Hi
After looking into smart meters, we opted for one
It is a smet1, which is no issue as all smelt have to updated by 2020 so they can be used by all power suppliers.
Buracat is correct, it uses gsm to upload data every 30 minutes, and the hand held device is connected by Wi-Fi directly to the meter (does not use your Wi-Fi, broadband etc)
I cannot see any difference to our broadband connections or our servers/switches etc. It is similar to having a gsm mobile device in the premises
As for any data it is uploading, it does not know what device is using what power, it only shows how much power you are using during that period, not what the devices are.
Almost all of our friends have smart meters, and we all do the same, look at pence using, and comment similar to turn that off, it’s using too much haha , in a joking sense, so does not make you turn anything off, unless you want too
The electrician who fitted our smart meter, took around 30 minutes, thought the hand held device was broken, as it went immediately to a red warning, which just means the power your using at that moment is higher then the current set figure for the warning. You can adjust these figures to suit yourself. We do use a lot of power
As to minute charges, I do not think that would happen as people use power when they need it, not for the sake of using power, but I do think it may give power companies the capacity planning in finer detail over power usage which I think they have a good idea over that anyway as it spikes on their monitoring software
Many thanks
John