The health case against such technology is very real, but with one proviso, its the fear of the technology that does the damage, not the technology itself. If you think its going to harm you, it probably will, if you don't fear it, its harmless. Ask any doctor if the placebo effect is real or not......
As for some of the control claims made for them, most couldn't be achieved without some other technology at play, and most aren't economical to achieve with a domestic tariff, The power companies will need to pay for the data charges their smart meter consumes, so to keep the costs doable they call home once a week or once a month. No doubt they could monitor you to the second. but I can't see the power companies coughing up 30 quid a month for mobile phone data charges when you're only paying maybe 70 or 80 quid a month to them in the first place. And since they are wired / plumbed in exactly the same as decades old meters, their is precious little information can be derived from the flow of power or gas through what is effectively a single wire/pipe. I know, because I do it, I can hazard a guess from how much electric the meter is metering , which appliances are being used, because I know how much each of them consume, but its only a guess and that with significant inside knowledge. Gets very difficult when more than one heavy use appliance is on at once. Hmmm, 3.5kW at 17:46 on the 30th June 2015 is that the oven and toaster on together or the microwave, toaster and breadmaker on together or maybe the central heating boiler and the fridge and freezer and a load of lights on together with the toaster ? Not exactly enough information to determine anything at all other than at 17:46 you were consuming 3.5 kW of electric. Anybody who thinks they can make anything of that information is welcome to it. Much of the time, you can't say with any certainty whether there is someone at home or not, the house consumes the same when no-one is home as when you're sat reading a book or something without any lights on. And is that extra 60 watts lights or the fridge thats run up because the thermostat tells it to ?
When they changed the gas meter for smart one, it was exactly the same as the one it replaced, except it had a small sensor on the side of the digits panel connected by a cable to an external box containing the 'smart' bit, mobile phone tackle and a largish battery to power it for allegedly 10 years. It couldn't have been capable of doing anything other than keeping track of how much gas you've consumed and calling home at extended periods to transfer that information. (Once a month in the case of the Gas meter, the electric does it once week, since it doesn't gave the battery constraints) No way could it even cut off the gas remotely. And since I carry a mobile phone around in my pocket most of the time, a mobile phone that fires up once a week, in a location I rarely visit, isn't going to concern me.
As far as I'm concerned the main driver for installing smart meters is so they don't have to employ a small army of bods in little vans reading meters. That itself is enough reason. Bugger the no more estimated bills bit, that's just sales pitch.......
However now the utility company has got the church electric smart meter going (they changed the sim card) and put a "smart" gas meter in, not having to read meters or ensuring someone is there to let in the bod in the little van to read it is a real boon.
