I now run a smart meter on my British Gas electric/gas supply. Interestingly the actual operation is good to monitor and to augment appropriate questions, like how come my gas usage rises when we are away and no one is in the house, and no adjustments are made to the system configuration? this leads to an investigation in to temperature change during the period. Still under investigation !!!!

The cost against the system (not the supplies used) are of interest as well, see how the cost on a daily basis rises for the privilege of having the system.

Question is this any dearer or cheaper than the old meter system, it should be cheaper as no one now comes to read the meters, (not that they ever did because that was my responsibility as delegated by British Gas !!!!!)

IoT has many aspects of referral and a supplier must realise that we 'engineering technologists' will ultimately start investigating and reviewing the operation of a piece of equipment, but we stand short of dismantling to investigate how it works, even we abide by the regulations perhaps more so than the government and energy suppliers tasked with the job.

So I am with in budget on my usage of electric and gas, I see high usage periods like Christmas, weekend roasts, and visitor times and the dangerous one when I am not at home !!!!

Security is again clearly an issue with 'hacking' of these systems as is any IoT capability like cloud keys to open house and car doors, cloud controls for the heating adjustments, switching on of lights etc. etc.

IoT also supplies huge amounts of data to companies for revenue generation purposes for free in some instances or believe it or not, by you paying for them to receive it !! the home computer camera and microphone, Skype,  iPhone 7 sire, the smart TV's all listen , record , monitor, and watch !!!!

That's the negatives and some positives, however I like the idea of IoT so look forward to seeing what transpires over the year

Best wishes for a Happy New Year to all readers

Chris AePS

Thanks for your comment David Marcroft‍, good to see that having a smart meter has had a positive impact on your household

A smart meter is useful for identifying devices with a high electrical or gas consumption in the home. Thanks to our smart meter I know the underfloor heating in the conservatory uses 0.8 kW and the electric oven 2.3 kW. Last spring our 26 years old gas boiler was replaced by a new condensing boiler and it was gratifying to see the indicated gas consumption on the smart meter reduced dramatically.

Thanks for your comments and the link to the article Adam Westbrooke‍, useful background information as to why the roll out is currently struggling.

Adam, thanks for that information which certainly clarifies the picture. It is relatively recently that my own domestic meter was replaced, with a new dumb meter. One would hope for government to set the right direction, but instead it lets industry drift as it pleases. I've seen the same thing in other technical areas. They could at least mandate the correct path going forwards.