody button and the green display tell you how much electric or gas you've got left. It's been working absolutely fine for the last 20 odd years

[@Jila_Tana]

@@Cowcow211 Eco7 .. so thats the UK. You don't have a government above the energy companies ? They make their own laws and get away with it ? Not happening here.

[@frank1847]

@@@k1ortia I agree with every word.

[@garydavid1788]

Be wary of anything with 'smart' in its name!

[@agnostic47]

Definately. They're for the benefit of the provider and they spy on you.

[@zebulionneilson5355]

@Nicolae Florin Pașca true

[@rosemarygriffin2184]

Everything Smart is evil, it monitors everything you do, and say, you are constantly being monitored and listened to. Year's ago a friend of my nephews had a phone with a camera on it at the front, and a microphone. He kept the microphone switched off, and the camera covered in bluetac. He said that the phone was watching him and listening to him. At the time we thought he was crazy and laughed it off. Now we know that the mobile phones can do this, he doesn't sound as crazy now does he?!

[@bravocheesecake3836]

How comforting to know that the elderly and infirm can now have their power disconnected remotely when they're unable to pay the bill. Be sure to check on your neighbours this winter.

[@Monkeh616]

Which is exactly why they don't disconnect the power remotel.

[@jjarry]

Oh yea they do

[@leexgx]

@@jjarry if they have a court order they can do (PAYG mode yes no credit the meter will disconnect power as long as it's outside of 3pm-10am week day and Friday 3pm - weekend - Monday 10am power will stay on )

[@benkerr9051]

They can't. The relay is for using the meter as a prepayment meter. So the only thing that can cut you off is lack of money, which is just as bad really.

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

ben kerr Do you have any concrete reason to believe that a meter owned and commissioned by the power company doesn't implicitly trust said power company to be right at all times?

[@noferblatz]

Interestingly, in the US, the old (stupid) meters don't just tap in to the power lines. These boxes are outdoors, so the boxes are water-resistant. They're square boxes with a round opening in them. Inside that hole are four copper "pinch" contacts. The meter itself is round and has four blades on the back side which fit into the pinch contacts. Then there's an aluminum ring which goes around it to seal it and reveal any tampering. But the point is that, when you pull that meter out of the box, your power is interrupted. All electricity going into the dwelling (or shop) flows *through* the meter. I would bet that the new ones (smart) operate in the same way, because they don't change the boxes out when they put them in. They just take the round meter part out and replace it with another round meter gadget which has a digital read out instead of a big disk and a bunch of arrow gauges which go in various directions (as on the old meters). Matter of fact, you could undo the aluminum ring, remove the meter and bridge across the pinch contacts with slabs of copper or whatever and have unmetered power. Of course, doing this would excite the power company no end. Removing your meter was the favored way of interrupting your power, say, in the case where a house was being renovated in preparation for sale. If there was no payer on the account but construction crews were around who needed power, you had to contact the power company to put in a meter so you could power construction crew devices. When I was an electrician, I built a box with two receptacles on one end of a cable, and two clips on the other end. I would clip them to the "split bolt" fasteners on the roof above the meter (thus getting power before it got to the meter). That way I could work regardless of whether there was a meter or not. They weren't going to remove the power drop between house owners. The meter maybe, but not the power drop from the pole.

[@brianleeper5737]

I took apart an Itron smart meter I bought used on Ebay, all electricity does in fact pass through the meter and there are current transformers on both the hot legs. There is one problem with the Itron meter--if one of the hot legs fails, it doesn't record any power usage, because the digital circuit gets no power. As far as disconnecting power, sometimes the utility pulls the fuse from the pole transformer, if the pole transformer just serves one meter. There's an old AT&T coax repeater hut not far from here where they did that. Either that or the fuse blew and they never fixed it. But I think it was intentionally pulled.

[@ionstorm66]

I've also seen meters that have a 50a 220v plug on them, that way contractors can use them on new installs before power is hooked up. The meter keeps track of this usage and the check in with the utility and pay for it. It's amazing in rural America how little fucks are given about stealing power. They only come check my 3 meters like once a year. I have a 3 phase and a 220 split feed under ground to the side of the house. It would be trivial to hook into that in the boxes before the meter, or even under ground.

[@brianleeper5737]

@@ionstorm66 Also amazing how, in rural America, you can leave your car doors unlocked, there isn't MS13 gang graffiti tags all over the place, there are no drive-by shootings, the cashier in the convenience store isn't behind bullet-proof glass, you rarely see police activity, your license plates don't get stolen, packages don't get stolen off your front porch.... and most probably, power theft is unlikely to be the problem it is, in, say, Detroit.

[@ionstorm66]

@@brianleeper5737 you obviously have never heard of meth. Shit gets stolen every now and then.

[@brianleeper5737]

@@ionstorm66 No section 8 rentals in this part of rural america. Gotta go 10-15 miles to the city to find those and the meth problems. High property values mean that only high-density housing is cheap enough to become section 8, and that can only be built where there is public water/sewer. True story...I asked the septic company if I should put a lock on the control panels for my septic system...the guy says, "No, we haven't had any problems with vandalism or theft. This isn't (name of city 10 miles away)". It maybe different if the nearest medium-sized city is much further away, but this city being only 10 miles away provides a lot of cheap housing for the riff-raff, so it serves a purpose by keeping them away from where I live.

[@juststeve5542]

The elephant in the room, which the electricity companies don't seem to have noticed, is that once they have "replaced" all the meter readers with an RF signal, who's going to stick their head under your stairs and notice the new spur feeding the kitchen and tumble drier which has "accidentally" been connected to the pre-meter feed? Or are they going to send someone out every time that tamper alarm gets triggered? (Nobody tell 4chan!).

[@SuperSiggiboy]

Here in Norway, self-reporting usage has been the norm for a long time, so the power company does not regularly come by to look at your meter. There are though a electrical inspector from the grid owner that comes by every few years. But these meters still need to be changed when their lifespan is nearing the end

[@vylbird8014]

There's an old trick of the 'vampire tap' too - needles poked into the incoming cable to tap the power, which can be quickly removed and leave no evidence unless someone goes over the cable with a magnifying glass. There's an obvious way to counteract this though, and I'm sure the grid operators all use it. Just fit a meter at the substation. If the power going out from the substation is less than the power used by all registered addresses on that phase, someone is likely up to no good. Time to send the inspectors around.

[@sumilidero]

they check out readings on many stages, like power on medium voltage feeding 10 houses, and every house reading, and if the numbers don't match they check it out, like when everyday at 4p.m. there is dubious 2-3 kW more power drain on MV, and its not present in sum of all house readings

[@tinplategeek1058]

Most of the meter readers are not being replaced but will be visiting people to perform "safety checks" .i.e. check that you haven't tampered with anything. So the staff will still be visiting you, just not to read the meter.

[@benkerr9051]

Sssssh! Most of the dafties still just stick a wire up both live terminals, its very rare you find a direct to mains case. It is the sensible way to do it , though.

[@shadowreaperjb]

The counter point to the "they can choose when to charge you more" is that they already do charge you more when you're cooking, peak and off-peak. The real issue is that there needs to be more regulation about how they do their pricing, possibly a profit margin cap, so they can only make at most 20% profit. The main reason that having smart meters is a good idea and important is that it give a real time view of the power consumption across the grid, letting power generation be more reactive and less wasteful, which in theory will bring the total price of electricity down.

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

Or to put it another way, if they can charge you more at peak times, they can charge you less at off peak times. Octopus agile tariff updates pricing every half an hour. They publish what the rates will be the day before so you can adjust your usage to be at the cheapest times. The difficulty is if you are choosing between different companies operating such a tariff how do you compare the prices? It is much more complicated than if its just a fixed unit rate. Things would be so much simpler if we had a state energy company that just charged fair prices rather than multiple private companies each trying to charge you as much as possible in sneaky ways you won't notice.

[@Ben-Rogue]

@@adrianthoroughgood1191 imo, electricity and other essentials shouldn't be left up to corporations. If they must be a part of any of its there needs to be strict regulations and tight profit caps.

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

@@Ben-Rogue Yes indeed. I can live with some generation being private sector if necessary, but it makes no sense to have private sector retailers. It's not buying a car where there is room for competition and consumers can make a choice about what they want. With electricity people just want to pay as little as possible for what they use. It's all just a game between customers trying to pay as little as possible and companies trying to charge as much as possible. I think there should be a publicly owned electricity supply company that handles the grid and billing and getting enough power reliably, whether that is building generation and batteries themselves or buying power from existing generators. They can do all the work of getting electricity as cheaply as possible then charging prices that are just enough to cover all expenses. They can have variable rate pricing to help with load balancing by shifting demand to when supply is plentiful, without it turning into 4D chess about customers getting the cheapest deal. Every citizen should be an equal shareholder and receive an equal share of profits if there are any.

[@andrewallen9993]

Bring the price of electricity down? Are you a complete idiot or do you work for the power company?

[@rogerphelps9939]

Yes. Bring back the CEGB maybe with regional boards. If t hey had not privatised it we would not have had this so called competitio which actually did not work.@@adrianthoroughgood1191

[@mels8966]

So how come smart meters can be made out of plastic, when new consumer units must be metal (or non- combustible material) to prevent fires. Can't be that meter installers never fail to tighten the cable terminals right, because there have been reports of poorly trained installers and smart meters starting fires.

[@feartheturnip]

I used to install these, one meter operator company I worked for, didn't care about safety, they just cared about numbers installed, and profits. Staff would be rightlybe suspended if failing safety audits but then during the suspension, audit others. Seriously..... You'd also be given 10+hrs of work to complete in a 8hr shift daily.

[@margaretwallaces3625]

Look up the town Paradise in America which was destroyed & see how the smart meters caught fire.

[@kint5ugee]

Consumer units are enclosures. It's a bit like asking why MCBs are made of plastic.

[@thetruthwillwinoneday]

Yep. Called out to a burning smell just weeks ago. Smart meter just installed, badly, live terminal not tightened to specifications. Had no option to pull the main fuse for the safety of the customer and property. And guess what, hasn’t saved the customer a penny since forced installation.

[@robinhooduk8255]

really want to know what will happen when you put that sim in a phone?

[@bigclivedotcom]

It won't work. It'll be tied to a specific task. Like using a modem SIM in a phone.

[@pkf4124]

It will have been on a data only tariff, capped at a low monthly amount, and when the customer disconnected they will have ended the contract. The company wont want the meter back as its used and cant be verified to be safe and accurate. Recalibration cost about the same as a new meter.

[@tronixfix]

The black men with the black van will show up n take you

[@1978garfield]

The phone cops show up. On WKRP Johnny Fever was afraid of the phone cops. Considering that AT&T was allowed to operate a monopoly partially because Western Electric made parts for the H bombs, maybe there really were phone cops. Damn shame Western Electric didn't survive the break up. Phones that could double as murder weapons and still have a dial tone, bomb parts and all sorts of other goodies. I guess it all would have shipped to Mexico or China soon enough. I still don't understand why China has most favored nation status and South Korea doesn't.

[@Steve211Ucdhihifvshi]

Youd be suprised, i worked for a company that scrapped hundreds of meters and telecom stuff for a power company. They dont care they just dump the shit in a skip and move on. Found 1000s of 18650 batteries, 40w uhf data radios like uHF radios that you can reprogram to voice etc easily. sim cards, brand new cat6 patch cables, mobile antennas, etc etc etc. All just dumped.

[@qwertyasdf66]

The common conspiracy cited in NZ to avoid having one installed was that "they catch fire a lot" because there were a few early cases of that. But that was only cited by people who wanted to continue growing illegal plants on a circuit bypassing their meter (they know full well that fire is a low risk). But anyway, here's my story about smart meters. It's not very dramatic. I was living in an apartment and the power company had got our box muddled up with an apartment in another part of the building. They sent us bills and we paid the bills. But periodically the same company also sent us flyers that said "hey, you're new here, sign up with us!". We called them on a few occasions to inform them that they were mistaken and that we were sorted for a power provider (them). Then one day they turned the power off on us. I got home in the evening to find my flatmate had coincidentally got food poisoning and was throwing up by candlelight. It took over an hour of talking to them on the phone, including the building's electrician being onsite and even talking to them, to convince them that they had the accounts muddled up. They just wouldn't listen, even when we read the ID off the meter to them. "But that's not the address we have on the account here." "I know. And it's wrong. I just gave you the correct address and number at least 10 times by now." "But.." "So fix it and turn our power back on. Now."

[@georgepalmer5851]

Emf radiation. It's a cellphone. Hello cancer

[@danielscott4514]

@@georgepalmer5851 Don't hold your ear up against your electricity meter then ;)

[@livingglowstick1337]

@@georgepalmer5851 I think you just gave me more cancer than I ever will get

[@Kiwigeo8339]

@@georgepalmer5851 how much time do you spend with your head inside your meter box???

[@Kiwigeo8339]

@brianbadonde9039 What nonsense. All you numpties going on about getting cancer from the EMF from your smart meters happily spend half your day with your mobile phone glued to the side of your heads.

[@kv4302]

My gripe with these things is that they have the potential to gather some really interesting data, and I don't trust the people who pick and buy these to take security in high enough consideration. They promise perfect safety but that means very little. The power company also states that it's illegal for them to read the meter out more than once a month, but that doesn't stop people who think they can get away with breaking the law. Best not to ever record this kind of data in the first place, only way it won't get leaked or stolen.

[@swiftyblueredblue715]

Come on then tin foil hat. What 'data' do they collect?

[@darrenhenderson6921]

It’s not law, it’s secondary legislation, not a crime, what would the evidence be? A bag brown bag of electricity, they are technically breaking the law, including data protection laws, it’s your right to not have broadcasts from your dwelling so you can switch all the modem part off and there isn’t a thing they can do about it.

[@darrenhenderson6921]

@@ireallylovegod don’t do this, you will pay from your pocket and if you don’t have the money you will live either freezing saving or in a bnb saving at least £500, thru aren’t as lenient as they once were, they will cut you off for safety and you will pay for repairs

[@darrenhenderson6921]

@@ireallylovegod there are actually lots of ways if you want to beat bills, do you live on the bottom floor? If so look into a diesel generator, they are illegal indoors, even when exhausted properly outside, but what you can do is put the generator outside, get those cheap Chinese copies, they are actually decent, it’s a diesel engine not much can go wrong, build a little box, to protect your generator, then simply blow the heat in, in 12 hours you would only use 350ml of fuel and your house will be too hot, if you really enjoy your projects I would suggest looping the exhaust in and out, you will need a huge extension that is a suitable exhaust and bring it inside, put the pipe along a wall and then put the exhaust back out, the exhaust wasted a lot of heat so when you do this you also make a radiator, get cage and screw it all in, this project will cost you less than $200 and you will save thousands each year, even terracotta heaters, KZbin them, good with a huge wholesale supply of 8 hour burning tea light candles, place them on the tray and it’s like an upside down pot looking thing that distributes hear comfortable and cheap, but those are like space warmers, have them in addition to your heat or if you have a greenhouse, this is all you need, depending on where you live some turbines are alright, others are like enough to charge a phone if your lucky but there are ways to make these things from like scraps from the internet, if your astonishingly lucky and live near a river please tell me I would love to know if you have explored alternative energy and renewable sources too, I live over one mile from my river but I’m getting permission to get a wheel turbine and I’ll build a hut for my induction motors and so on them I’ll get the power line ran up to my property and that’s it, I have my own power station and I can build all this myself, from scraps, any scrap yard will have what you need, you will need your own generator especially if you want a good one it’s up to you, and I would use lots of spare lithium ion batteries as they are wasted in bulk yet they charge like £600 for a block that contains like 200 of them? I could make my own batteries for nothing and better batteries at that, in the UK if you have a dwelling on an unclaimed piece of land for four years then you can declare it’s yours, it’s a cool law we have, technically I’m lord Darren Henderson not mr lol I can even have it on my licence, I don’t, but I can lol anyway let me know what’s up if your just commenting or you are into this stuff

[@erroltheterrible]

Could the relay be Bi-stable, only requiring power to change state?

[@Monkeh616]

It is.

[@Sine1040]

Jep, the symbol for the coil says so.

[@bean2594]

If it was normally closed and the service was shut off, immagine what would happen when returning from a power outage. The normally closed relay would be closed for a split second before the circuitry would be able to open the relay and you'd have two seconds of free power.

[@mysock351C]

Would be fun to give it to Photonicinduction for a "high current" test. Get to see how fast the display can update.

[@YouTubeSupportTeams]

@Spud-Man agreed, that dudes ancient history

[@mortlet5180]

This is the first time I've heard the ridiculousness of there being microphones in these. Surely the microphone in your landline or mobile phone would be sufficient to monitor your conversations? In any case, it turns out to be quite easy to get sufficient 'personal' data, from just the real and imaginary power readings, for most nefarious use cases that you could imagine. Basically, it relies on a few key assumptions that actually seem to hold up in most instances: The main one is that people are creatures of habit. Secondly, since you have access to everyone's usage data, you are easily able to accurately train neural networks to recognise certain patterns, which differ from the norm (this might seem to not be very useful, but it turns out that there are so many more 'ordinary' people living around you, that trying to obfuscate your actions through exploiting certain periodicities still makes you stand out quite clearly). Thirdly, certain key, common activities have a very distinctive power 'signature' which can serve as markers. As a crude example: Showering or bathing places a relatively large resistive load on the mains, which differentiates it from inductive loads (like refrigeration, air conditioning, swimming pool pumps, etc.) and capacitive (usually electronics with switchmode PSUs) loads. Since you will usually shower at around the same time of day (at least on the corresponding day of the month, every suitable month, say the 1st of every month which is also a Monday) it becomes very easy to get a clean signature of your electric water heater, by simply autocorrelating and filtering the data over multiple observations. So, if you suddenly start showering at odd times which also coincide with an uncharacteristic drop in activity from another man's apartment/house, followed by a spike in the same man's activity, always corresponding roughly with the expected travel time between your locations, then you have just found out that both guys probably are not straight. Granted, it's much less useful information in today's society, but it might still not be something that you expect to be easily accessible public knowledge. Now, all of this is information is obviously very easily bought by any interested corporation with enough money, and has been effectively collected by major governments for decades already, so the idea that large companies would gain any extra personal data from you through these devices is quite ludicrous indeed. The difference now, is that these power readings are being publicly broadcast, with very easily defeated security (as has been demonstrated to death at this point). So if you have these smart meters installed, it just becomes SO much easier for thieves to learn when you're not going to be home (or for that matter, when you're going to be in the shower), whilst making their scouting activities practically undetectable (they can just go around, mounting undercover receivers to point at targets with high-gain antennae, without ever going near the property or ever getting within optical line of sight). It makes voyeurism a whole lot easier as well...

[@S.ASmith]

Indeed. A Yagi antenna with an RF reciever will, be able to sniff out the information these transmit over the 3G/4G/HSDPA-LTE mobile networks and, be intercepted. Laptop, Yagi Antenna, RF Reciever & something like Kali Linux with a suite of sniffing software and appropriate drivers for communicating with the antenna, are all you need. You can crack the SHA2 key used and perform a false handshake with the meter (man in the middle attack), at which point you could even shut off someone's supply or reprogram the meter. It would render CCTV, Alarm systems and such useless unless they have auxillary supplies (which alarms at least, usually do). Magnetic locks are also at risk here (though magnetic locks can be defeated in other ways anyway). Physical Penetration testing (some people call it "red teaming" for some reason) is an important aspect that is often over looked. And it could lead to robberies, data theft, or even sexual assault/rape of occupants or installation of cameras in the residence. While reaching, there are a handful of clever criminals out there who would exploit this.

[@PhilC184]

Any microphone in a meter in my house would get traffic noises, as it's mounted outside in a box!

[@ChoppingtonOtter]

@@PhilC184 I built my own house so built a standalone box not even connected my house (apart from by an underground armoured sub main of course!) - so as we live in the countryside it'll be birdsong and 🐑 sheep . I suppose at least it'll be restful for the snoops listening 😁 .

[@peterdoa1]

the nsa just watch me on pc

[@JamesAllmond]

Face it, time to done the foil hats!

[@captainretro373]

“It’s this conspiracy thing that it’s gonna release chemicals into your house” Meter: just in time, I was just warming up my neurotoxin emitters.

[@evilutionltd]

Looks like a Bluetooth module to me. Try cutting the SIM card down to size and see if it’s still active in a phone.

[@eWhizz]

evilution usually zig bee module

[@tomparmenter8665]

@@eWhizz metering uses zigbee because it has a longer range and better error correction.

[@98dizzard]

I'm assuming it's the ZigBee that is used to send the smart gas meter readings via this one module.

[@tomparmenter8665]

@@98dizzard Yeap. It's primarily used for in house infrastructure. In the future you'll have zigbee switches to let your Meter turn things on and off in the house. Well that was the plan when I was developing those meters.

[@joylessdave]

id be interested to see what the sim did in a phone. how good are the energy companies/ phone companies at identifying unauthorized devices.

[@timw1971]

The "slug" of different metal is indeed a calibrated shunt, or very low value resistor. The tiny voltage drop across it will be proportional to the instantaneous current from Ohm's law. It allows the current sine wave to be monitored so that the phase relationship between voltage and current can be determined. These meters can simultaneously measure total VA and import and export var and W. Typical value for the shunt is 0.5 mΩ. The power dissipation at 100 A would be just 5 W, with a lot of copper to take that heat away.

[@coppice2778]

100A meter shunts are usually about half that resistance. Typically 200 to 300 micro-ohms. 5W is more than most meter specifications allow the meter to dissipate. They use a material with a very low temperature coefficient for the shunt. The copper connected to the shunt it prettty thick, but no more than you need to carry 100A.

[@sniuchi2549]

Shunts are usually made out of costantan,little to no change in resistance if temperature changes We made power supplies and used some 3000A shunt they get a little warm at almost 3000A but also weight almost 1kg

[@coppice2778]

Constantin, manganin and other alloys need very precise control to reach a 0ppm temperature coefficient. Most shunts only claim a temperature coefficient of 10ppm/C to 50ppm/C. That's not too bad, but if you let the shunt heat too much you are going to ruin the performance of a 0.1% accuracy utility meter, which is a common type in some countries (most countries use 0.5%, 1% or even 2% accurate meters).

[@TheVirtualWatcher]

@@coppice2778 200µΩ was what we used ...

[@TheRogueBro]

Need to get some video editing software so you can just cut back a few min of video vs having to start all over! But i love how minimalist your recording is, record, pause when needed and then just upload from there. No pointless fluff! Don't ever change!

[@NicolaiSyvertsen]

The trick is to be well prepared so you don't have to do as much editing. Dave from EEVBlog has the same strategy and has talked about it a few times.

[@UncleKennybobs]

The modem part is a module so that it can be easily upgraded without replacing the whole meter, or even having to disable the upstream power supply. We're already moving from SMETS1 to SMETS2 and 3/4G to 5G. Of course they could just put a software-defined radio in there and upgrade remotely as and when, but that doesn't make business sense for the supplier. The large capacitors are likely to be for the "dying gasp", in the same way your home modem/router gasp during its final moments, but also for tamper detection, as you say. I have a pre-pay meter, this model, and it talks to a "smart display", which is why there is additional comms circuitry in the modem. The communication is two-way so it is basically a router for the Grid's WAN. With SMETS2 the communication should be more useful for the user/customer and it's supposedly not an optional upgrade. We'll see. The front panel is so that you can enter a top-up code if your power is out and you don't have batteries for the smart display, AND your phone can't be used. It also has diagnosticy stuff too. And other things that make no sense. My gas meter is the same sort of thing but listens to me fart.

[@jensrogerkristoffersen5472]

I bet there are power meter sceptics that have asked their Alexa for advice

[@friedmule5403]

He will just sell one of his "fantastic" water products, Drink a drop every full moon and the anti photons will jam every ray from reaching you, including "microphone recording rays"! :-)

[@alexandracrawford800]

MY ALEXA AND METER ENDED UP ARGUING UNTIL THE SMART METER CUT OFF ALL POWER TO SHUT HER UP! DUMB METER RULE (GRRRRL POWR!)

[@Dave5843-d9m]

@@alexandracrawford800 Sounds like you had a very wise meter.

[@rlee6052]

Alexa is evil

[@filanfyretracker]

ive seen people on twitter go on about how they will never buy a car with GM Onstar because the feds can track that. bottom says "Sent from Twitter for iPhone". Always gives me a laugh at people worried about car telematics tracking them while carrying a device that can probably track them more accurately than the car. Or even better posting their daily story on social with the places they are going.

[@Gesteppie]

The blue light thing IS real though. Some conspiracies are nonsense yes, but blue light IS known to disrupt the human cicada rhythm which can be annoying for people who have white street lights plonked right out of the front of their house pointing directly into their bedrooms. Yellow and orange lights are much better for sleepy time as the red end of the light spectrum doesn't put so much strain on your eyes.

[@PS-os6sr]

Ken Su, True, although the problem is the underlying competition based (/capitalist) socio-economic system. And those "Zionists" are nothing but the richest capitalists of the world. The problem are the "capitalists", not "Zionists", and even that is not accurate since the problem, as I already said, is the competition based system itself, and the 99.99% of poor and 0.00001% of rich (/capitalists) are only the consequence of the system we all collectively currently accept as valid...

[@JamesScholesUK]

True enough (although not yet researched enough to have any firm predictions as to the level of any health concerns), but not the fault of low power luminence technology. Everyone who uses this to claim LED lights are therefore inherently bad or dangerous has skipped a couple of steps in their thinking. Stick a tungsten bulb behind a blue filter and you'll experience the same symptoms. You'll just also use 30 times as much power to do it.

[@SECONDQUEST]

@Ken Su Also haha fuck! THIS IS ON ALL HIS VIDEOS! Good luck getting an apology. You've got delusions of grandeur buddy.

[@PS-os6sr]

SECONDQUEST, He's fine. Even if he is a bit stubborn about it, and not necessarily comes from the best angle, he's still much less "mentally ill" than those who don't question the Governments, the banks, this whole "economic" system...

[@tehf00n]

There has been some effort to remove blue light frequencies from computer monitors over the years. They wouldn't spend money on it if there wasn't a problem with it.

[@erbenton07]

The funny looking part of the bus bar is actually an ammeter shunt. A very low resistance that passes current and thus has a millivolt drop across that the smart meter can use to determine amps draw

[@andrelubbock]

the shunt is likely made of manganin which has a very low temperature coefficient

[@howiej4084]

@@andrelubbockWow. Haven't heard the word manganin in about thirty years. And I recon you're correct. That's exactly what it is.

[@one2nd1]

Brought memories of living in the 80s council estate and seeing people bridging the two outer positive, I've also seen them put the old meters upside down alleging they slow down, best I ever saw was a gas meter bypass using a bicycle inner tube, they grow bigger than a football too.

[@EdgyShooter]

"So how did your house explode?" "Well it started with an inner tube.."

[@sbalogh53]

Back in the 1980's a neighbour used to bypass his electricity meter for 2 weeks every month. He called it "Half Price Pensioner Rates".

[@EdgyShooter]

@@sbalogh53 I love this one, just add something to gum up the spindle and have a permanent discount 😉

[@Cornz38]

My mate used a PCB drill, a pin and some boot polish. When they came he always gave an excuse and asked if they'd come back tomorrow. Remove pin, dab of shoe polish , wipe and done...

[@steveshadforth]

We used to turn the gas meter the wrong way round lol

[@dancoulson6579]

I really don't like the idea of these. The electric company has made an error in the past where they decided we owed them too much money, and come round to disconnect us. However, upon checking the meter locally, they found out that they were at fault. Now if they can remotely disconnect you, and they are in error, what kind of compensation plans do they have in place?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Likewise I received a bill for tens of thousands of pounds last year because their estimated readings were so far from my real usage that they thought the meter had "rolled over" and charged me for a massive number of units. Theoretically with this type of meter the readings should always be up to date.

[@GreatSageSunWukong]

I must be lucky my meter looks like its from the 70s its a black slightly rusty mechanical lump, i was out of the flat for about 7 months after idiot workmen set fire to the water tank on the roof, i just paid the bills because I couldn't get in to check the meter with the workmen in here dealing with the aftermath (badly because they are useless), when I did give them the reading they credited my account by over £400 no questions asked, I found that strange, no one was sent to check, similar with the gas but its outside so they could easily check that without me knowing.

[@Monkeh616]

They don't actually use the remote disconnect - they do not know who or what is in the house, and they would be liable if they cut power and caused harm by doing so.

[@pfeerick]

Indeed. All a bit too complicated for doing something 'simple'... and just asking for something to go wrong. And when it does, it's the meter's fault, or a computers - not a person. And you get the fun of trying to pin someone down on the phone (probably in an Indian call centre) to take steps to rectify the situation... All a step backwards in the name of 'progress'. A bit like Australia's 'National Broadband Network' government initiative... Which is that badly broken that the upgraded version is the Pigeon Network.

[@dashcamandy2242]

You get "compensated" with a Reconnect Fee. LOL Just like Xfinity (Comcast).

[@xenoxaos1]

Optoisolated due to external antenna connector.

[@MarkTillotson]

Interesting that Clive both wonders about the need for isolation and notes the lack of earth - this whole unit is basically live (since fault conditions can raise neutral up way high)

[@sumilidero]

in my country, neutral must be connected to earth as close as possible to the main junction box, so i dont think separate earth connection is necessarry in the meter

[@benkerr9051]

It is considered as double insulated, as there are no exposed metal parts, except for the sealing screws. No whole-current meters are ever earthed, either domestic or industrial.

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

ben kerr Older mechanical meters had a steel casing instead of the more modern plastic. But that was before earthing at every outlet became normal. As for earthing near the meter, this varies significantly by country. Some places use a TT distribution with the grid neutral nominally grounded at the substation and each house having a local ground electrode for the PE, thus the two being connected only through the actual ground. Some use the IT delta distribution system where the grid is not intentionally grounded at all, but any phase may be accidentally grounded by an unexpected remote fault at any time, raising the other two to 230V above ground. Connecting grid neutral to house PE is a feature of TN distribution systems only.

[@apodis4900]

I'm not an electrician, but I know about business. I wish they would just stop peddling the lie that they can save you money. They can scare you into using less maybe. Companies don't tie up resources in order to assist customers in buying less of their product. These devices benefit the company far more than they can benefit us. I use very little power as it is, and I'll go as long as I can without one of their smartmeters thanks. I'd respect them far more if they said we intend to cut down on energy theft using these things for example, rather than the bullshit they do try to feed us.

[@andrewwhite1793]

Yes, that's exactly how they work, but sensible people call it being informed, rather than scared. They save the utilities money by not sending our meter readers an allow them to track down faults quicker..

[@tronixfix]

If they want to force you to install it you can cut the power completely and use solar cells... solar is free energy, only the hardware and maintenance of the batterys will cost money.

[@dazuk1969]

The ability to change how much you are being charged instantly any time they want without even letting you know is what concerns me. Especially now we are in an energy crisis. I have a smart meter and got a letter from them saying that despite the governments energy cost cap they can still vary what they charge depending on what they pay.

[@dazuk1969]

@Sheree Boulton I have disabilities Sheree, and live on my own. I basically have a lamp and my computer on most days. My bill is now £115 a month ????. And I haven't even put my central heating on yet.

[@davelowets]

They can change the cost of a Kwh whether you have a smart meter or not.. The meter just indicates usage, the billing department can adjust the pricing any time they want, with or without a smart meter. The one thing they CAN do with a smart meter is charge you more or less for "peak time", "normal time", or "off time" usage. My bill actually went down after my smart meter was installed, because I use most of my electricity at night, during the "off time", or cheaper tier.

[@dazuk1969]

@@davelowets Before I had a smart meter I was on a set tariff. One price every month. Every quarter you might have to pay a shortfall or sometimes they owed you money. Smart meters you can't do that. So you never know what your bill will be. I don't know about you but I am not a millionaire and have to budget. Smart meters have taken away my ability to do that in terms of electric/gas use.

[@holysirsalad]

That's certainly a regulatory issue more than a technological one. These things enable time of use billing but if the power company feels like jacking rates the only thing stopping them is the law. Whether you're on a flat-rate or tiered tariff or TOU it doesn't matter, they'll just raise prices. Happens all over the world

[@cricalix]

I used to work for one of the first companies to provide smart meters in the UK. They offered a lower rate at night, based on the data received over SMS; basically made running things like washing machines cheaper if you did it after 10 pm. I think a bigger concern is whether random employees at any of the energy companies can see your aggregate usage pattern, and then inform local criminals about when your draw drops off sharply (ie, you've gone on holiday).

[@03056932]

EXACTLY. And that's the small scale criminal issue. We've all been told Russian intelligence gets up to no good, taking innocent lives right? Of course, because our media is on a campaign to make people believe it's a Russian only issue. Of course not, we know from history MI5, the CIA, Mossad etc have and will always be up to tricks themselves since day one. Who wants any authority in this world we live to have access to when you are at home and not. Even if you have been sheltered from realities like the above then even the conception of it being possible should be enough to reject such a unnecessary transformation in the way our electricity is monitored to be implemented by force.

[@i4004]

>They offered a lower rate at night, based on the data received over SMS; basically made running things like washing machines cheaper if you did it after 10 pm. don't you have lower rate at night regardless of type of meter? it's just a switch that works 22-07h to put those late kwhs on 2nd counter. it's old stuff. 2-rate meter.

[@christophergallagher3845]

@@i4004 not unless have a radio teleswitch that gets a signal from BBC radio alerting it when to go off peak mode . Thy were common in high rise tower blocks due to have storage heaters that charge at night during cheap tarrif

[@i4004]

@@christophergallagher3845 let's blunt this down: do majority of uk citizens have 2 tarrif (day/night) meters? i would imagine with higher living standard (of uk) 2 tarrif meters are a must. then again it's old capitalism, so....

[@christophergallagher3845]

@@i4004 yes there are two tarrifs off peak and peak . I'm not sure ho digital meters work but th the old wnwlogu disc meters they used another box similar size called a radio teleswitch and this would change the tariff of your analogue spinning disc meter or activate a different meter completely to give you cheaper rates at night . Because of this they used a heating system called storage heaters ( they were filled with bricks inside , the power would come on via the radio teleswitch or a heavy duty timer from say 11pm to 7am and heat up the bricks inside . During this time at night you keep the heat regulator flap closed to heat the bricks then open the flap during the day to let the bricks radiate their heat into the room )

[@dingdongbells3314]

It's kinda of funny because some of the people paranoid about microphones in their power meters wouldn't even second guess an Amazon echo, which literally has an always listening microphone built into it. Sure, it's not supposed to be spying, but I think I'd rather be paranoid about an actual microphone than imaginary microphones that would serve no purpose.

[@dom1310df]

And thanks to Nokia everyone carries a microphone in the pocket for most of the day

[@jk9554]

Thanks to Pokemon Go to give people a reason to take it out of the pocket. The camera has a much clearer vision that way, too :D

[@bigclivedotcom]

Alexa. Is my smart meter listening to me?

[@dashcamandy2242]

"I'm having trouble understanding you right now. Please try again later."

[@phils4634]

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/14/hackers-find-security-flaw-amazon-echo-speakers-could-let-anyone/ Then, for the "extra paranoid" - try Judas Priest's "Electric Eye":-) kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWmwiK1sobWLhac

[@HDXFH]

The sim would still work, i tried with a meter i had, i used up their data, then they barred the card

[@JuanHerrero]

No PIN code? Lazy.

[@danielegger6460]

How would that work? Of course it's without SIM, but typically those cards are allowed only into special APNs which terminate in an IPSec tunnel at the utility company, not "the internet".

[@ChoppingtonOtter]

I asked our installer and aparently these cards go on to whatever network is available somehow.

[@xureality]

some power companies are lazier than others and will have roaming contracts that let them just grab whatever signal is strongest/available and not worry about it

[@CyclingSteve]

Show me a power company that is competent.

[@danieldodsonuk]

To add to what firefly mentioned, the module at the top is probably an 'integrated comms hub'. The module below is the meter. They talk over ZigBee to each other. The hub is responsible for routing messages from the Home Area Network to the WAN. There is usually a 'last gasp' capacitor to send a message home should the connection to the electric meter be removed (there are 2 pins on the meter side messages that are shorted).The hub periodically brings 1 pin high and checks to see that the other pins has changed state in that black connector. I've worked principally on SMETS2 for another UK manufacturer. But SMETS1 is conceptually similar (but much simpler and less convulted).

[@raymondmucklow3793]

Can you build a faraday cage and fire it up I want to see it turn on.

[@bigclivedotcom]

I'm toying with removing the modem and seeing if it still works without it as a plain meter.

[@Basement-Science]

that would be really interesting!

[@PhilC184]

It will just use morse code signalling down the power line to contact its masters.

[@simonhopkins3867]

@@PhilC184 more likely smoke signals ;-)

[@sjames5027]

Maybe you can alter settings to trigger calculating cost based on the "Apparent Power". Not sure what that is but you've talked about it before LOL.

[@theone14444]

The hall sensor is for detecting magnets indeed. In the previous type of meters, the magnetic ones, you could halt them with a powerful enough magnet (although destroying the permanent magnets inside the device and destroying it). The detection isn't so much for protection of the cirquitry inside, but to see if the customer tries to manipulate their readings. I work with these things in germany, so thats how i have the info :)

[@Xfacehack]

When he said that i laughed so hard, OFC people try such things. MAN electrical company definitely don't wanna get screwed :D

[@highpath4776]

Problem ?(whose?) I do store magnets ( bass loudspeakers) in the cupboard the meter is in

[@theone14444]

@@highpath4776 Nah, they'd have to be right up against the side of the meter. And they need to be really strong too. Big neodynium magnets.

[@DulIllah]

@@theone14444 The meter relay will be opened whenever hall sensor detect magnetic field in certain strong value (about 400 mT) and relay stay opened even the strong magnetic is not there anymore. It's happened in electronic meter Indonesia customers

[@peckerwood8786]

How's it feel working for the enemy ?

[@robojan1]

There is a valid reason for measuring the apparent power instead of the real power. What the Network must supply is the apparent power. All the generators and infrastructure must be rated for it. In the past the main load on the electrical grid for residential users were resistive loads. This means that measuring real power was good enough for measuring the actual power consumption, but with the introduction of switch mode power supplies this changes. Now the real power can be a poor measurement of the actual power usage. And yes the real power is the power that is actually converted into work, but that doesn't change what you consume from the power grid. Industrial users were always big reactive power users, with the inductive loads, so they were always billed for apparent power.

[@Basement-Science]

1 VA costs the power company much less than a Watt though. VAs only cause losses in wires (inlcuding those in the generators), and therefore some watts dissipated. You only have to burn extra fuel for those extra Watts, not for the VAs. Furthermore, the reactive current will usually not flow all the way back to the generator, but to some nearby opposite reactive load, wheather that is someone else´s load, or a local PFC unit from the power co.

[@sinephase]

I thought inductive loads can actually feed power back into the grid too?

[@sylviaelse5086]

sinephase Any reactive load, whether inductive or capacitive, is drawing power for part of the cycle, and feeding power back during the rest of the cycle.

[@sinephase]

@@sylviaelse5086 so do they not charge for that?

[@sylviaelse5086]

sinephase Usually, retail customers are only charged for the net (a.k.a. real) power, but depending on the jurisdiction, the retailer may be able to change the rules. Larger commercial customers are more often charged extra for the other component (a.k.a. reactive power) to compensate for the increased usage of the distribution network, and to encourage them to do phase correction in house.

[@SB-mi2ii]

So, could you have removed the SIM in this meter and used it as a data SIM in something else, such as a tablet or iPad etc?

[@scottfirman]

Clive gets a knock on the door. " We would like our unit back. we tracked its signal to you. " BUSTED!

[@TheRealColBosch]

I love how people have to come up with insane conspiracy theories while ignoring the mundane one: that the power companies want more money, and are perfectly willing to squeeze their customers for every last cent.

[@ygrabo]

Care to explain how telecommunication microwaves become radar pulses? And on which peer reviewed articles or meta analysis you base your assertions?

[@vink6163]

If you want to look at the biological side of things, then I love the irony that people who claim cell phone transmissions are dangerous (when there is so little evidence to support it) will also sit for hours online, watching TV, or in the office, completely ignoring the mounting studies showing how sitting for long periods of time really does cause significant health problems. Sitting down is quite literally more dangerous than using a cell phone or a microwave!

[@TheRealColBosch]

Ah, good ol' technophobia. People hear the word "radiation" and immediately lose their damn minds. Do yourself a favor and go hit up Wikipedia to learn the definition of radiation and its many, many forms. Because right now we're all laughing at your ignorance. Also, neither this video nor my comment mentioned cell phones at all, so you're just hijacking the conversation. Poor form, buddy.

[@TheRealColBosch]

anarchore Here, read this first. Unlike the NY Daily News - which is a tabloid, by the way - this guy shows his work: sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-that-cell-phone-and-cancer-study/

[@TheRealColBosch]

You didn't read the article I linked, did you?

[@TheManFrayBentos]

The relatively heavy case on the internal PSU might be to address the issue of stray wide-band RF that some hams have been moaning about from SOME meters. Not much point in being rigorously watchful about the entry of cheap SMPSs into the house when the Local Power Company sneaks one into your house under your nose. Of course, all the shielding of the PSU still won't prevent the whole damn circuitry being a horribly inefficient and partly effective radiator, unless they've taken a lot of care with that, too.

[@AndyJSThomson]

The real problem with so called smart meters is that they are being sold to us on a lie. They don’t help you save money and despite the assurances, they don’t work with solar panels, all they can now do is tolerate the reverse current a solar system might produce. I was basically bullied into having a smart meter, only to discover I still have to supply my FIT meter readings manually. The meter never communicated with the remote display and my electricity supplier clearly could care less. I finally pulled the modem off the meter in protest at the lack of action and so far nobody appears to have even noticed. My advice is stick to your old meter, because these new ones are weighted in favour of the suppliers with absolutely nothing to gain by the customers.

[@petehiggins33]

Your FITs are paid according to how much energy your solar panels generate so you have a generation meter to measure that. The smart meter measures how much energy you take from or export to the grid. The smart meter does not know how much of the energy that your solar panels generated has been consumed by your house so it cannot be used to determine your FITs. For example if your PV is generating 1kW and your toaster is using 1kW then the smart meter power reading would be zero and your FIT payment would be zero.

[@AndyJSThomson]

@@petehiggins33 I understand how a smart meter works. If you have one fitted it also has a link to your gas meter so it can report both sets of readings. I was expecting a similar upgrade for the FIT meter, not just the ability to accept the potential reverse current from the solar panels. It’s clear that my supplier are only interested in meeting the government target for installations and couldn’t care less whether they actually work or achieve any sort of savings. As far as I’m concerned anything marketed as ‘smart’ or ‘green’ needs to be treated with utmost suspicion and is usually crap compared to anything it might replace.

[@NOWThatsRichy]

So the theory that they can remotely disconnect a customer IS true.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Very true. However, they can't yet watch anybody in the bathroom.

[@davidporowski9512]

Absolutely Affirmative (YES on remote disconnect as well as spying on your usage timetable.)

[@marcinwaach7639]

Very practical though. You can now: - disconnect those on eco energy plan when there is no wind - find all those hidden greenhouses where they plant cannabies without thermal cameras & helicopters. Either by consumption or by opt-out forms - find those who didn't follow order and are still using old lightbulps, vacume cleaners and any other banned devices ;)

[@jamesstonehouse3448]

I spent 2 years as a data administrator for a smart meter operator in New Zealand. Much of my days was remote disconnections and reconnections. Also tracking meter tampering and looking for patterns of people jumpering the meters to steal power.

[@developer0043]

Would be an iconic move to have the microphone inside the control power shut off relay which is located over top the chunky location on a processor chip; regardless the heavily shielded modem emitter located on the main board and the modem emitter board could be a contentious source of radio emission frequencies and electromagnetic frequencies, fascinating dissection of one model unit.

[@hoglundh]

It is well known that it turns the frogs gay.

[@requited2568]

All the frogs are already gay don't ya know. Actually the best part is they really were being altered.

[@witchettyman81]

I thought it was the water that made the frogs gay, not the electricity. In fact wasn’t electricity unsuccessfully used in the past in “conversion therapy” aka “If you like the chaps, you get the zaps”

[@jp-um2fr]

That's totally unfair to our glorious French friends. It's too late anyway.

[@SwampCeeMcGee60]

THE FRIGGING FROGS ARE GAY??

[@SnowBunneh]

No you are thinking of the water meters.

[@SeanBZA]

Big capacitors are there to communicate a power fail message to the central office, so that it will report an outage from multiple meters going off on a single line, or just report a tamper event otherwise for single meter alarms. The isolation is because they also have the option to use a single modem module on multiple meters in a cabinet cluster, so the modules are isolated from each other and the mains neutral, and they all feed via an isolated power rail to drive the common modem unit. Lithium battery is there to keep the program in RAM. After all it is always powered, unless the network is off, thus the battery to hold it through power failures, and you need a 20 year life battery to match the expected life of the meter. Hall sensor is there to back up the internal current sense resistor, and to detect external tampering using a magnet, or to detect bypassing the meter. MOV is a 470VAC unit, there as lightning protection for the power supply, and has to withstand connection to 2 phases or no neutral connection operation. Relay module is a bistable relay, so again the hall sensor is there to detect operation of the coil, and incidental use of a magnet to prevent the unit switching off. Keypad is there for programming in field, check readings, time of use data and such that you can download, but do not want to download and erase like the programming tool does, or for a service tech to confirm meter serial, date of install and such. These are not typically used as prepayment meters, those normally use a separate internal unit to do the data entry, but can be used for that as well with the right programming. As prepay meter the code entered is generally also locked to the meter serial number, as otherwise there is nothing preventing you paying multiple meters with the same code, as in general most of these meters actually do not use a data connection due to the cost of the connection in mass.

[@spikester]

I always wondered what would happen if you point a microwave oven magnetron's waveguide directly at one of these smart meters.

[@Farlig69]

@@spikester 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@ColinMill1]

The short-range coms module is there so it can communicate with your "smart" gas meter and pass on the data from it. I have a friend who works in smart meter R&D and he isn't having one in his house any time soon. Tells you all you need to know really.

[@smilerjerg]

Interesting. I thought it might be for the 'In Home Display' which is sold as common benefit of smart meters.

[@ColinMill1]

@@smilerjerg They may use it for that also, though I guess they could do that via your WiFi with some additional flexibility. The gas meter is an interesting problem as it obviously has very limited power available (I have made the suggestion that they consider using the gas flow to generate more but afaik this has not been taken up by anyone)

[@roberthuntley1090]

Sorry for late comment, I've only just stumbled across this video. I think that the square grey item welded into the live 'bus bar' is a calibrated resistor that doesn't change with temperature (e.g. a Constantin like material). My recently installed meter has a stated operating range from -25 degrees C to +55 C. Based on a quick check on-line, that temperature range would increase the copper's resistance by about 28%, so easily enough to give an inaccurate current reading (obtained by measuring the small volt drop across that link) if copper dominated the resistance value. Alternative approach would be to use a measurement of temperature to calibrate out the difference using software, but I couldn't see any sign of a thermistor (and that introduces the risk of temperature difference between its location and the bus bar's, particularly if lots of current is being demanded, so heating the bus bar). As an aside, the short range radio you found might be used to communicate with the battery powered radio in the gas meter. The mains powered electricity meter acts as a relay station for the gas meter, connecting it to the wider area network (the gas meter has to conserve power to make its battery last for approx. 10 years). My electricity meter has a separate communications hub mounted on it, but looks like yours integrated both of these functions in a single unit.

[@jfbeam]

As I said years ago, it's a current shunt. (and it's silked on the board in 3 places!) Temperature stability can be measured with something as simple and tiny as a transistor. (that's a very common way to do it.)

[@pjaj43]

I have an identical meter in my house. It was installed only a few months ago by Octopus Energy when I switched to Economy 7 (and subsequently their "GO" tariff). So it's a current model and you can find it and a PDF manual on the manufacturers site. The keypad can be used by Pay-as-you-go customers, but it has a number of other uses including stepping through the current data to see the readings and tariffs. It came with one of those monitoring units to which it can communicate wirelessly. This unit is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. It only tells you how much you have used, by which time it's too late. It is cumulative, it does not reset every month. Worst of all there is no way you can download the readings despite it having a USB port which can only be used for power, not data. Really frustrating is the meter allegedly stores up to a year's worth of data (48 sets of readings per day) but there is no way of accessing it.

[@Anonymouspock]

Sounds like someone needs to reverse engineer the Bluetooth gizmo.

[@pjaj43]

Anonymouspock I contacted the manufacturers, but they were uncooperative, they said there was no provision for the home owner to access the readings.

[@rjkeeves]

ZigBee or the Bluetooth could be a good point to start, the other option would be a JTAG port, if there's any.

[@rjkeeves]

ZigBee or the Bluetooth could be a good point to start, the other option would be a JTAG port, if there's any.

[@jani140]

Why not just using the IR interface? Because it is ugly. But it is made for that. (inofficialy) Or count pulses on the kwh pulse led...

[@ikm64]

A really bad idea to opt for these type of meters. None of the companies behind these want to build new power plants. So what the want to do is control peak demand (5-7) you will end up paying an arm and leg to use energy at this time. You know the time I mean, when you come home from work and start doing the washing, cooking the dinner, having a shower and the like. My advise don't touch this things with a barge poll, it will cost you in the end, no matter what they promise in the beginning.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

they'll probably just charge you peak rates all the time if you don't get a smart meter. They can do that, I assume, if they call it an off-peak discount instead of an on-peak surcharge.

[@ikm64]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 Yes they can do that, but the problem now is people can share information freely , they can organize, they can resist. In the past it was always the big company against the individual, it's not so straight forward now. The playing field is a lot more even . Look up the (Irish water) debacle and you'll see how people power can overturn the status quo. Now at least a few people know the game that's about to be played against us all. That's at least a start!.

[@stephenmiddleton891]

That's right. Let people power nip these intrusive contraptions in the bud and send a message to government meddling jobsworths

[@ikm64]

@@stephenmiddleton891 Sometimes in life you get a whole lot more than you originally bargained for, I feel this is one of those things........

[@MIK33EY]

From what I’ve read when researching Smart Meters (in the UK), the Bluetooth connection is between the meter on your gas supply (if you have one) and the main unit that is on the electricity supply. Then the data from both is sent to the supplier via the cellular connection.

[@ymmvcouk]

It's Zigbee (Like Hue lightbulbs) not bluetooth, but yes. WiFi, bluetooth and zigbee all use the same 2.4GHz licence free band.

[@Xplasma1]

Some real irony is people who claim these meters have microphones and are spying on you, yet these same people own a smart phone, or worse, a smart device that listens for your commands.

[@03056932]

this is not the argument. that 'theory' is there to divert you from the real issue 'radiation' and 'misuse of personal data'

[@andrewwhite1793]

And anyway, if someone were going to install a microphone to evesdrop on you , installing it at the back of a cupboard is really going to give great audio.....

[@kc9tae]

The power supply is shielded to prevent problems with the modem unit. That close of proximity to a low power transceiver and a switchmode power supply can cause headaches

[@electronic805]

The big metalic shield is to protect the flyback transformer (the SMPS which is powering the meter) from getting saturated under magnetic tamper and the relay is a bistable type so it stays in it's position once set

[@mikefochtman7164]

The 'chunk' of metal in the power line copper bar might be a current shunt. Often made of special metal allow that has a very low temperature coefficient. So ambient temperature and self-heating don't affect the voltage developed from current flow. Improves the accuracy.

[@doorshock]

At 9:48 is shown the meter's resistive current sensor. The voltage drop across this resistor is proportional to current and is measured by the processor. The processor reads this sensor and the voltage sensr (the string of small resistors) and will accurately compute the active power (meter will be certified for accuracy). The meter chip is most likely powered directly by the power line (the 470 ohm power resistor shown at 14:43. The communication and user interface circuitry must be electrically isolated for safety and this is probably done by the shielded transformer and large electrolytic capacitors. There are very stringent requirements to get a meter like this certified for revenue use (can't be susceptible to magnetic, RF fields, etc.) and this could be a reason for the shielding. Since the meter circuit is not isolated, there are probably optocoupler devices allowing electrically isolated communication between the meter circuitry and communication/user interface circuitry.

[@stunimbus1543]

I was going to make this comment. If you look carefully, it actually says 'shunt' on the PCB.

[@nigelpentland]

Hi Clive, keep up the good work. Good as always, but just wanted to add some comments. Remember this meter is I believe designed to have current flowing in both directions! I have one of these, and I have solar panels, and hence there are times when I'm supplying to the grid. Another feature which is required because of this is in the event of a power cut from the grid, it becomes important that I don't try and feed anything back to the grid thus endangering anyone working on the grid trying to rectify the fault.

[@Dutch3DMaster]

Shouldn't your DC-AC converter listen in to the grid and switch itself off due to a lack of either a mains frequency or an over- or undervoltage situation?

[@mi6xgzjon186]

great vid, you mentioned rf sensing.... a neighbour of mine had his wifi inside the elec. box and the elec. went off 1 night, he called me ( the local nutty proff.) and i couldnt see anything apart from that. so i phoned the power company and they couldnt reset the meter until i moved the wifi away. so yes there is rf sensing.

[@TheVirtualWatcher]

That makes no sense to me. He must have had one hell of a powerful WiFi box because the RF immunity required for certification is ... well, put it this way, you don't go in the test cell when you perform the test!

[@gw2606]

Ever read the booklet that comes with the phone. It states you could have radiation from the phone. One fact that cannot be ignored is that smart meters emit electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in the form of radiofrequency (RF) radiation, which is a byproduct of radiofrequency waves. No one disclaims this. RF radiation was classified in 2011 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), as “possibly carcinogenic (cancer-causing) to humans.” Furthermore, there is no data that shows RF radiation is safe.

[@canadianavenger]

The hall sensor is another tamper sensor. Most of these meters use CT's for sensing the load, so the hall sensor is there to detect anyone trying to defeat CT by using a strong magnet. [most are hardened against it, but it is a "well known" hack, probably from some older meters]

[@spvillano]

The thickened part of the bus bar on the customer supply side is a calibrated shunt to measure current. The resistor tree is likely a voltage measuring circuit. Put the two together, one can measure power. A lot fancier than my old Fluke 77 original model multimeter, before the 20 amp circuit was fused, a chunk of 12 gauge wire, with a tap soldered partway down the wire.

[@foxxy46213]

Works really well an can tune it too. I made one as a Watts meter for electric model planes

[@sullivan912]

My two main concerns are reports of these meters bursting into flames and reports of over-billing.

[@Nick_80599]

There's a risk of this with all electric devices, look at Hotpoint, how many tumble dryer,washing machines and fridges have burst into flames, in fact the Grenfell fire was apparently a Hotpoint fridge. There's been loads of devices of all different manufacturers bursting into flames.

[@christophergallagher3845]

In twenty years of electrical work the fe times I saw anything burst into flames was due to overload or tampering . I did see a Hotpoint washing machine drum blast through a worktop before though 😂

[@Nick_80599]

@@christophergallagher3845 yeah I had a tumble dryer that set on fire and they tried to pass the buck on us saying we didn't remove the dust from the filter which was BS as we removed it with every use and even went as far as hoovering it when did the cleaning as I'd heard of fires starting like this, anyway Hotpoint replaced the tumble dryer and guess what that machine broke down a year and half later. I will never buy anything from Hotpoint or its sister brands like Indesit again. Grenfell fire started with a Hotpoint fridge and a Hotpoint tumble dryer caused a big fire in a flat in Shepherds Bush, so says a lot about the manufacturing standards at Hotpoint!

[@christophergallagher3845]

@@Nick_80599 yep they've had a ton of public recalls in the past too , I've rarely came across any though personally that actually went on fire . The washing machine drum one I mentioned the drum car flung throught the too of the machine and worktop about like a cannonball into a pirate ship . Was crazy seeing the twisted metal and carnage the drum done . Was a Hotpoint machine

[@mattydare]

Years later I find this vid relevant. Here we are in an energy crisis and bills are rising stupidly. My SP (OVO Energy) have just me a rather forcefully ambiguous card saying my smart meter is ready and to choose when I would like to have it fitted. NO NO I do not wish to have a smart meter! The software can be commanded remotely to disconnect you or put you onto prepay. I do intend paying my bills but if I'm struggling coz of astronomical charges I don't like them to have the power to put me onto prepayment. The use of gas and electricity was 'sold' to us as consumers to be 'the best way' and now we are being punished for using it. I cannot heat my home with coal or wood as an alternative

[@namespacetoosmall]

This is another reason why going off-grid with a solar array and a house battery makes sense. I just got a letter from the national electricity distributor that I can submit my own meter reading FOR FREE! As if it's some kind of special perk.

[@vylbird8014]

Not really. The cost of grid power is so low that even if you get screwed over by the supplier, solar still has a ten-year or more payback time. Usually. There are exceptional circumstances where off-grid solar is the cheaper option though, such as remote buildings where the cost of physically connecting to the grid would be substantial.

[@demoniack81]

I crunched the numbers once, for my mountain house where I currently have no power except for a gasoline generator (since I'd eventually like to move there permanently). Assuming my average current power consumption of 5 to 7kWh/day and a reserve capacity of just 10kWh, the batteries alone would run me at least 2000€.At my latitude (45N) I need AT LEAST 4kWp of panels (another 2500€) to generate ~6kWh a day in winter, and then I'd be wasting over 10kWh/day in the summer (!).Add in miscellaneous stuff like inverters, charge controllers etc (at least another 1500€) and you get to 6000, assuming I do all the installation myself at 0 material cost and don't fall off the roof and die like an idiot in the process. By comparison I currently pay about 45€ a month for power. Subtracting the 500€ or so that I'd have to pay to get the power line brought over, it would take 122 months to pay for the system, assuming nothing ever breaks and everything keeps working at peak efficiency. I haven't factored in any margin for the panels and batteries to lose capacity over time, so after 5 years I could probably start having problems during the coldest and darkest winter days. All in all it just makes no sense. With a grid tie system you can scale the panels down to 2kW since you only need to produce more than your yearly power consumption and the grid acts as a virtual battery, but everything gets much more expensive because you have to use grid rated equipment and it must be installed by a certified company, so in the end the cost is virtually the same. tl;dr If you have 5K to invest there are much better things to invest them into - thermal insulation (especially windows have a huge payoff if you have old single panes), more efficient stoves/furnaces, even a car with better fuel economy. All of these have a ROI higher than an off grid solar setup, and they make your life better instead of worse.

[@richardsandwell2285]

Yes I am part way through going off, grid, I have cheap batteries, my panels face west so they only work really well towards the end of the day, I knew this would be an issue, but I am installing more panels facing South, some almost at a vertical angle for winter. Panels are cheap enough to get now, long-term I will be making the call to get a permanent disconnection, just like I did with the gas. At the moment I have a simple changeover switch to put me back on the grid when my batteries are low. Going to drink copious amounts of Champagne the day the meter is finally removed. My hatred for utilities runs deep in my veins, I have no axe to grind with the workers, its the fat cats and their big bonuses that piss me off. The water companies water is undrinkable, they now use Chloramine instead of gaseous Chlorine, the smell persists for days and it tastes bad, trouble is it breaks down into toxins including Nitrites and Nitrates. I am making clean rainwater storage, I am going to filter it, irradiate it with UVC light and drink that instead, I do not want stomach cancer.

[@robertgolding5398]

@@demoniack81 i lived off grid for 15 years. yes it is a hassle unless you area enthusiast. i am. batteries are the biggest expense. mine cost £2000 and lasted 10 years. these were the best ones available. worked out at around £5.00 a week. i started with wind turbines then moved to solar when they got cheaper. was it worth it? in my case it was the only option. also had a big genny as well. as a back up. a long extension lead would by easier.

[@Bogsdollocks-e5f]

Check the warranty on the PV equipment. Usually there is a 10 - 12 year payback period before you start actually saving money through the original investment in buying and fitting the kit. You will probably find that the panels themselves have a 15 - 20 year warranty, but the inverter may only have a 2, 3 or 5 year warranty, so if it goes bang or stops working before you have got your investment back and started saving money and have to pay out for a new inverter, then you are out of pocket and right back to square one!.

[@BoB4jjjjs]

Clive removes his meter, then pretends it is from somewhere else, takes it to bits to look how he can reduce his bill, finds he can't then replaces it pretending it was never off the wall, but then he finds they will know, so sits worrying that he is caught! lol Even tries to hide the serial number in case someone from power company is looking in!

[@bigclivedotcom]

I put solder blobs across all the anti-tamper pads and then said I had bumped the meter accidentally so they reset it.

[@BoB4jjjjs]

@@bigclivedotcom lol I would almost believe it but it is Big Clive!

[@LeifNelandDk]

Clive have already figured it out, since he still have power while the meter is disconnected.

[@BoB4jjjjs]

​@@LeifNelandDk He bypassed the meter while he did it. I don't think Clive would do that (all the time lol) but it used to be easy to make a device that would make the meter run backwards, as long as you were not greedy you would get away with it. But it is dishonest and you could go to jail! However, I built one just to prove to myself I could do it and I had a meter on the bench and yes it worked. These new meters would flag it up right away so we don't have to pay for those that steel power. This was a good look at something other that lights and phone chargers. I loved it, shame he didn't do a diagram of how it works, but I suspect it might take a while. I would have liked to know what was inside the tin screening box (if that was what it was, I suspect it was) but it was very interesting. Thanks Clive and I forget who sent it in, but thanks for that. Clive will already have a free feed of power as his mate works for the National Grid lol. All a conspiracy theory. He has the know how to get free power if he wanted to. We would all like free power, but most of us is to honest to get it, others would fry themselves trying to get it. In my old job I would come across gas and electric meters that were bypassed and it was in my contract to report them. It is a very dangerous thing to do as Clive and his mate will tell you. I came across one that made the meter stop when the door to the cupboard was closed, but it would turn normally when it was opened, it was very well done, but as it happened I had a electricity board man with me as the main fuse had blown (you would have thought the person responsible would have removed it, but as it happened he was at work when I went to the property, discovered there was no power to the property, and checked the fuses, they were ok, so checked if power was coming into the distribution board, nothing. Electric company was called as I could do nothing without power. They arrived and replaced the fuse and it was only when he was leaving a wire caught his eye. He traced it back to the meter and found it was a clever meter stop device. He called his supervisor who arrived, he called the police and I was there all day thanks to that. The police took the people back to the house, confronted them and charged both of them. It turned out the unprotected switch built into the door was at 250v (mains here) and the terminals were exposed, so anyone touching them by accident run the risk of being electrocuted. Everyone left and left me with the wife of the accused and her family in the house as they had all arrived home by this time. All I said to them was "It was hard luck he spotted the wire running round to the door and wondered what it was, if your husband had put it behind the wall it might not have been spotted as the wires that connected to the meter were very tidy and very hard to spot" They didn't say much to me, but you could cut the atmosphere with a knife!! They were not hard up people either, collar and tie job and well up in his company. Now all the meter readers are trained to look for signs of interference of the meters. Now it has gone one stage further as in the video, the meters will alert the company if it has been bypassed, or messed about with. I have seen gas meters bypassed with a bicycle tube, some without going through the governor!! Highly dangerous, if I came across this I would turn it off (if the off handle was still in circuit, sometimes it wasn't) take off the handle and walk out and report it to my work, it was up to them to get access and sort it out, I would have nothing more to do with it, life is to short to get involved in things like this! Now I have changed what I do so it is no longer a problem for me. People can be violent towards people discovering their fraud. It was also dangerous to others living in the same building, on was in a high rise skyscraper, gas and electric meter bypassed!! Now the gas meters are usually in a room downstairs where they can't get at them and it would be easy to spot it if they were bypassed. But this also brings a new danger, they have no access to them as it is the landlord that has the key, so they can't turn it off in an emergency. Nor can service engineers get access to them to check for gas soundness. Electric meters are going this way as well, only thing with them is that you can turn it off at the consumer unit. Big Clive does not bypass his as his workshop is always cold. On one video you could see steam off his breath! Reminds me on the very cold houses I used to live in when I was still at home with my parents! Those were the days, icicles inside the bedroom window! Nice frosty patterns on the glass windows and the clothes that you had looked out for the next day as stiff as a board! Those were the days!

[@prg2812]

You should have written a book on this, oh! wait.

[@guitarstitch]

Peak time power charges would be assessed on the billing side, not on the meter side. They'll apply a multiplier to the reading interval when they process the bill. The billing interface also uses certain checks to detect abnormal readings for error identification and tampering (bypass) situations. I wrote several of those routines for the company I work for dealing in water/wastewater. Some smart meters run on a licensed frequency completely off of public infrastructure, such as the Sensus/Xylem FlenNet system.

[@ratchet1freak]

Yeah the meter would get a set of ranges to report the consumption in, each range gets a rate and the result of the ranges is added together. Smart meters let the powercompany have many more ranges than just day/night.

[@leexgx]

Yep if you have peak and offpeak the meter will be setup that way (like midnight to 7am offpeak) you have 2 meter readings (if its 3phase and your a shop with fridges you can have up to 9 as they typically have a day/night, nighttime weekend rates) But for normal households with gas supply will only have 1 meter reading at full rate 24/7 (without gas supply you norm have 2 rates, with the boost button for wall storage Heaters using the higher rate) Also the bit of comment he said about you only get cheap rates for first month is completely untrue they have to notify you within 30 days of rates been changed and if your in a 12-24 month fixed rate contract smart meter or not that makes no difference if your on PAYG you norm avg rates set by top 5 resellers of electricity/gas (again you get notification when it's going to be changed)

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

lee x Those legal limitations are subject to variations in local laws and the level of corruption/influence available to the power company. If they set their mind to it, most big power companies can find an excuse to get rid of any inconvenient laws and regulations.

[@leexgx]

@@johnfrancisdoe1563 maybe outside of the UK, cutting you off in the uk can land the company with a large fine if it was not legal

[@guitarstitch]

Definitely happens outside the UK. Here in the States, they have almost free range to do what they want with fees and cut-off policies, even if the utility is a public sector controlled company. It gets even worse if they are privatized.

[@radiohirsch]

Would have been interesting to power it up (without modem or with modem without antenna connected) and measure power consumption

[@marcan42]

I'm guessing the isolation is for the case where an external antenna connected. At that point you really wouldn't want a wire coming out of the non-mains side that isn't galvanically isolated.

[@Graham_Langley]

Exactly

[@herenow2895]

Best thing to do with a smart meter, prior to consigning it to the bin.

[@gavinreid5387]

I have already told my supplier that the customer meter reader that they insist I have is going straight into the bin.

[@Shadow_Hawk_Streaming]

If you were to install an analog meter (i have the old one from when they replaced ours) between the new meter and the breaker box would you be able to take the company to court over them charging more than your own meter is reading you using? More importantly is there a way to confirm the old meters are calibrated?

[@BobK5]

Hi Anthony, I assume you mean ‘calibrated’ as there isn’t much to celebrate here. You’ve hit on what I see as one of the most important issues with ‘smart’ meters and that is calibration’. As a customer I have no way of ensuring that the new meter is running at the same speed as the old and I have suspicions that the calibration can be raised or lowered remotely by the energy company, I haven’t seen anyone else raise this.

[@Shadow_Hawk_Streaming]

@@BobK5 nothing stopping you having an mcb form factor meter installed in your consumer unit to monitor what's being used

[@BobK5]

@@Shadow_Hawk_Streaming I assume that’s going to cost me so I’ll stick with my old meters.

[@wattsupmike7593]

When our analogue meter went faulty we had no choice but to accept a smart meter. I told the fitter not to connect the smart functionality. "that's not a problem ' he said. I have now a dumb smart meter. One thing I have noticed that if I check through the menu by repeatedly pressing the button you can check the time setting. Ours is wrong by about 6hrs. If you are on a time of day tariff (E7) then that could be very bad news.

[@berndeckenfels]

Tamper devices don’t have to send out alerts, just remember them for readout, as you cannot avoid having the meter readable for ever.

[@slipstream222]

The low powered Comms are to talk to the sister gas meter, as it's battery reliant, it lets the electric meter do the higher power communications via the GPRS network

[@MikePlayle1]

I have this meter. It came with a little wireless display that shows my power consumption etc. I bet that uses the low power comms too.

[@acmefixer1]

All the meters here in the US are in a separate metal enclosure usually above the main breaker panel, and the glass "jar" over the meter has a seal tha prevents tampering. The smart meters have a bunch of information about the "gear ratio" just like the old dial meters, so it can be determined if it's for single phase, residential or whatever. The LCD flashes various cryptic messages, one of which is "Sync net".

[@theberengersniper]

Remember in the old days you could tell when you were about to get a call or a text on your mobile because your stereo speakers would start making that "ddzzzz, d-dit d-dit" noise?!

[@charleslambert3368]

it was a nightmare in music lessons because there was a keyboard to every 2 people which would pick it up every time one of us got a text (and we were teenagers during the early '10s so that was pretty much constantly)

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

My issue with smart meters is that they are not smart. They do not understand solar arrays, local storage, or electric cars (for grid storage). They will all have to be changed. Again.

[@MrDynamart]

You are a very clever guy! I fit these and know quite a bit about them. Your intuative internal investigation was interesting and very accurate given the things I have been told about how they work. At last, a non biased, intellectual view into a smart meter, well done!

[@lewisbrumby1508]

Ours was faulty and caught fire! Never again

[@emmarobinson1978]

They made my skin blister up bad since it’s out it’s not happening

[@MrDynamart]

@@lewisbrumby1508 never heard of one catching fire on its own, only due to a lose connection, engineer fault.

[@MrDynamart]

@@emmarobinson1978 a smart meter made your skin blister!?!? Really? Are you sure it wasn't due to something else? As the guy says the coms in a smart meter are the same as a mobile phone, do you have one of those?

[@emmarobinson1978]

@@MrDynamart since taking the smart meter out my skin has been fine.ive had no problem what so ever

[@simonslocombe5942]

...I just love big Clive's attention to detail... the times I relied on this lovely guy's vast encyclopida of knowledge when trouble shooting circuit boards has really helped me out over the years... Thank You Clive... I really mean that mate... Please carry on producing this very important inspirational information for all of our young up and coming Engineers and technicians... This guy is a genius...

[@peterking2794]

France is in the process of installing smart meters. They go by the name of 'Linky', and there is the usual controversy over their use (Quelle surprise!) However, they do not communicate directly with the 'Mother Ship' via 3G. Instead, they send data over the supply cables to modems mounted in boxes on the overhead line posts in strategic positions where the 3G signal is good. One modem can deal with any number of households on a particular circuit fed from pole top transformers. (70% of our supply network is overhead.) The advantage is that the comms aren't affected by thick walls, meters in cellars, or other situations where the meter location can weaken the signal strength. In the event of failure of the 3G system, data is stored in the modem (or meter) until service is restored. Of course, the French resist change, and were upset about the RF radiation from the Linky meter, but the data is sent in short bursts, so that shouldn't be an issue. Cheers!

[@kasel1979krettnach]

and they can get much more data from you. e.g. whether you are home, not at home, when you do your laundry, watch TV. they can switch off your electricity etc. Even how many people take a shower (in case of electrical direct pass heater). Hiding Anne Frank would be impossible nowadays...

[@Mikha_el]

Out of interest. Have you tested the electro magnetic waves coming off these meters? Have you tested a live one?

[@aga5897]

The aluminium can over the switch-mode power supply is probably to try to reduce the interference it generates affecting the GSM or Radio units. There is no ground, so it is likely designed to just send it the other way (i.e. out the back of the unit)

[@KossinoZ]

Hey mate, you have the dryest sense of humor and the best lines. Great watching your videos.

[@boblordylordyhowie]

Dependent on their age they could be either 80 or 100A load supplies. The chunky link could be a fuseable link incase of a problem, if it gets an overload and heats up it may be a failsafe.

[@Hardwayistheonlyway]

My guess is that the copper is gagued specifically so it does get hot near the 'MOV' which is perhaps is more likely an NTC Thermistor for current regulation?