“Smart” meters are basically RF transmitting meters so that the meterman can simply drive through the neighborhood and his RF unit can get readings on the individual meters without have to walk up to the meter and read it. (In some neighborhoods, there is definitely a safety factor in doing that.)
But the meters can be read by anyone with suitable equipment, so that a person could might be able to tell if someone is on vacation from a serious of readings from a meter. This presumes the meters are not securely encrypted.
They can cut your power off too from a remote location .
That is the real reason for them .
Yet another ignorant voice sounds off. ALL the main electric, gas, and water metering manufacturers design their equipment with the ability ENCRYPT reading data. We do it. Our competitors do it. Anybody who is anybody in the industry does it.
It's up to the utility to turn it on, but the readings can be encrypted.
Uh no. Not here in Texas anyway. I have one of those 'smartmeter' surveillance devices on my house. If you go to Smart Meter Texas and have the serial number, as well as your account number, you can actually download a spreadsheet of your daily meter readings over the past few months in 15-minute increments. I do so on a regular basis to keep track of my usage. This winter I plan to use some of this info to do tests on how best to heat my house for the lowest cost. The fact that I'm able to make use of it for my own purposes doesn't mean it's not a powerful surveillance tool of the police state as well.