Comment by arethuza
11 hours ago
I'm a bit bitter about Octopus, although they did rescue us from the horrors of our previous supplier their insistence on us getting "smart" meters that can't then function as smart meters because of poor signal and are actually more difficult to read than our old meters has left me not hugely impressed with them.
Wasn't the smart meter rollout ( and the poor choice of hardware etc ) a central government initiative. Octopus merely used their software agility to make the most of it.
ie not sure issues with the smart meters themselves is the fault of Octopus - as the meter standards are set centrally so they can still work if you switch supplier?
Back to another old adage,
"people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware"
Octopus pressured us into getting smart meters and they're the folks I am speaking to to get the things to work so as far as I'm concerned they're on the hook.
Mind you, I couldn't help noticing that the meters themselves are owned by a leasing company... (there is a plate on each one explaining this).
Again I think that's mostly the governments fault - they are setting mandatory smart meter rollout targets for the energy suppliers every year.