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When we bought our house 3 years ago we did not realise it had a 1st gen smart meter, and that the previous owners had lost the in house display
We are now with bulb and I have set up daily meter reading and use their app which can show daily usage. The problem being the 3G/4g where we live is very poor, so some days it does even update, or some days it’s partial
The graph below is yesterdays effort. Something caused a big spike in the morning, but the graph is that vague you can’t tell when exactly, and quite frankly I can’t recall who used what at 7am in the morning
Is it worth buying another in home display (Bulb apparently can’t supply one) or is it not really going to add anything beyond what I can see anyhow ?
Thanks
That spike is prob your electric shower if you have one?
Never found the displays very helpful in identifying where my consumption is going. Have done this method which was more helpful
Nope no electric shower, heating is oil.
It’s either the coffee machine or a hair dryer or something we have no clue on. However the same devices are used each morning but the cost can vary massively!
In practical experience does having a user display help work it out? The first time I have seen yesterdays data was this morning which makes it very hard to work out what’s what 24hrs later !
Previous day and even more elec had been used a roughly the same period
When we did Mum's place they installed a SmartMeter.
The Scottish Power chap was showing her how it worked and said she should put the display on the side she she could see when she was using electricity.
She retorted that she maybe old but she's well aware she's just put the light on.
Display went straight in the drawer.
Electric kettle, electric hob and oven use an awful lot of electric (kettle for a short time obviously)
Is hot water heating by immersion heater ?
Heating on in the morning?
The boiler has a fuel pump and big fan, the the water is circulated by another pump.
Our SMART display doesnt graph out the usage like that, it's also in a draw. It was also falky connectivity wise and really didn't help after a few days. Made me realise 10.5kW showers really munch through the electricity where as our condensing heat pump tumble dryer uses a lot less than I thought. Beyond that zero help, no use in determining why our bill is relatively high despite the house being all low energy bulbs, even fitted PIRs in 3 rooms where the lights got left on. My guess would be all the electronics left plugged in permenantly but i dknt need a smart display tk tell me that.
Agree with @intheborders the displays don't tell anything you don't already know, i.e. you just switched on the heating/kettle/shower/lights/oven/etc.....
The TV adverts harp on about saving money, but Smart meters alone don't, if you don't already see the connection between switching "stuff" on and the size of your power bills then they aren't really going to help you. The only thing they do well is give frequent up to date meter readings to your energy provider and that is only if the energy provider can connect to the smart meter, not always the case with Gen 1 smart meters as in the one we have!
Are you even able to buy a display? I'm not sure how you could pair it to your meter. According to https://www.smartenergygb.org/faqs/the-in-home-display...
I've just moved in and there's a smart meter, but no separate in-home display. What do I do?
You'll need to get in touch with your supplier as they are best placed to let you know more about the options available to you for getting a replacement in-home display. This wouldn’t involve replacing the meters, only the in-home display that would then be paired with the existing smart meter.I've just moved in and there's a smart meter, but no separate in-home display.
Start a complaint with Bulb https://bulb.co.uk/complaints/ and see if that gets you one.
intheborders
Free MemberWhen we did Mum’s place they installed a SmartMeter.
The Scottish Power chap was showing her how it worked and said she should put the display on the side she she could see when she was using electricity.
She retorted that she maybe old but she’s well aware she’s just put the light on.
Display went straight in the drawer.
Posted 58 minutes ago
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Yeah but the point is it tells you when you are using an unexpected amount e.g. immersion heater left on, not that it tells you things that you already know.
The only time it's told me anything useful was when I clocked I was going to bed and there was nearly 1.5kw of load occuring.
Turned out I'd left the cargo bike on charge.
Other than that next to useless
Loop app works well though
If you're only seeing partial updates you should talk to your energy supplier, because none of it should be missing.
SMETS2 uses long range radio in the North and mobile networks in the South, so you might see better performance with a newer meter along with better graphing on the display. If your current phone signal is crap they can add an aerial to improve performance.
how did you get the readings from the smart meter into the app? i cant see that and ive got a 1st gen meter
Ours has been in the drawer for the last 4 years. We're not frivolous with electricity and ultimately we need to spend what we spend on it. I'd rather live in ignorance than fret about how much we're spending each day. Appreciate that I am in quite a privileged situation to be able to say that though.
Saying that the bill for over winter arrived last week and it's £900 for gas and electricity. The joys of five people living in a Victorian house.
I dug the remote display out of the cupboard where Joey had shoved it over a year ago, seeing as how there’s all the energy costs going up n’all, and it is showing me that I’m using significantly less energy than last year - that’s almost certainly down to me being on my own in the house, and for twelve hours a day, not even me.
Hopefully, I’ll see a noticeable reduction in my energy bills compared to the estimate given to me by ScottishPower.
Bulb won't provide you with a new IHD as they didn't install your smart meter and it's expensive.
Try this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.hildebrand.brightionic if your smets1 meter is the compatible type then it offers you most the benefits of an IHD for free and more as it gives you better historical data. Its limited to half hourly resolution though, you need to buy their IHD/CAD for instantaneous and 1min resolution as the smart meter doesn't report those back to the DCC. They only get reported to the IHD, which in brights case send them via the internet back to their servers so they appear in the app.
Mine’s sitting out on the side, but hasn’t been plugged in for months.
The only thing it was useful for was showing that I’d forgotten to set the car to charge at the correct time. It has green, orange, red lights along the bottom so would light up when energy use is high.
The Octopus app looks a bit more useful than yours though, broken down by half hours and you can click on a bar to get more info.
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No. Not worth it. These displays are a gimmick imo.
We got a smart electricity meter installed a year or two ago. The portable consumer display stayed in the cellar where the installer had plugged it in. After a few weeks I noticed it had lost connection. It’s been like that since. Whenever I have checked, otherwise I leave it unplugged.
We use the electricity we need.
I do take monthly readings from the meter itself and plot the usage in R every so often to see what trends we might have over the years.
I also found that since being moved to octopus that their frequent readings make for some better plots than the consumer display offered.
Re the Spike, years ago I checked various appliances to see what used the most (besides the obvious electric fire, tumble drier etc). Kettle. toaster and iron were unexpectedly high contributors. I'd imagine electric shower would be too, but I do not have one to check
We are now with bulb and I have set up daily meter reading and use their app which can show daily usage.
I kinda wish you hadn't mentioned this, because now I've downloaded it. Handily - and scarily - though, I can see our March average Gas price per day was £2.70, where's in April is currently circa £9. Flippin 'heck...
No odd blips on ours, everything seems to be accountable to Fridges and daily use items at the right time.
#prayforsummer
Does the home display unit tell you how much it costs to run the home display unit?
Also, slightly off topic. Has anyone had there DD amount changed by Scottish Power? I've logged into the website and given a reading. Noticed that we've accrued a debt. I tried to up the DD amount but it won't allow me to do it to anything remotely affordable.
This one is being plugged on the radio at the moment, not sure how good it is as havent used it but it may be of interest.