Does a smart meter affect Hi-Fi sound?

I am interested in this part of your answer, what are the reasons for not getting one?
I have ignored repeated mails telling me that I have an appointment booked for installation (even though I have not expressed any interest) and it just strikes me that someone is trying too hard to get me to have one.

 

Even though your kit is on a dedicated loop, other stuff still affects it?

Curious as we've just had a massive renovation and part of which is to have the same. I'm about to set all my kit back up, but that's disappointing if that's what you mean.

Sorry for thread drift. Ps I've no idea if the smart meter will make any odds

 

From what I can gather, the only benefit of a smart meter is that the people who want to control your life get more control of your life. They are no more reliable than old meters, are less accurate and give the power company full remote control of your electricity. They can cut you off or change the way the meter reads from the other end of the country. It saves them having to read your meter or contact you asking you to do it.

And the benefit to you is zero.

Just one more small piece of the Orwellian puzzle.

 

Do you have any evidence for these claims?

 

A smart meter saves the company money as meter readings can be done automatically. Since it is a meter reader it has no control of switching your power off. And it is just as accurate as reading the meter in person. Do I like it? No, just more profit for a company and more people unemployed.

As an ex-Ham: Are you using a digital amplifier? Then you have already RF in the home that potentially can interfere with the rest of your HiFi.

If you are worried about spikes and other cr@p from the mains getting into your equipment: a real possibility with all the LED, switching power supplies, electronic speed control (washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners) and what have you. Best is to use an UPS that has fulltime conversion for a computer server room: it converts the mains to DC and then makes avery clean mains out that. (I'm using that for my electronics: TV, HiFi).

YMMV

 

Search for an analysis of meters performed by Delft University a few years ago. Some of them were massively wrong due to mistakes with PFC and the customers use of smps.

None of the units tested undercharged they all over charged.

 

This isn't my area of expertise but the meter is just that, it isn't equipped with any kind of relay/ contactor to achieve cutting you off.

Yes you could construe something 1984'ish into Smart meters but, collectively, our behaviours wrt electricity consumption, will need modifying. Clearly not everybody can re-jig all electricity usage out of the 16:00 - 19:00 time slot and not everybody can afford Tesla PW2 (cheaper alternatives are available but you get my drift).

The biggest electricity burden which will need significant behavioural modification over will be EV charging (apologies for thread deflection).

Regards

Richard

 

It wasn't that long ago, well in the 1980s that many used to disconnect the LED in their Naim amplifiers (others too I am sure) as it was reported that many could hear the effects of the LED on sound quality when in circuit. If this was the case then the effects of a radio device like a mobile phone or smart meter will have an even bigger effect...

 

I found this:
Can my supply be turned off remotely?
Smart meters have the facility to remotely disconnect and reconnect both the electricity and gas supply. However, most suppliers seem to have decided it is too dangerous to remotely disconnect or reconnect, as in the case of disconnection they cannot always be sure that the customer isn't relying on a supply for serious health reasons and in the case of reconnection the customer may have left a cooker on for example. (Updated: 2015-01-23) [from https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html]

 

@r0dd3r5 - yes I've read about this remote disconnection capability but the meter itself (or the comms box attached to it) simply aren't large enough to have a 2 pole 100A relay inside them.

As I say it is far from my area of expertise but there doesn't seem to be the volume to accommodate such a thing and yes cutting off power to locations where individuals may have mains powered life support equipment wouldn't make very good PR.

Regards

Richard

 

The capability to remotely disconnect is built in, AIUI, and presumably the switch would be a similar size to the one on the CU, which isn’t huge?

But I think the main advantage of smart metering will be in being able to apply differential pricing based on supply and demand, and at a much more granular level. So not just regular vs Economy 7 tariffs, but higher rates at teatime, breakfast time, or when the FA Cup final is on. This needs aggregate demand to be measured and predicted frequently, several times an hour ideally. That’s potentially intrusive: energy providers will know when you go out to work, or are on holiday, or working from home; when you eat and what sort of things you cook, perhaps even what team you support. Aside from the security risks if that data gets out, do you want to be profiled that accurately?

 

When I looked some long time ago, load management (disconnection) was indeed an optional part of the SMETS specification. But I don't know whether or how this is actually implemented in real smart meters.

I attended a lecture from a risk manager who addressed the risks of a smart meter energy supply infrastructure. There are privacy risks for sure but the most frightening risk was if disconnection can be done remotely but remediation against a successful cyber-attack needs a premises visit.

Does anyone think the meters' protocol stacks and the suppliers' infrastructures are perfectly secure? And does anyone think the government cyber warfare units in UK, USA, Russia, China, North Korea, ... don't have sample meters whose software they have dis-assembled and examined for exploitable flaws? How many homes are there in UK?

 

Yes, that's an excellent point. If hostile state actors could hack the smart meter network and turn people's supply of and on at a whim, that'd be potentially catastrophic. It's one reason, of course, for the NIS directive about cybersecurity resilience for critical national infrastructure. But that was an EU initiative, so a bad idea, obvs, and one we'll doubtless row back on to gain a competitive edge.

 

I think this generation is too quick to accept technology that has capabilities and implications we are yet to fully understand. We're going to get burned, it's only a matter of time.

 

I looked up the meter in my flat, and it does indeed have a 100 A relay for controlling the supply.

 

Well, see below and take your pick. But I'd look at the question from the opposite angle: if there is no advantage to you, why get one? You can just ignore the bullying requests.

 

Is there any reason a smart meter would be worse in this regard than a dumb one? Any meter can be inaccurate.

 

Some suppliers (don't know of any in the UK, though) have started using tariffs with a component based on peak power used. I guess the reason is to deter people from fast-charging EVs as this puts a huge strain on the grid.

 

NCSC has, of course, been involved in the system's security design. They have a page on it. But that addresses the design. Security is often about the implementation.

It's all very well to write that a meter will not respond to X or Y, but if a malformed message causes a buffer overflow because of poor implementation and overwrites some key data then that's how things can get exploited. I do expect NCSC will have been addressing that too. And then a lot of cyber exploits these days are aimed at the human parts of a system. I am also sure NCSC has been working with the industry on that.

I have been holding out. To allow enough time for these issues to be sufficiently addressed. I will eventually take the smart meter. The question is when, not if. I am thinking about this summer but in reality I can't tell.

The most likely impact on an audio system, IMHO, is the comms hub's wireless communication with the communication service provider. There's more than one type. However, I don't expect it will have any noticeable impact on well-designed kit that meets modern immunity requirements. But as a now completely inactive radio amateur I still have my box of bits in the spare room that I am sure will deal perfectly with any interference.

 

I suspect it is way too late to be worrying about that as I'm sure we'll have been profiled a long time since.

The option to decline the fitting of a Smart meter will come at some point........

Regards

Richard