I did a search and found few references here even with a Google search. The other sites I looked at seemed to be pretty much conspiracy theory. Does anyone here have any constructive discussion regarding the good and bad regarding these units? Iowa does not seem to have any policy at this juncture to allow me to block installation if they are found to be detrimental. Is all the bad press hokum or are there legitimate concerns I should be aware of?

Positive. I had one on a property that I owned and sometimes rented. They were great for switching service as the meter reading was done over the phone or at a programmed time, and no calling in advance to wait for someone to take a reading.

Well, as I understand it they can take control of your energy usage if necessary and that’s helpful towards avoiding blackouts when the load on the system is excessive, but it also means the guy without it doesn’t have any loss of juice until dialing everyone like you down hasn’t taken care of the problem.

Good thing as long as enough people go with it.

They're great. If you want to turn on service at a location you can do it with a phone call, can show exactly how many KWH's you're currently using, they also show voltage, etc. etc.

Smart Meters broadcast about 2 minutes per month at a power level similar to Cell Phones. Contrast that with the Cell Phone you see people poking at darned near every waking hour of the day. In those terms the "harm" caused by a smart meter is many orders of magnitude less than the potential "harm" caused by a cell phone or the WiFi network in most homes today.

Bottomline is all this hoohaw about smart meters causing cancer is 100% BS.

As for the theoretical "invasion of Privacy" they could prevent all they are capable of doing is reporting your total energy usage, patterns of usage, and status of your connection to the power grid. So, in theory the Electric Company could determine what times you are commonly in the home and using appliances. They can also tell if you've had a power failure. As for monitoring consumption, that is something electric meters have been doing since the very first power network was constructed. Personally I really don't care if the electric company knows what time I'm watching TV or poking at a computer.

They really aren't that smart. Mine can barely hold a conversation on current events without starting to lecture me about global warming. I think it watches too much MSNBC.

A lot of conspiracy theories and outright bullshit . Most people that have one don't even know it .

I pay $9.60 every month to NOT have one. Ain't nobody turning my AC off on a 95 degree day except me.

I'm fairly familiar with the subject of them. Been a strong advocate for allowing an Opt Out policy required for all utilities. I don't like how they can monitor your electric usage patterns and data mine from it. I don't like someone making the decision of how much power I can have based on grid loads or charging me extra for usage at certain peak times.

My electric meter is dumb as a rock.

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
A lot of conspiracy theories and outright bullshit . Most people that have one don't even know it .

I suspected that I might have one when I never saw a meter reader ever come out. Since I've had video surveillance I'm sure they don't come out, so apparently I do. Meh...no biggie for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Appliance Brad:
I pay $9.60 every month to NOT have one. Ain't nobody turning my AC off on a 95 degree day except me.

I'm fairly familiar with the subject of them. Been a strong advocate for allowing an Opt Out policy required for all utilities. I don't like how they can monitor your electric usage patterns and data mine from it. I don't like someone making the decision of how much power I can have based on grid loads or charging me extra for usage at certain peak times.

My electric meter is dumb as a rock.

Same here.

quote:

Originally posted by Appliance Brad:
I pay $9.60 every month to NOT have one. Ain't nobody turning my AC off on a 95 degree day except me.

I'm fairly familiar with the subject of them. Been a strong advocate for allowing an Opt Out policy required for all utilities. I don't like how they can monitor your electric usage patterns and data mine from it. I don't like someone making the decision of how much power I can have based on grid loads or charging me extra for usage at certain peak times.

My electric meter is dumb as a rock.

You obviously have no clue how an electrical grid works .

A smart meter doesn’t turn off or control anything in your house. You have to have separate devices for that and you generally get a credit when they are activated, plus you have to agree and sign up for that service. The smart meter just has electronic communication to other meters to send your usage back to the utility in a meshed network to save the utility and its customers the cost of sending a meter reader to your house. It can provide more information on demand that a standard meter can’t. Smart meters are no more harmful than your cell phone or home WiFi. No good reason to pay the opt out expense.

We have had both Gas and Electric smart meters for a while in Northern California. At first we were skeptical and wanted to pay to opt out. We never did and are real happy with them.

I know they would give you little window things that you read your own meter and post it on the window on meter reading days. We tried that but it was a PITA. It allowed us to lock our side gate and to restrict access to our back yard thus giving us a higher level of security.

There was some sort of a discount you could sign up for if there was a heavy load on the grid and you allowed a rolling shut down. We never did that.

You can go online and look at daily consumption. The wife started to dry clothes on a clothes line when weather permits and that really brought down consumption.

I believe in case of a house fire the utility company can shut down the service and that may help a lot. Just look at all the fires in Northern California we just went thru.

 
We pay $5/month to opt out.
 

quote:

Originally posted by SJS:
A smart meter doesn’t turn off or control anything in your house. You have to have separate devices for that and you generally get a credit when they are activated, plus you have to agree and sign up for that service. The smart meter just has electronic communication to other meters to send your usage back to the utility in a meshed network to save the utility and its customers the cost of sending a meter reader to your house. It can provide more information on demand that a standard meter can’t. Smart meters are no more harmful than your cell phone or home WiFi. No good reason to pay the opt out expense.

THIS.