Technical > Home Improvement > got my smart meter today

got my smart meter today

Are you saying that there is no way for you to verify usage other than what the utility claims on their web site !
If that were the case , I think I would be going ballistic !

Most smart meters do show usage on one of their screens , might be slow in changing screens , but do have an info screen .

Don"t recall ever seeing one that said closed though ?

reply to jchambers28
You might want to give them a call if it don't change....

reply to MrFixit1
MrFixit1:Does the info screen ever change other than kwh used? Mine is kind of similar(to the right of the screen looks like two bulbs that might light up?)

its a lock to lock the plastic to the case so you can remove the cover.

reply to MrFixit1
It's not even activated on their network yet. They activate all the meters at 12 AM.

It takes a couple of days before info starts showing up in the LCD screen. atleast it did for mine after they put it in. I didn't know they had switched mine out until my mom said the power had gone out for a few minutes one day.

reply to jchambers28
I am glad that Central Maine Power installed smart meters. My Grandma has an Alaskan Malamute (and used to have a mastiff-lab mix that passed away in 2010) and there has been more than one occasion where she has gotten estimated bills because utilities will not attempt to read a meter if a dog is present. The new meters are read remotely (either through a tower, GSM radio, or by a truck that drives by).

Utilities don't care if you have a toy poodle or a pit bull, if a dog is present (no matter how friendly the dog is perceived) they will NOT enter a yard to attempt to read the meter.

Our utility (Western Mass Electric/Northeast Utilities) has been using remote read meters since the mid '90s although theirs requires a meter reader to drive by in a truck with an antenna that bounces a signal to the meters and the meters send a signal back to the truck with the reading. The old meter we had was a mechanical meter retrofitted with a transceiver in it and the readings on the bill and the readings on the meter dials were way off by several thousand kilowatts. Our electric bills were through the roof so I called the utility and threw a fit and demanded that they replace the meter. It took a call to the state DPU and finally the utility gave in an replaced the meter. Now I have a brand new (back in 2007) Itron meter that is 100 percent digital (similar to the one pictured) and the transceiver and meter are all integrated and tied together. The old one had an electronic chip in it that counted the number of times that the wheel in it turned. Turned out when the utility tested the meter, the transmitting chip was faulty and gave inaccurate readings.

Our city water department uses battery operated transceivers that allow the city to read them by driving by as well. I think the local gas company uses similar technology as well.

I live in a duplex and the water meter for the building is on our side in the basement as the landlord (under Massachusetts law) is responsible for paying for the water. I can snoop on the water usage and the neighbors on the other side use much more water than we do. Our side is just me and mom. The other side is a two parent household with three kids and they just filled a backyard swimming pool that they bought at Walmart that is a good four feet deep. When the landlord questions the higher than usual water bill, I'll be the first to point the finger at the neighbors as I am very reasonable with water usage (high efficiency washer/dryer, take showers instead of baths, and use a portable dishwasher that is only 13 years old).

reply to azinator
Thanks. The installer told me the Alma install was almost done. They have a few hundred left to install then they are moving to Ozark by the end of next week.

reply to IowaCowboy
Do these meters use AT&T or Tmobile to transmin the data to the poco?

Depends if they are using meters that use GSM radios. Most new smart meter setups use mesh networking to transmit the readings back to the poco. In our area, the residential meters are read by truck. Some of the larger businesses that use lots of power where real-time metering is necessary, their meters are hooked into a telephone line that transmits readings back to the poco. The current metering system in the WMECo service territory is about 16 years old. The meter where the transceiver went bad was installed in 1996. I guess the GSM meters are installed in older systems where a phone line is not available. Newer metering systems like I said use mesh networking to transmit back to the poco. The system that WMECo uses requires a meter reader to drive a truck down the street to read the meters as the range of the transceivers is not very far and if real time usage is needed, then they use a phone line or GSM radio. The system is outdated. Newer technologies eliminate the need for drive-by readings, telephone lines, and GSM radios. I am guessing that AT&T is the carrier for the GSM meters. The meter you have most likely uses mesh networking to transmit to towers owned by the poco.

reply to jchambers28
I've noticed small boxes with antennas on a couple of OG&E poles lately. They appear to be access or relay points for meter signals.

One of them is by Mountain Grove Road just outside of Alma. (35.502371 N 94.203676 W)

reply to jchambers28

reply to Zorack

reply to jchambers28

said by jchambers28:

Do these meters use AT&T or Tmobile to transmin the data to the poco?

That meter is equippted with a Silver Springs Networks radio as such it would use a utility owned 900 mHz spread spectrum mesh.

The meters (end points) communicate to collectors which relay the data to the utility.










Check out network provisioning.

»www.silverspringnet.com/resource···ish.html

Wayne
--
Madness takes its toll, please have exact change ready…

reply to azinator

All of my pc's are on battery backups....so none went down

reply to jchambers28
How can i tell how many watts I am pulling from the poco? I am trying to figure out how many watts my central air conditioner uses.