Automatic Meter Reading Puns

I've got a hack to get Rocky Mountain Power meter broadcasts into my Home Assistant system, but I'm wondering if anyone else has had success decoding water & gas meters here? I'm pretty sure they are both radio based.

Seriously. I have money, I am offering to pay extra for a supplier to come out and remove my SMETS1 electricity and gas meters and fit SMETS2 ones so that I don’t have to fuck about with meter readings and can get very frequent energy usage stats. But no one will do it! It’s not even “You’d be at the end of the waiting list after we’ve fitted everyone who doesn’t have a smart meter at all and wants one”, it’s just “we wouldn’t upgrade your meter”.

OK, so how do I actually get fucking ‘smart’ functionality out of my smart meter? “The technology hasn’t been developed yet for other providers to read different SMETS1 meters”. Right, is that technology being worked on? Are you actively developing it now and have an estimated completion date? Or am I just fucked forevermore for being an early smart meter adopter?

“We hope to be able to read some SMETS1 meters by summer 2019”. Define ‘some’. If I give you my serial number or whatever can you tell me if you expect to be able to read mine in 6 months? “Only after you sign up with us, then we’ll have more information in our database”. At which point you’ve locked me into a 12 to 18 month contract you shower of bastards!

#firstworldproblems

I need a solution for periodical tracking of my power, water etc. consumption.

Requirements:

- Web UI (optimized for mobile) to enter the current value of all meters (I have 3 meters)

- Web UI with reports or graphs (consumption per month, comparison with last year etc.)

- It should be possible to "replace" a meter (basically meter starts with zero again)

I didn't find anything some years ago and wrote my own solution. This doesn't work anymore (due to dependency updates etc.). Maybe somebody can recommend me a solution. Or maybe something with generic UI where I can enter 3 values and these will be written in the database? Reports can be created with grafana.

So i bought my house in February of 2021 and discovered a small gas leak (a connection in the basment was not completely tight). In august i got a bill from my electric company that they had gotten a actual reading (it has been estimated for two years according to that bill) and said i owed $800. I called them and they said they sent my complaint to the back office to be resolved and just pay the usage on bills and they would freeze the account so i wouldnt get my power and gas shutoff. Now its a couple months later and i get a notice that my power and gas will be shutoff on 12/02 if i dont pay. I called again and they said they sent my problem to the back office again. I was worried it was the same thing as last time so i called the next day and asked for a supervisor, after a hold the guy i talked to said it was more complicated than they thought and someone would call me immediately. This was Wednesday before thanksgiving so the office is closed until monday but im running out of time. What do i do? Should I just pay it and be done? Or can i get it fixed or at least reduced in some way? So far theyve only sent me a payment plan offer but thats no help.

Update: they called back and fixed the problem after I called the public utilities commission is dont owe any of it now. Thanks everyone!

Customers got one 100A generator and two small houses close together. Each has a meter main. One is 100A and the other 200A.

At first thought, I thought id run the output from the gen to some taps with 100A wire and then shoot one set to panel one and the other to panel two. One of the houses would get the Automatic transfer switch and the other would get an interlock kit.

This way when the power goes out the gen kicks on and house 1 gets power house 2 would have to flip the interlock.

I'm sure there's a reason i shouldn't do this. Parallel neutrals etc.

Does anyone have any ideas other than two transfer switches and a master-slave setup?

Hi r/apple,

I wanted to build a simple and minimalistic app for myself, where I can track my electricity/water/heating/etc... consumptions.

I spent several months and my first app is live on the App Store now, so you can try it too.

You can find it on the App Store at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/meterable/id1584696105

I'll be really happy if anyone else finds it useful.

It's a free version with a basic set of features

• Statistics
• Groups
• Dark Mode
• Unlimited readings
• Tips and Tricks

as well as Pro in-app purchase for advanced features or just to support development

• Unlimited meters
• Multi-tariff meters (e.g Day/Night tariff)
• Reading reminders
• Import from CSV
• Backup and restore

I'll also give away 10 promo codes for the lifetime pro version.

All you need to do is comment, upvote and I will pick randomly in 24 hours.

Hello there, I have not read meters before and want to make sure I'm reading this correctly. Also this is my first time trying to calculate KWH to bills.

Gas Meter - 31st December 2021 - 3116 kwh

Eletric Meter - 31st December 2021 - 77957 kwh

Then 6 Days Later

Gas Meter - 6th January 2022 - 3136 kwh (+20 increase from 6 days ago)

Eletric Meter - 6th January 2022 - 78062 kwh (+105 increase from 6 days ago)

With those numbers then the avg use across those 6 days would be 17.5 kwh in eletricity a day and 3.33 kwh in gas a day, which when multiplied by 31 gives me an estimated usage of 542.5 kwh of electricity a month and 103.23 kwh of gas in a month?

And any rates would just be that total number for the month x the rate right? So If I wanted to see my eletric cost I would do 542 x the use rate and 542 x the set rate?

My utility supplier uses the Pipit 500 Smart Meter and was wondering if anybody else uses one and able to pull the info into Home Assistant?

They use Zigbee / HAN, and also have a MAC.

https://www.securemeters.com/uk/product/in-home-display-2/pipit-500/

Hello all!

I was suggested by many of you to get an EC meter. So, I got one and used it for the first time, but then I realized.... I have no clue what any of this means.

My current plants are:

Thai & Genovese Basil

Thyme

Dill

Curly Parsley

Mint

What should my EC meter reading be? Do I do the PPM, or the μs/cm? What range is good? What is starting to get too high/low? If it is too high, what do you suggest I do?

Any other newb questions I may not be thinking of?

Has anyone in the UK had any luck with accessing their smart meter readings

I'm currently with Octopus energy, they have an api which I'm hitting to get the data - however, it's always a day behind, meaning that today I can only get yesterday's readings - nothing live

I've stumbled across RTL-SDR - but can't find any info to say if the smart meters used in the UK support this

I moved into a new flat in July and switched from Octopus to Bulb. When submitting meter readings, I noticed the meter readings bulb had for me were very different from the ones on the meter. I submitted new ones, and then the app asked for photos which I submitted. Then I got an email saying that the meter value I gave was too far from what was expected, therefore they would just use an estimate instead.

Bulb started charging my huge amounts (relative to what I was using) and I started to build up a huge credit. I cannot afford to have so much money tied up in credit, and it was way more than I would use even in the winter months. So I tried to reduce the amount coming out of my bank account. To do this, I had to update my meter readings, which again they wouldn't accept since it was too different from what was expected.

From this point (early August) I started emailing and calling every 3 weeks and asking them to fix it. They kept telling me Octopus energy has to fix it since they gave bulb the faulty readings. In November they told me that they had finally raised it with Octopus (what were they doing for the previous months I don't know) and now are waiting for Octopus. In December they told me the same thing (did they actually raise it with Octopus in November who knows).

I have cancelled my direct debit and haven't had money leave my bank account for 3 months but am £200+ in credit which they haven't taken from either

I have been very patient but it's been 5 months. What can I do?

Of course in the beginning, when you're first learning core vocab, and struggling through graded readers and simple manga, reading feels very effortful and energy-consuming pretty much the entire time. But when did you notice it start to feel more effortless to read? That simply looking at a Japanese sentence could cause your brain to turn on with meaning automatically, without you having to strain at all?

About how far into studying (in hours or years) would you say you were, before you started to notice that happening? And did you actually consciously notice it and go "wow this is really happening, my brain is just doing this on its own!" or did you just let that milestone slip by lol.

Eager to hear your experiences!

EDIT: Since people are thinking I'm asking for advice here, I just want to clarify that I'm not lol. I can read with automaticity very often for most books/manga now after about 5 years. basically if i'm interested in what i'm reading, i'm in an effortless-feeling flow most of the time, until I get to a word or phrase I haven't encountered or don't have much exposure to. I'm asking for other people to share your experiences/when you started to have that kind of experience with japanese (if you have yet).

I was just wondering if anyone else finds this suspicious or not. I had a man come to the door today asking to check my gas and electric readings and said he was with British Gas. I hadn’t heard anything about a visit so I said no to be safe as I was on my own. Only as I said bye and was closing the door I noticed the man was wearing a hi vis jacket with ‘Morrison’s’ on the chest pocket, despite claiming to be with BG. I then checked and we are not even with BG but a different energy provider. All in all it spooked me a bit as I was home alone. Does anyone know if this is perfectly legit / nothing to worry about or if this seems like he was trying to gain access for another reason? Thank you!

ETA: British Gas are not our supplier, but I only realised this after I said goodbye.

Don’t worry about submitting meter readings. You have a smart meter and we will record from there. Errrrrm no I don’t?