I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need to
read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out in
the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter display
is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from the
smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the output
from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart meter
LAN.

In article , Ron wrote:
I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need
to read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out
in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter
display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from
the smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the
output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart
meter LAN.

I think that smart meters use a dedicated wireless network - and, I
suspect, encrypted data.


This doesn't answer yur question, but I have a question. How long did the
changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the winter = nor
without electricity for any length of time. I need them both for the
boiler to operate.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

charles wrote:
In article , Ron
wrote:
I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart
meters which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no
longer need to read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go
out in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the
smart meter display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output
from the smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way,
capturing the output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the
smart meter LAN.

I think that smart meters use a dedicated wireless network - and, I
suspect, encrypted data.


This doesn't answer yur question, but I have a question. How long
did the changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the
winter = nor without electricity for any length of time. I need them
both for the boiler to operate.

They are swapped over in less time than it takes to defrost a freezer,
otherwise everyone would be claiming hundreds in compo for spoiled food.

In article ,
Phil L wrote:
charles wrote:
In article , Ron
wrote:
I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart
meters which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no
longer need to read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go
out in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the
smart meter display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output
from the smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way,
capturing the output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the
smart meter LAN.

I think that smart meters use a dedicated wireless network - and, I
suspect, encrypted data.


This doesn't answer yur question, but I have a question. How long
did the changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the
winter = nor without electricity for any length of time. I need them
both for the boiler to operate.

They are swapped over in less time than it takes to defrost a freezer,
otherwise everyone would be claiming hundreds in compo for spoiled food.

A freezer kept shut will take hours to defrost.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a clock.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
Remember, if you don't like where I post
or what I say, you don't have to
read my posts! :-)
"Ron" wrote in message
news
I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need to
read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out
in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter
display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from the
smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the
output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart
meter LAN.

I was told around an hour for my one electricity meter when they decide how
to handle economy 7 that is. I also should expect to have to arrange clear
access to their location or they will charge me waiting time.
I guess a lot of people have meters in their 'for now' cupboards where they
put stuff for now.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
Remember, if you don't like where I post
or what I say, you don't have to
read my posts! :-)
"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:24:06 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

I have a question. How long did the
changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the winter = nor
without electricity for any length of time. I need them both for the
boiler to operate.

SSE say the supplies to each meter will be off for about half an hour,
and the total installation will take about two hours.
http://tinyurl.com/jrnk2ko and scroll down to 'Here's how the
installation process works'.

--

Chris

In article ,
Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:24:06 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

I have a question. How long did the
changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the winter = nor
without electricity for any length of time. I need them both for the
boiler to operate.

SSE say the supplies to each meter will be off for about half an hour,
and the total installation will take about two hours.
http://tinyurl.com/jrnk2ko and scroll down to 'Here's how the
installation process works'.

two meters at half an hour each only adds up to 1 hour

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

On 27/12/16 15:24, charles wrote:

This doesn't answer yur question, but I have a question. How long did the
changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the winter = nor
without electricity for any length of time. I need them both for the
boiler to operate.


In my case I was without gas for nine hours.

Apparently the main tap for the gas has to be able to fall to the OFF
position and mine didn't for some reason. The fitter felt it necessary
to bring in a National Grid team to replace the tap. When they
eventually arrived they hadn't got the right part (the house is 90 years
old) and they had to send for one.

Eventually, at 9 o'clock on Friday night I was able to cook my evening
meal.

Also, it was pointed out that the electricity supply to the garage went
through the same hole in the wall that the main gas pipe went through.

After all this, when I changed energy supplier (as we're exhorted to)
they seemed to lose the ability to read the meters remotely and I'm now
back to having meter readers calling.

Unless you really, really need to change to a smart meter I wouldn't do it.

Another Dave

--
Change nospam to techie

On 27/12/2016 15:24, charles wrote:

...but I have a question. How long did the
changeover take?

less than an hour and half here to replace the 2 old meters with dials,
including fitting an isolator between the meter and CU[1] - but that was
4 and a bit years ago and they may well have managed to make it slower
since then.

[1] the isolator was one reason for making the switch (sic)

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:24:06 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

In article , Ron wrote:
I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need
to read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out
in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter
display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from
the smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the
output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart
meter LAN.

I think that smart meters use a dedicated wireless network - and, I
suspect, encrypted data.


This doesn't answer yur question, but I have a question. How long did the
changeover take? I don't wamt to be without gas in the winter = nor
without electricity for any length of time. I need them both for the
boiler to operate.
When they did mine (B Gas) they said allow 3 hours, in fact leccy was
off for about 1 hour then gas for less than 1/2 an hour.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:19:45 +0000, Ron wrote:

I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need
to read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out
in the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter
display is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from
the smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the
output from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart
meter LAN.

Not much consolation, but the clip on energy monitor I had from EoN has
two options for reading; you can download the last month (or so) using
their no longer supported software, or you can capture the raw data
streamed in real time out of the serial port.

All you need to do then is write a bit of software to analyse it.(!)

Probably far too practical for smart meters.

Cheers



Dave R


--
Dell XPS laptop running W8.1

Brian-Gaff wrote:
I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a clock.

Our, several years old, economy 7 meter is electronic with LED
counters. It's all one meter, the built-in clock simply switches to
total-1 or total-2 according to the time of day. There is actually a
third counter which isn't used so, presumably, there are places that
have three different rates.

--
Chris Green
·

Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2016 11:30:18 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

Brian-Gaff wrote:
I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a clock.

Our, several years old, economy 7 meter is electronic with LED
counters. It's all one meter, the built-in clock simply switches to
total-1 or total-2 according to the time of day. There is actually a
third counter which isn't used so, presumably, there are places that
have three different rates.

We had an old meter replaced a couple of years ago by one similar to
yours, electronic, digital read-out, box about the size of a large
matchbox, except it still relies on the old mechanical clock to change
from Hi to Lo rates. On ours the third display gives the total units,
i.e. Hi+Lo. Nothing 'smart' about it, though.

Ours is all electronic, no mechanical timer. The third total is a
separate one I think, it just sits at zero. Ours is much bigger than
yours though, 6" x 4" by 1.5" deep I'd guess.

--
Chris Green
·

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:19:45 -0000, "Ron" wrote:

I have just had my electricity and gas meters replaced with smart meters
which have now made my excel spread sheet redundant and I no longer need to
read my meters every day.

However I will still update my spread sheet, I just won't need to go out in
the rain to read my meter, just to the kitchen where the smart meter display
is situated.

Then I thought, is there a way to get the smart meter display to
automatically update my spread sheet or for me to view the output from the
smart meters directly on my computer, by, in some way, capturing the output
from the smart meters?

I have a wireless router but it does not show anything about the smart meter
LAN.

I guess it depends on what is offered: OVO will supply a device to link to your
router instead of the readable display.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 16:32:36 -0000, "Brian-Gaff"
wrote:

I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters.

I had an Economy 7 meter. OVO removed the E7 meter and removed the
electro-mechanical clock as it is not needed. They then installed the new
smart-meter which copes with the E7 switch over at a time (which they can
change remotely)

On Wednesday, 28 December 2016 11:33:04 UTC, Chris Green wrote:
Brian-Gaff wrote:
I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a clock.

Our, several years old, economy 7 meter is electronic with LED
counters. It's all one meter, the built-in clock simply switches to
total-1 or total-2 according to the time of day. There is actually a
third counter which isn't used so, presumably, there are places that
have three different rates.

The third counter is the sum of the day and night rates.

harry wrote:
On Wednesday, 28 December 2016 11:33:04 UTC, Chris Green wrote:
Brian-Gaff wrote:
I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a clock.

Our, several years old, economy 7 meter is electronic with LED
counters. It's all one meter, the built-in clock simply switches to
total-1 or total-2 according to the time of day. There is actually a
third counter which isn't used so, presumably, there are places that
have three different rates.

The third counter is the sum of the day and night rates.

Not on ours it isn't, the third counter is unused and shows zero
(well, actually, the 'reset' all on pattern).

--
Chris Green
·

Even more reason, then to be amazed that the meters cannot cope. surely all
of this calculation is done in software so one would just need an app on a
machine with a clock.
Most conspiracy theorists would say of course that its not a good idea to
let the subscriber loose on the actual raw data and control of gadgets, cos
the energy companies and ultimately the government want to be able to over
ride your choices with their own to ration electricity if things get bad. No
good if they cannot turn off your hair dryer when the load is high good
grief no!
Also of course detailed data collection of appliances will, as the buzz
word folk say, 'inform future policy, by which we mean cost and taxation etc
I'd imagine.

Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Chris Green" wrote in message
...
Brian-Gaff wrote:
I've been asking this question along with when can I have one for some
years. it seems the only plan at present is to get at the reading after
its
been to your energy company. This seems to be really counter intuitive as
if, for example you want to turn things on and off at high load times
then
the thing would need to signal your appliances somehow, and I'd not want
the
bunglers at EDF to be in charge of this even if it just went to them and
aback again.
The main reason why I cannot have a smart meter is because they say at
least, because economy 7 is not supported on current meters as the want
to
move away from several meters. However in my view all they need to do is
a
calculation on the readings in real time, after all a simple time switch
at
each house is aallstorage heaters will need. Even now my normal
electricity
usage at the economy hours is charged at the lower rate, not just heaters
and water. The mechanical switching from one meter to another seems
archaic
and stupid but its done so the ready can just read off two readings. In
an
electronic world this should be simple to do on any computer with a
clock.

Our, several years old, economy 7 meter is electronic with LED
counters. It's all one meter, the built-in clock simply switches to
total-1 or total-2 according to the time of day. There is actually a
third counter which isn't used so, presumably, there are places that
have three different rates.

--
Chris Green
·