I had this hope when the energy companies in France installed the national "smart meter" (Linky). It was a fun story because it was linked to spying you at home, 5G, COVID and radiation.
Unfortunately this is a closed system where the energy company will not let you access the data outside of their own dashboard. I would like to think that this is against the national trend toward Open Data but it is what it is.
There are some funky solutions where you connect a board to an input of the meter and somehow get the data in Home Assistant but it is like I said "funky" (completely guerilla style, without any backing of the power company and if you have a problem it will probably be your fault).
> It was a fun story because it was linked to spying you at home, 5G, COVID and radiation.
The first of those is a genuine concern
> In Australia debt collectors can make use of the data to know when people are at home.[63] Used as evidence in a court case in Austin, Texas, police agencies secretly collected smart meter power usage data from thousands of residences to determine which used more power than "typical" to identify marijuana growing operations.[64]
> Smart meter power data usage patterns can reveal much more than how much power is being used. Research has demonstrated that smart meters sampling power levels at two-second intervals can reliably identify when different electrical devices are in use.
IIRC my smart meter in the UK lets me choose between 30m and 24h reporting, probably as a response to these fears, but you just set it as a preference on the provider website, not locally on the meter. It would be trivial for them to just be lying about that and logging data to GCHQ at the maximum precision. That may seem outlandish, but so did PRISM until it was revealed
Some people also refuse to have one so that they can't be forced onto a dynamic-priced tariff. At the moment those are opt-in, but I think their concern is a fair one too. Though if the powers that be wanted to coerce people onto them, they could simply crank the price of fixed tariffs anyway
This is physics. You get a power usage and you can imagine which kind of device pulls the energy. With some context you can even guess that I switched on my water boiler at 19:45 and yes, you would know that I drank tea or coffee.
As for burglars, they will know that I am away statistically during the day. Which is not only predictable, but they can get the exact moment I leave by simply watching my house.
This reminds me of a friend who was worried that someone would hack my smart lock. To what I said that I would LOVE them to hack it instead of breaking the door as they will do.
I can understand that some people are super scared about being spied on - and their consumption should be checked once a month when they have tp pay. Some people would like to measure it in 1 second intervals and they should be accommodated as well.
Unfortunately this is a closed system where the energy company will not let you access the data outside of their own dashboard. I would like to think that this is against the national trend toward Open Data but it is what it is.
There are some funky solutions where you connect a board to an input of the meter and somehow get the data in Home Assistant but it is like I said "funky" (completely guerilla style, without any backing of the power company and if you have a problem it will probably be your fault).