Electric company told me when I wake up and when I sleep

a reply to: TheGreatWork

Our local electricity company got hold of us to say that they were coming to install a smart meter (which I'm not keen on either) right in the middle of our pandemic lockdown.

As our meter is in a cupboard in the middle of the house, I phoned to say that they couldn't come in as my Partner is in the vulnerable group.

Their response was 'it's OK, our engineers are off sick anyway',....Fancy that,....

They still haven't been back in touch,

Solar panels

Than they will not have a clue

a reply to: TheGreatWork

as an electric utility, yes, smart meters have improved our lives, no longer do we have to send out 2 lineman and call the cops to shut off your power for non payment, now just press a button. now if we could just get the weed growers to pay their bills on time and we dont have to go to their grow house, threaten to turn them off before they call in to pay their bill, a smart meter on a grow operation would be the ticket.

a reply to: markovian

actually they will, you see, solar does not work well in the dark, so you are dependent upon the grid once the sun goes down, so you can see usage through a smart meter because your solar system has crashed because it is dark and you are on the grid.

originally posted by: TheGreatWork
So long story short, I was disputing an electric bill that was way too high, and when the lady was explaining the usage, she mentions "I see you wake up around ** and go to sleep around ***... I am like excuse me? I know it's easy to tell this stuff by usage but they shouldn't be saying it like that.....Creepy.

Ask her for her number. She'll make a great mate for life.

a reply to: vonclod

Same here. Fought it a couple years because of reports of fires and I have welding gases in the building the meter is attached to. They changed meter manufacturer so I caved. I had to pay an extra $35 to BC Hydro for the privilege of keeping my old meter because they couldn't originally tell me if there was a fire risk. Corrupt corporations.

originally posted by: igloo
a reply to: vonclod

Same here. Fought it a couple years because of reports of fires and I have welding gases in the building the meter is attached to. They changed meter manufacturer so I caved. I had to pay an extra $35 to BC Hydro for the privilege of keeping my old meter because they couldn't originally tell me if there was a fire risk. Corrupt corporations.

Ya, me too, dealing with BC Hydro, we said no, then one day, it was installed, and they would no remove it. We were willing to pay the surcharge too.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: stonerwilliam

The old ones that still like negatives are becoming few and far between.

A lot of people cannot actually have a smart meter installed, simply because there is no space on the board to mount such.

Safety code requiring an unobstructed space.

I know a few Sparks that have installed the things from time to time, and they are a fecking nightmare sometimes.

I was a whizz at the old meters and barely paid a penny in bills in two decades but all this modern stuff is way to complicated and computerized and noticed 24/7 , if you play with it you get noticed fast and get hit harder than a pedo by the courts .

a reply to: stonerwilliam

Yep, the one worse than being a pedophile according to the government is being a tax evader.

a reply to: stonerwilliam

I got them for the better part of two decades myself with the old meters, as long as you did not get greedy, and remembered to remove the neg, if/when the meter reader called, you were pretty much sorted.

I pay my bills these days all the same and have done for the better part of the last 15 years, Mrs and weans in tow, you kind of need to screw the nut and play "their" game so to speak.

End of the day its actually perfectly safe to just bypass the smart meter as there are no safety features really involved but like you suggest, you get more time in gaol for tampering with meters these days than tampering with weans.

Kind of see the point form the health and safety aspect all the same, as a load of idiots have ended up frying themselves or other poor sods, tampering with systems they are not qualified to mess around with.

a reply to: TheGreatWork

It has to be a smart meter and it is amazing what the dataset tells about appliances. It was once my job to look at similar data, but not customers, hue power plants.

They could even tell if you had a slice of toasted bread in the morning and what type of coffee maker you use. Not the model but old drip style, pad machine, full automatic coffee maker with bean shredder.

All appliances have a kind of profile they produce and if you can get a clean measurement, without a lot of other appliances, you can guess on the machine or appliance that is connected. Like power draw over time, sequential and what type of load, ohm, capacity and inductive mix of it all. It just does not make sense on consumer side a lot, because it is not that easy and you need precise data.

We had special logging devices with sensors and power meters, I can not imagine that these smart meters are capable of such high precision readings and also the data has to go somewhere.

Of course easy things like your case, sudden peak in power draw in the morning, it is easy to say "somebody just woke up".

a reply to: TheGreatWork

An example that is unrelated to your case and maybe more in alignment with what can be done is this:

Imagine you can tell the location of wherever the data comes from, just by looking at it. Not exact location but longitude and latitude at least, orientation of the power plant, are there any obstacles that throw shadows and at what angles and times, the season, the current weather, just by looking at numbers and curves.

I am not talking a webcam picture but pure numbers. It is easy if you know the relation it has and can trust on the order and kind of data. You can then plot a 3D picture with uncertain guesses and refine it down. Like, is it a building or a pole that throws that shadow everyday at 11am but changes in length and angle over the time of seasons. Winter the sun is lower on the horizon. Over time you know the path and can use simple math to calculate the height of that pole or building and the distance.

Of course being on site is always better but if you want to suck out the highest efficiency from the solar power plant, data is king. Big data, so to speak.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: TheGreatWork

Just set the lights for your "tomato" garden to start when you sleep.

Power company thinks that you never sleep, and now they are fearful of you.

Win win.

Police and energy companies in the UK use 12/12 and 18/6 monitoring software to catch weed growers if you're unlucky enough to live in a county that hasn't legalised personal grows yet. LED lights are the best and cheapest to avoid detection. The monitoring software still works if you have no smart meter or are have rewired/are abstracting electricity to avoid electric bills.

a reply to: Bluntone22

I didn't want that smart meter but was told my electric
would be shut off if I didn't get it.My home is nearly all
electric.

Imagine when the Electric company tells you, We know when you watch porn.

a reply to: andy06shake

I had to go sensible as they were on to me 2 days after i moved into this house the meter reader was round mega early trying to catch me at it but like you i have turned over a new leaf , decades ago i was Given a new 5 cable meter i was one of the first in the country they told me but i love a challenge , drill in from the back even the gas company dug up my yard convinced i had hooked into the pipe ,but a 5 year old could figure out how to work their meters lol

The 110v cable to the street lights that i came across while putting in fence posts is just asking to be tapped

a reply to: stonerwilliam

Aye well, needs must.

It's not like the utilities dont tealeaf from everbody else with there exuberant tariffs.

You fire away as long as you do so safely is my thinking on the matter.