Smart Meter Installation – thoughts please?

1. The last that I heard, so called "smart" meters were anything but smart.
2. Many people have to have the thing removed.
3. Some of them only work with a particular supplier. Switch supplier and some of them will no longer work.
4. I was interviewed for a management job with a "Smart" meter company who represented the UK end of an Indian manufacturer. He could not give me a single reason to have one installed apart from the fact that the supplier would be able to reduce their work force and the cost of the installation would be picked up entirely by the consumer.
5. As we all know, there was a truly massive amount of recycled tax money donated to private industry to support the government scam to get these things rolled out nation wide.
6. I would not touch this with a barge pole!
7. I actually can think of a real benefit of a proper "smart" meter if it were a good deal smarter and actually worked reliably in the free market. But the the director of the importer that I referred to above, informed me that they had absolutely no intention of adding value to some consumers in this way.

Don't see why it is a matter for Landlords, smart meters make bill more accurate. Yes there have been teething problems but these are now mostly ironed out and with all meters now being fitted SMET2 changing suppliers is actually easier that it was previously.

The tenant is the one paying the bills so the tenant can choose who supplies and how they want to pay. Sorry just don't see why any landlord would object or how it impacts them negatively.

I'm still sceptical myself! Most of my tenants have card/key top up meters anyway and have not expressed a request to move to a 'smart' one. The law states LL's cant object anyway so even if a tenant doesn't tell you there is nothing you can do about it anyway.
I have heard stories that if fitted by certain suppliers then you change supplier some of the 'smart' meters don't work or the new supplier wont take you on until you move to their smart meter. In my case the next tenant may have an issue, but of course that means the hassle is just passed to me...
All looks like another pointless exercise for the government to show they are being eco friendly, when the whole thing is an exercise in futility and takes time and yet more faff with no long term benefits.
If it ain't broke...don't fix it is my mantra on this!

I've yet to understand the logic about 'they save you money'. Who actually looks at the consumption rate and does an empirical analysis to verify which appliance used when costs what?

Interestingly what has not been published, but has been discussed between Gov and industry, (don't ask connections from a former life), is the potential for 24/7 banding of prices.
We are familiar with the concept of overnight lower rates, economy 7 etc, but intelligent meters open the door to a much finer segmenting of the day and the possibility of automatic price increases during high demand periods. It would be quite possible to up the charge during the FA cup final interval, (when there is a surge due to kettles), or something similar.

Not sure if it's a good or bad thing, but it's a little big brother...

DON'T do it ! - Look up previous posts on here ( not the first time this has been discussed )

I pay the bills in one of my properties which is not in easy travelling distance of my home. I looked into having a smart meter installed into this property which has an Economy 7 meter as I felt this would reduce inconvenience to my tenants of monthly meter reads. It transpires that this particular meter is incompatible with having a smart meter fitted. I sent in a photo of the meter to the supplier who confirmed this. That saved me a day of unnecessary travel as I would have gone to the property to oversee the work and learn how the thing worked.

I agree, the hassle always comes back to the landlord.
In our HMOs where we pay the bills, we won’t allow smart meters because we want to monitor the usage regularly and because the meters are inconveniently located so not readily accessible for changing. The disruption to tenants and clearing up for us would be huge for no benefit.
On properties where the tenants pay the bills, still not keen – previous experience shows where tenants have changed suppliers and it is the devils own job to find out to whom and get bills remedied, because if you are not the named consumer, suppliers won’t talk to you; tenants (students) walk away and don’t care about the chaos they leave. One property took about 20 phone calls and several hours to try and unravel. Whilst that’s not strictly a meter issue, the fact that not all meters are suitable for all suppliers is a good reason in my view not to allow meter changes to hopefully avoid further hassle...

I had smart meters with British gas, I then changed to a company who promised lower bills, however I now have to read the meters myself ! so check before you change,

The Gov's strategy to deal with excess Power ( electricity demand in times of restricted supply ) is to use the remote cut-off facility of a smart meter to effectively switch off different arears for up to 2 hours ( read this a while back )
Does anyone trust the gov ? - Not landlords, that's for sure.

I am instinctively suspicious of these, but have come around for practical reasons. As of a few months ago the only way to get NSC accounts for my landlord's supplies (daily charge would be way higher than consumption) was with Utilita, and a condition was that I accepted smarts.

Its also useful for void periods where I don't want to pay around 40p a day in SC. I sometimes have voids of months at a time because I'm fussy.

Similarly my parents' flat benefits in the same way, since they live abroad and there's rarely anyone there.

When a tenant vacates I can ask Utilita for the readings on that day, so don't have to visit.

I still think the whole programme was/is disastrously implemented, and still don't understand how they can save money as claimed.