Smart meters/should I worry

[Dragonchaser]

I notice recently the power company changing our meter,
and it never really rang a bell until I seen him changing
all my neighbors too. So I took a closer look at mine and it
looks like one of those new smart meters. It definitely looks
different than my old one. From my understanding this new
tech can literally see inside your home. Supposedly they
can tell you how many lights are on and what watt
they are. Should I be concerned or am I paranoid?
Anyone have some sound info or links I can read
about this? Thanks.

 

[BtodaLew]

eh im sure you're fine unless you are worried about extra wattage showing up on your statement that can give away (to whoever lives in the house with you) that there is indeed something extra hooked up in the house. if you're not worried about that you're fne, i'm sure they can't actually LOOK in your house and see what you're doing and everything you have inside. i'm pretty sure that's very much against the law, especially since it's just an electric company.

 

[Aberration]

New appliances are on the way that you will allow to 'talk' to the electric company's grid. Your items will then adjust their behavior to best take advantage of the light usage times and ease off when the grid is stressed. Which saves you lots of money and is all fine and good - until you realize they now have policy control of individual devices in your home. So when the system is stressed, everyone's lights dim, or you have to choose from a limited number of devices to use at that time. I'm still uncomfortable with that type of scenario.

 

[diggler35007]

they are just updating their system. its making the meter reader job obsolete or more efficient. no need to worry unless your bill is three times the average bill of your area.

 

[MedicalNeed]

The new smart meters can tally data as to hourly power consumption, along with the time and date etc.

This info on it's own is not enough for a search warrant in the US, but coupled with certain purchases and an infrared heat reading that is suspicious is enough, the fact that they are doing everyones meter seems ok.

I would certainly take into account what you may be up to and how much, and at what times, SLooow adjustment is now your concern over any major swing, ease into any large power consumption changes even less use.

 

[Ironmonkey]

I just had one installed on it. I forgot about it until they came and knocked on my door now. I really hope they cant control your power usage in the house. Has anyone found any more information on these things?

 

[IrishBoy]

i dont think they care one bit as long as u pay their bill. i have one as far as i know is its just makes their meter reading allot easier. pay ur bill on time and i say ur good.

 

[Lil Neutrino]

There is no way for them to tell what wattage lights you are running or anything specific in your home...electricity simply does not work that way. Now if they required you to run data cables to an external box that they could plug in to...that would be cause for concern.

Electrical engineering theory says that all current leaving a node (point) must be the same as the total current going in to it. There's no way to track where the electrons came from period. The wiring in your home goes to a distribution panel which has a single (usually) incoming connection from the power company. Once that electricity hits the distribution panel (breaker panel) and splits off to all areas of your home there's no way for anyone outside the home to know what it was without having access to that panel.

They can't detect anything new with those new meters...however it does allow them to monitor that specific meter and pull data readings from it. These readings can tell them how much power you are using and when you are using it and based on those readings they can track your daily usage and its variations...but that's it. So yeah, they could technically know when your lights come on and turn off and notice that the power difference equates to typical MJ lighting wattages (power = current X voltage X sqrt(3) for AC, for DC just ignore the square root of 3 part) but I don't know if they'd report that to law enforcement. If law enforcement had suspicions already in place they could feasibly talk to your utility company and get the above data from them...that could be possible reason for a warrant I suppose.

As mentioned, pay your bill and try not to make large changes in your lighting wattage all at once. We only have a couple here where I live but I know I was paranoid about them at first too.