SmartMeters and tinfoil crowd

[Vikas]

Recently, my town forced the water meter change on us as the old one was 15 year old. The older meter had wire going outside where somebody could read the meter. The new one has transmitter built in. Trying to figure the new meter reading, I stumbled upon how much and how often it emits the RF signal. I am sure this is red meat for all the usual tinfoil crowd that we have here!

But the reason I am posting it here is to hear from the smart technical crowd as to why the manufacturer did NOT design to restrict the RF emission only on demand rather doing it continuously (aka pulsing every 14 second). I presume it has all the hardware (aka radio chip) already there. Radio receiver needs way less power than radio transmitter. Why not listen until commanded to emit the meter reading? The meter van can command the meter to go in to transmission mode.

Is it just laziness on the part of manufacturer of the smart meters or is there something fundamental limitation that I am missing?

If you are interested, google Neptune e-coder for fascinating read.

 

[dlundblad]

I too am interested. We had one installed shortly after the fence was installed around the house. Two bears as pets didn't help either. Lol.

 

[HerrStig]

The van would turn on every meter on the street.

 

[EdwardC]

I wonder if there's a lot more data collection going on. There could be valuable data for the utility company to see when the demand is greatest, or even do a live usage measurement to look for a broken pipe that's flooding water out.

Also, while a receiver would use a lot less power, I'm guessing that you're paying for the electricity that powers the transmitter, but that power usage is probably still pretty small over all though. That, in addition to actually having to add the receiver hardware and write the code for it.

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: EdwardC
I wonder if there's a lot more data collection going on. There could be valuable data for the utility company to see when the demand is greatest, or even do a live usage measurement to look for a broken pipe that's flooding water out.

Also, while a receiver would use a lot less power, I'm guessing that you're paying for the electricity that powers the transmitter, but that power usage is probably still pretty small over all though. That, in addition to actually having to add the receiver hardware and write the code for it.

This. I don't know much about water meters, but I do work for an electric utility. Electric meters can be used to pinpoint outages. If we stop hearing signals from the meter, we know something's wrong. It's also useful to catch people who try to bypass the meters to get free electricity. Some people think they're outsmarting the utility by turning the meter off for part of the day, then turning it back on at the end of the day. They're still using some electricity, so they think we won't suspect anything. We have computer software that shows your usage throughout the day, and we can spot suspicious patterns like zero usage between 8:00 and 5:00 every day. People have been known to bypass water meters and gas meters too (we had a customer that had water, gas, and electricity bypassed at the same time!).

 

[Bandito440]

I heard that they transmit your vaccination status and add extra floride if the amount already in your water isn't making you sick enough.

 

[Vikas]

Originally Posted By: HerrStig
The van would turn on every meter on the street.
So? Why would that be an issue? Every meter has its own MAC id and transmits using spread spectrum and random frequency hopping. I mean if you know anything about Ethernet and WiFi, this is NOT much different than that.

 

[Vikas]

Water meter has no electric power to it. It is all self-contained and uses lithium battery.

Are you guys saying that smart electric meter is radioing its data all the way to utility company's fixed receiver miles away?

I am trying to get the actual distance information but so far reading the few manuals have not put any light on that specific limits.

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
Are you guys saying that smart electric meter is radioing its data all the way to utility company's fixed receiver miles away?

Yes. There are receiver units mounted on poles every few miles or so. I couldn't give you any specific distances. But the meters can also talk to each other. So even if your meter is too far away from the receiver, your meter can send its info to your neighbor's meter, which will then relay your info to the receiver.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

I'll ask the next time I run into the guy who designed it. He's a smart one. He helped design the submersible that found the Titanic.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Bandito440
I heard that they transmit your vaccination status and add extra floride if the amount already in your water isn't making you sick enough.

lol..My sister in law listens to some tinfoil hat people. They tried to convince her that smart electric meters were part of a conspiracy to gather information about you....ummm..yea:

It can report usage and time of day etc. But do I really care if the electricity has a suspicion that I wake up at 2:00 AM to use my electric toothbrush? Scheesch...amazing.

 

[zzyzzx]

Quit calling your Demand Rate Meters by the utility's marketing department misnomer Smart Meter.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Quit calling your Demand Rate Meters by the utility's marketing department misnomer Smart Meter.

Wow..touchy..aren't we.

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Quit calling your Demand Rate Meters by the utility's marketing department misnomer Smart Meter.

My utility calls them "Advanced Meters" in the hopes that the whackjobs/aluminum-foil hat people think they're different from smart meters and don't cause an uproar.

 

[OldSparks]

We have time-of-use pricing in Ontari-owe which relies on smart meters

http://www.hydroone.com/TOU/Pages/Default.aspx

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
Are you guys saying that smart electric meter is radioing its data all the way to utility company's fixed receiver miles away?

Yes, although the underlying technology varies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter#Technology

I believe the one that exranger06 described works something like this:
http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/customerservice/smartmeter/howitworks/index.page

 

[zzyzzx]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Quit calling your Demand Rate Meters by the utility's marketing department misnomer Smart Meter.

Wow..touchy..aren't we.

It's more a matter in truth in advertising than anything else! The purpose of these meters IS to be able to charge people demand rates (I.E. - more), and it's the dishonesty that I hate the most.

 

[SHOZ]

On my companies lines the info travels over the actual electric grid. I also have an AC disconnect that can be triggered this way. So far all they do is record my demand and read the meter remotely. They can also tell if the power is out.

 

[Vikas]

I am not sure why electric meter would need to use radio to send the data out. They can hop on their existing wiring.

For the water meter, FCC 15.247 applies. I am going through it to determine what is the allowable maximum power per FCC under that guideline. The Neptune document about the transmit power says "complies with 15.247". Why couldn't they just list the max power??

I found a nice and balanced (in my opinion) paper published by Vermont Dept of Health. Some of you rednecks are going to scoff at that state as being populated by green weenies

 

[hotwheels]

Our PG&E SmartMeters send data wirelessly. There was a controversy when the meters were implemented. From the PG&E Website:

The SmartMeter™ system collects electric and natural gas usage data from your home or business. SmartMeter™ electric meters record residential electric usage hourly and commercial electric usage in 15 minute increments. SmartMeter™ natural gas modules attached to gas meters record gas usage daily. This data is periodically transmitted to us via a secure wireless communication network.

I monitor my gas and electricity usage frequently on my account page on the PG&E site.

hotwheels