The Issue With Smart Meters No ONE Is Talking About

welcome to today's video today's video we're going to be talking about the issue with smart meters that nobody's talking about and before you think i'm going to put my tinfoil hat on these issues actually really exist and are really important that we talk about them now now there are many issues that surround smart meters but before we talk about the biggest issue that made me write today's video let's talk about some of the other issues about smart meters that many people already know about the north and south are divided up into two areas the north is an rf only which means they fit transmitters those transmitters talk to your smart mirror and send back the data and not everyone is in an rf reception even in the north even though these areas are fitted around there's not enough of them doesn't have perfect coverage which means that some people can't have smart meters feed because it doesn't reach the signal there's also some special characteristics in certain parts like round raf bases where they can't have the transmission because it causes interference and the south is cellular only which means if you can't get a mobile phone signal where your smart meter is going you can't have a smart meter and these are just some of the problems with this now the cellular network has another problem that's going to hit in 10 years which is the main issue we've talked about this video but before we do i want to tell you about this now this is a cad it's a consumer device that works in the same way as this which is my home smart meter now my home smart mia talks to my smart meter and shows me up to the second and half an hour data readings for what my smart meters have used in energy unfortunately i can't see that account on my octopus dashboard or in my app and because of that oxfords have made this now this talk to the smart meter the same way this talks to the smart meter but this also talks to my wi-fi and sends those readings half an hour readings back to octopus's server so i can see them live in the app now there is many uses for this and we can theorize on what they could do but instead of theorizing and guessing what octopus want to do on this because this is a very limited alpha trial at the moment i'm going to have an interview with phil from octopus who's the man behind sort of pushing this technology through and we're going to have a chat with him about what octopus is going to be using it for so if you haven't already click subscribe click the notification bell so you don't miss that video now back to smart meters there is a problem with the smart meter network and the first one is we fitted smet one first now we currently are on smet two meters now smet one meters they were a problem because they could only work with the energy company that fitted them or if the energy company that you moved to used exactly the same brand of smart meter now this meant that you could still switch companies you could move to another smart meter another provider but the meter became dumb again so it was no longer a smart meter it was a dumb meter which means that that energy company might have to replace it for another smart meter stupid stupid idea having having this met one rushed out at the speed they did but smet two of protocols to talk with them wasn't ready now if you have got a smet one meter there is a an idea to start converting these threat one meter to smet two which means you don't need a new meter they can do it and it just means that other energy companies will be able to read that smart data from it and it will be going through but that's not the only problem we smet one and there's also a problem with smet 2. smet 2 meters are smart no matter which energy company you switch to you can go to any energy company you've smet to and they can read the data from it in fact if you are with another energy come at the moment and you've tried to sign up to octopus go using my referral they will tell you when you ring them by the phone that they're not accepting any customers and if you tell them that you want to join as an ev customer on a go tariff they said have you got a smet 2 meter yet or a secure branded smet one meter and that's because if you haven't got those meetings they can't read it so they may suggest to you get your smart meter smet 2 meter fitted by your current energy company and that way when you transfer to the server to octopus they can read your smart meter data readings and you might think that you know smet two they would have all energy companies that's the end of the problem not exactly now smet one meters have been around for a very very long time in fact so long that the technology that they use to transmit data is 2g also known as gsm now this is really low speed internet it's really really really really slow but for the data that smart meters are transmitting it's perfect it works absolutely fine the problem is we're going to discuss in a minute because it also affects smet 2 and smet 2 used 2g and 3g and you think that's not a problem 2g yes it's a slow network 3g's are much more modern technology much faster we get 3g signal everywhere pretty much now don't we so what's the problem with with 3g well i'm telling you all this because phone operators are going to do something in 2033 called sunsetting and sunsetting basically means that they're going to turn off old technology that doesn't work anymore from the mobile network because the way mobile networks work they're essentially a radio they're a radio band okay so you got radio band 2g takes up some radio band 3g takes up some radio band by the way these might not be in order um and 4g and 5g take up some radio band and if you want to bring out new technology 6g 7g you know fast technologies you've got no band left there's only so much band aerial band you can use on a mobile phone network so what's going to happen is the phone network is going to turn off 2g and 3g and by turning these off they freed up this huge spectrum on the radio spectrum which they could use maybe for 5g or 6g or another telephone signal to go in this place and broaden the amount of signal and places they can put signal and that's very very important for advancing technology 2g is massively old it's not useful as a data carrier for people on mobile phones and 3g is very old and very slow and 4g is you know a lot faster and 5g is gaining a lot of popularity especially by 2033 you wouldn't need 2 or 3g they would just seem you know very very slow but why is it important that we understand how smart meters work well if they turn these technologies off your smart meter is dumb and you might think 2033 is a very very long way away and it is however the big problem is that some networks have already said that they're going to start sun setting in 2023 which means that some networks will already turn off 3g signal now they're turning off 3g before 2g because they know that 2g is a backbone for a lot of old technologies that work like this for example there's still a lot of people using old tokyo phones that are 2g only which means they won't get any mobile signal on those old phones but they also know that stuff like smart meter networks and a couple of other very old networks still work on the 2g so they won't be turning that off in 2023 but if they're turning 3g off in 2023 you can rest assure that they might give a little bit of a heads up before 2033 to turn off 2g services as well with it being such an old you know antiquated network that we don't really use anymore dcc who run the south smart meter system who run the telephone network for that smart meeting 2g 3g system have a couple of statements on their website and i've kind of deemed that some some smet 2 meters may have 4g antennas in them and they've also stated on the website that the smet 2 meters for example would only need a communication module changing in them and not a whole new smart meter however i think it's a massive oversight that all smet 2 meters didn't have 4g straight from the get-go and you could argue that 5g you know would have been very expensive to fit a 5g receiver in these smart meters in the very early days because 5g chips were very expensive when smack2mates first started coming out however there's probably no excuse not to start fitting them now and making sure that they have 4g and 5g standard now i get the point on their statement they say 5g hasn't got a massive coverage area at the moment which is fair enough but it will do soon and it will do with 4g and 5g both being the new predominant technologies being installed they really should install those in the comments unit now although they can change the commons unit and not the whole smart meter you might think that's great you know it doesn't mean a whole new smart meter smart 2 replacement you know smart free for example it just means they're going to change the comms unit and you think that's fine but we've got to remember how units are changed now it might just mean a 15-minute interruption of power while the change that comes unit which is probably fine for you as a customer 50 minutes is nothing in time but the problem is to get access to most people's smart meters a lot of homes in the uk the smart meters are inside the house which means a day off work for you again to have your meter comes unit change which is just hassle and it makes customers life a little bit more stressful now whether they'll be able to chase the comms unit for people outside who've got outside meters i don't know but again they're gonna have to turn your power off so they probably need your permission which means they probably need you in to make sure everything's safe when they turn the power off and flick it back on so it's just a little bit of aggro i just wish that now we know that these you know sun settings happening that the comms unit now from dcc they start forcing 4g and 5g as standard in these comms unit let me know what you think in the comments i want to know what your thoughts are worth saying we don't know what technology is going to be like in another five six years there is what i've read online a possibility that the 4g and 5g signals may be able to have something strapped on them called an emulator which means that those signals the 4g and 5g signals could be the speeds they are for everyone who's got 4g and 5g phones but they could emulate the 2g and 3g cert you know sinking pattern the pulse pattern of the radio wave for the older smart meters to communicate with them under the 2g network but still allowing free 4g and 5g speeds for customers on that network it's also worth saying that you know i am not in the smart meter game though there may be able to take the comms unit out without your power going off but i'm assuming that that would probably be needed probably a 15 minute power down what do you think in the comments do you think that we should make sure that smart meter companies are starting to fit these more advanced power or should we insist that stuff like the communication module the wi-fi communication model should be allowed on all smart meters anyway and that way you won't have this 2g 3g 4g 5g problem we could everyone you know pretty much in the uk has broadband and wi-fi and that is one perfect solution that's ready to go that works now i mean this is an alpha tester and it's working fantastic for me at the moment thank you very very much for watching this week's video make sure you check out the phil's interview that will be coming up soon go and click subscribe thank you very much and i'll see you again next week goodbye

Channel: Nicolas Raimo

Views: 173,347

Keywords: EV, plug in, ev nick, nicolas raimo, nicholas raimo, smart meters, smart meter, smart meters uk, smart meter installation, smart meter electricity, smart meters explained, smart meter doesnt work, smart meter hack, smart meter reading, octopus energy, octopus energy cad, octopus energy smart meter installation, octopus energy smart meter, octopus energy smart meter smets2, octopus energy smart meter free, smet1, smet2, smart electric, sunsetting, 3g, 2g, sun setting 2g

Id: Sp-HMOKyT-o

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022