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I've been looking at getting a Smart Meter installed and wondered how I could access the dataflow from the meter for home use and analysis. There are (expensive!) applications for doing this so I assume it must be possible but I assume the data is flowing in some relatively straight forward manner and could be accessed at home?
Anyone got any experience of this?
Cheers!
Can't help with the question...... but want to add another question !
Why can't you have multiple energy supplier accounts all feeding through the one meter ? A " proper " Smart meter would then pick the most cost effective supplier at that time and use that until another supplier was cheaper. I believe that the cost of electrictity varies quite a lot throughout the day , so by using standard technology available today a meter could do this for you......but , of course this would be really "Smart" and not the sort of thing being trooped out by our lovely energy companies.
That sounds possible, would the customer hold the accounts or would it be via an intermediary?
Why can't you have multiple energy supplier accounts all feeding through the one meter
the meter logs the meter read every 30 mins, and then sends it back daily over the mobile phone network. The current and planned infrastructure couldn't cope with that I dont think, but dont rule it out for the very long term. In day switching will be the ultimate goal I think for 2020 or so... So in theory you could change 365 times a year but not every 30 mins
To the OP, I'm not aware of any application in the big energy suppliers that lets you view the actual readings. Although with some you do get a monthly analysis of your consumption with hints and tips and comparisons to neighbours etc..
Just install your own check meter. Wouldn't cost a fortune and you can send the data wherever you like.
[url= http://www.directheatingsupplies.co.uk/owl-intuition-e-home-electricity-monitor-tse200-101?gclid=CNiwsfarrM0CFZAW0wod4tECgQ ]This[/url] kind of thing?
I guess I was hoping that if we were going to get smart meters from the utility then we may have some sort of data standard...
With cat 5 (MPAN) meters, consumers have access to hhd but I have no idea about resi.
Any decent smart meter with appropriate CTs should do the trick. I like the ND meters stuff but you'd need to make sure about the data collection side of things.
I am sure I heard somewhere recently of a smart meter that does the day switching thing. I think it was in Australia
I worked on one of the projects for SM, and there was no provision for consumer access to the data from their meter (beyond the meter reading and that little screen you got given) - end to end encryption in transit, and in most the data was sent over mobile data. Didn't see any sign of such a provision in other offerings either (though I was in no way privvy to all or all their bid).
Your best bet is via data supplied back to you by your provider, though I appreciate removing them from the chain might be exactly what you're trying to achieve. so your own metering device as above.
Swapping providers would be great but the data was more aimed around provision planning and peak prediction at country / regional levels than saving consumers money. A logical development though, and things have moved on since I was interested.
Let's be honest about this... Any IoT device is going to have weak crypto built in to it and a poorly authored web app for access. I'd put money on there being a small linux distro built in to it, with more ports open than there needs to be. If you can get to it through a debug port (probably RS232 over USB) on the meter, then you could get to the console and find the right data. If it is on your WiFi, then you could potentially sniff the traffic or log in over ssh/telnet (please gods not telnet).
Failing that, you could open up the box and see if there was a way to get the serial data from chips themselves. I've done this with USB before and I know it can be done from JTAG headers too. Of course, if they _really_ encrypt the data, then you may just get garbage, but the keys will leak soon enough I'll bet and, if not, time will make them crackable.
Mine gets squirted to the app on my phone from my utility provider. It's possible to go down to every hour, which I assume is the polling interval of the meter.
Any IoT device is going to have weak crypto built in to it and a poorly authored web app for access
Whilst I agree this will be an issue with a lot of (perhaps even most) IoT devices (especially cheap crap made in China) there's a lot of work going on developing IoT devices with decent security (the company I work for is developing an IoT platform along with Microsoft and doing a lot of work in this area).
Wrecker...ND meters? Which ones you looking at??
Fuzzy, then your place is a rarity. Most people seem to use the "Cheap, Strong, Fast. Pick two" approach and usually end up with just one.
Sorry, the cynicism is strong with me today. I'll try and be more practical about these things in the future.
I usually specify the modulars but I think the range is probably a bit commercial on review.
We had an Ovo smart meter installed a while back. It comes with a little "in home display" that shows the real time reading and basic graphs, but it's pretty basic. Their website gives you more graphs so you can look at the per day or per half hour energy use; I'm not sure how far it goes back at what precision, but it certainly does a year in daily totals. You can't download the data or do anything more, though.
We did have an Owl Intuition thing before, but came to the conclusion that under a few hundred watts they just aren't accurate enough. It recorded our daily electricity consumption as about a third higher than it really is, which makes it pretty useless for any kind of analysis or conservation efforts.
Any [b]badly thought[/b] out IoT device is going to have weak crypto built in to it and a poorly authored web app for access.
It's not as Wild West (IME) as previous tech booms, not worth the bad publicity when it's in every home. More likely to be an RTOS than some gentoo roll up, and the practicalities of distribution to use a home owners internet access canned that quick. Whats listed as HAN on my meter is a wireless network to the little B&W monitor box,not the home WLAN - not had a poke about with it but I'd be surprised if there was much exposed there beyond the info you can read on the box. Even more surprised if it was an exploitable service, but be interesting to have a look. The 'Spanish Problem' mandated some better QA on the encryption implementation.
<I agree with FuzzyWuzzy though, you will get what you pay for in most cases, in general IoT>
Plus the only real 'benefit' to hacking a smart meter would be putting a brake on your bill, and people have been doing that (and getting caught doing that) for years with more low tech methods. Trimming 10% or so off though, can see that being an issue.
Wrecker - so what do you do, who do you spec for? Have you come across the Multi-Cube-950's yet? Pretty new, and don't yet have IP connectivity. Wondering what you thought.
I've been looking at getting a Smart Meter installed and wondered how I could access the dataflow from the meter for home use and analysis.
Theoretically the only people who should be able to get data from the meter is the utility company - allowing any other access is opening it up to being hacked. That said from what I've read the meters are pretty crap anyway and they're only there to benefit the utility company - regardless of whatever BS they're feeding you.
If you want to save money just switch things off more often.
Wrecker - so what do you do, who do you spec for? Have you come across the Multi-Cube-950's yet? Pretty new, and don't yet have IP connectivity. Wondering what you thought.
Can't say too much!!! I have trial led these and they were successfully rolled out on a 700 property estate. They are an elegant solution in that you can have 7 odd blades/meter points to one master unit and power supply. Very little din rail space used too, hence small enclosures. Data was pushed out over a lan with a tridium jace but could have easily used gprs
Wrecker - Nice one. I work for ND, so nice to have some real customer feedback.
Good outfit to deal with. Just get the mods MID compliant!!!
Wrecker - If I'm honest, not sure the modular's will ever get MID, they're unlikely to get any revisions. All the new products are planned to have MID though, latest stuff is currently in the lab.
acjim - Member
I guess I was hoping that if we were going to get smart meters from the utility then we may have some sort of data standard...
That's happening - slowly. I gather that the industry is supposed to be moving towards [url= https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/68898/smart_meters_equipment_technical_spec_version_2.pdf ]SMETS 2[/url], which comes with a bunch of riveting companion specs specifying its [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62056 ]DLMS[/url] data model. This should eventually allow for interoperability between smart meters and different energy suppliers. If anyone ever manages to get a SMETS 2 meter out the door.
In my indirect experience of it all though, the energy meter industry is about the last one you'd call if you wanted agility and the ability to adapt quickly to evolving technologies.
There's a fair amount about security somewhere in the SMETS 2 spec, too.
Useful info people, thanks - this IoT world is going to be quite crazy (or just broken...)
Wrecker - If I'm honest, not sure the modular's will ever get MID, they're unlikely to get any revisions. All the new products are planned to have MID though, latest stuff is currently in the lab.
Can't wait to see it. Funnily I was quizzed only today about my knowledge of smart metering so we may have requirements for it.