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Smart Meters Wreaking Havoc With Home Electronics
wiredmikey writes "About 200 customers of the Central Maine Power Company recently noticed something odd after the utility installed smart meters in their homes: household electronics, including wireless devices, stopped working, or behaved erratically. Many Smart Meters broadcast in the 2.4GHz frequency range. Unfortunately, so do many of the consumer gadgets we take for granted these days including routers, electric garage doors, fire alarms, clocks, electric pet fences, answering machines, and baby monitors — even medical devices. The electromagnetic congestion in the home is in some ways similar to the growing electronic congestion in hospitals as they acquire more and more electronic monitors all operating within a few feet of each other. Medical equipment has been known to shut down or give erroneous results when positioned close to another piece of equipment. Such interference is not new, just getting worse — rapidly."
Go to 5Ghz. It's not congested... yet.
but what are clocks and answering machines using wireless for?
Why would 'smart' meters not use SMS or something similar? Whatever 'green' imperative has these meters requiring more than that is a fail, by definition.
Most utilities are moving to smart meters. It's a technological nirvana propounded by PHBs and the companies selling the crap. Just think, you don't need to waste hard cash on people actually reading meters. Hell no, you can drive down a road and read all the meters with a laptop. Except you can't because some of the technology is immature and signal strength from these devices seldom reaches the manufacturers claims.
We were told by a manufacturer that their technology was secure because their software is proprietry. It's a recipe for disaster...especially given that a quick google for "security research smart meter," returns some interesting results. Welcome to the brave new world of smart metering. Minus the "smart."
If I have a smart meter I could come home to my dog roasting away under the smoldering remains of his electric dog collar???
Or Grampa break dancing because his pacemaker is trying to tap out the digits of the last hours power consumption???
Eeeeewwwww!
Do not use wireless devices. Use cable connections in all that is possible.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Try it, bitches.
Smart meters control the power going to electrical devices... logically, these are part of the electric grid, and are connected to powerlines. Why not add another wire to carry the signal, if you need to build a bunch of powerlines anyway?
Why do 'smart' meters need to broadcast anything? If they're planning on using these things to communicate to high power devices, or any electrical device, the damn things are already wired together. Use that.
If we're talking meter reading, then use the mobile network. Powering up to send a text with the reading every 3 months isn't exactly a big deal and I'd imagine would be considerably cheaper than still having to send someone to each property.
You really do have to wonder who comes up with these ideas...
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These things are about as useful as tits on a lawnmower. The meters can't even record accurate use if your house wiring is over 20 years old. The power company where I live is having fits because not a single one of the smart meters they installed in the historic district of the town where I live (and I live in this district) is recording accurate consumption. They've found meters read 1kWh for an entire week. In an apartment building with 6 apartments. To be fair, the wiring is about ancient in these buildings. Some of it has cloth coverings. The fuse boxes in most of them still use the old "stick" fuses made out of waxed paper, etc, etc, etc. Breaker boxes? WHO NEEDS THOSE :P
Also of note: the historic district rules prevent people like the power company from installing more than a single meter per standing structure. This makes tenants very happy, as that means each and every single apartment in the district is "utilities included" when it comes to rent.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
What a surprise when it can bought and sold like a company on the stock exchange.
I'd never heard of electric pet fences before. You Americans scare me.
Firstly a lot of people in here seem to be confusing Smart Meters with Energy Monitors. The former replaces the old dial meter and it supposed to communicate with other meters in the area and/or directly with the energy supplier for billing and better tracking of consumption.
Energy Monitors are those devices which clamp around lines by your meter and communicate to a box in your house giving you an idea of your realtime energy use.
Faraday has a perfect solution for this problem. Maybe the power company won't like it, but hey, if they have a problem with it, they should ask the FCC for a frequency range of their own.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
But a fire would create carbon emissions and also produce infrared radiation, and radiation causes cancer!
...of a problem that was first noted in the mid 1980s and termed "electronic smog" but the most general term is RFI and dates back as far radio systems in general. Not only do signals interfere with each other, but signals will interfere with ANY electronic device where pins or wires are capable of acting as a dipole. It's unusual for a machine to get scrambled due to an electronic can opener, but if said devices are improperly shielded, it is inevitable.
In the case of wireless devices, you obviously can't shield the antenna. Well, not if you want it to still work. Provided interference is randomish and not overwhelming, AND provided all devices are based on packet communications, a device will be capable of repairing packets and identifying if they're intended for that device.
The first problem is that many electronic devices don't give a damn about power levels beyond being low enough to not be the target of FCC ire. The second problem is that older devices especially are NOT packet based. This means that such devices can't tell if stray signals are intended for them or not. Anything that merely detects the presence of a signal won't care if that signal is a door-opener or a WoW session.
It would be good if transmitters/receivers were a bit more directional - a garage door probably shouldn't be looking for signals coming from the neighbor's house. A door opener can afford to be very direct, since you want to open your door and nobody else's. A smart meter is designed to transmit to the road, so again it can be extremely directional. Directional transmitters and receivers mean less power is needed for the same signal strength received AND less interference off those directions.
Medical devices, except when ABSOLUTELY necessary, should NEVER be wireless. The risk of RFI is way too high and the consequences of an error are far too severe. Wireless is also lower bandwidth, which places hard limits on the kinds of sensors it's useful for and also hard limits on what innovations can be made to medical sensor technology. Inside of a hospital room, I can't think of a single use for wireless devices where wired would not be superior in every respect.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
When I fire up my 13cm amateur radio gear, I obliterate everything that uses 2.4GHz wireless for a mile or two radius until I'm done transmitting.
Don't like it? Then make sure your filthy unlicensed ISM gear has adequate filtering. Oh, you bought the cheapest crappiest wifi card you could find? Sucks to be you.
I know this is /. but perhaps a less gadgety would be better. Offer minor savings as incentive for people to read their own meter, and have the meter read by the company every 6 months or a year. A fee + the difference in meter reads could be charged if you falsify as they would know your usage anyway from the company reading. It could even go so far as to have a unique identifier on the meter and require you to e-mail a picture of your meter on x day of every month.
What does this have to do with FCC being bought, lobbied, etc? This is the fault of wireless device manufacturers choosing a crowded band to put their devices on. The FCC explicitly lays out the rules for devices on this particular band saying that nobody has rights over others using it.
The problem is that spectrum is up for sale, aside from governmental implementations, there really isn't "open spectrum" for specific classes of devices unless a manufacturer has a monopoly on that area of spectrum AND type of devices. Spectrum is either assigned to organizations based off of money (auctions), or it is put up as a "free-for-all", which results in either underutilized or overcrowded communications.
I bet if the FCC started allocating specific spectrum to specific industries (not organizations) the interference could drop quite quickly.
Says the man that knows nothing at all about RF energy or FCC Type certification.
If a device FAILS because of interference then the manufacturer made a giant steaming POS. Because the FCC certification for that type states clearly.
the Device MUST accept any and all interference.
Blame the moron RF engineers at GE,Sony,Panasonic,LG,etc... for using the china cheap RF modules instead of designing their own RF stage in house.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I would be very tempted to find the wireless bits and break them. DAMN KIDS!
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The real reason are your Frankenstein Radio controls. These are controlled by your computergod brain on the moon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJHiU-X9Y-0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJLhnts9-oQ
It's proven. I heard it on the web.
--
BMO
Italian smart meters use powerline transmission.
Much smarter and more secure.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
At the installations I've seen, first flags are put up on the perimeter and the owner walks the dog around the flags. Then the owner disciplines the dog every time the dog runs by the flags on its own. Then the "fence" goes in. Then the flags come out. Each of these steps goes on for a week or so.
I had QMPP up listening to music from the house and everything went p00f. I got home to find all my machines off. I was going to complain but a shiny new network showed up on kismet.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
sooo, how did those things pass FCC testing?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I think by "failing" it is rather meant "No connection". The big hype in medical applications are wireless systems where the sensing device is decoupled form the monitoring device. This works well for one device, but in a crowed hospital you start to get to a saturation point. Does not help that they use off the shelf wireless telephones are cheap "mobile" intercoms. Maybe a few cables where wireless is not a requirement might help allot; but that what I say about my home IT infrastructure too. I will always run a cable if that is feasible, than use a wireless link. I can sense 11 wireless networks in my apartment...
I never understood this. Of all the electronic things in the world, why is there such a scare on this? It's almost always possible to make electronics RF-proof, just by adding a little shielding or filter components. I know, I'm a ham operator and when you're pumping out up to 1500 watts of RF, (10,000x and up of what a remote meter transmits) you learn how to control your gear and how to retrofit your neighbors' crappy electronics when you start talking over their cheap bathroom TV or computer speakers.
I just don't see why it's even become a suspect issue with medical equipment. That stuff, of all things, should be sealed up RF-tight and properly filtered by default. When I go into a hospital and see signs saying to turn off cell phones and don't use computer wifi, all I can think of is why, when you are making absurdly expensive medical gear (I doubt anything electronic in that building can be had for under a grand, and a lot of it is over 50) why on earth you don't put sufficient R&D into it to make it immune to weak sources of common interference? This shouldn't be a credible issue, in any hospital circumstances.
IMHO the mention of medical equipment (ooooh!) is just a lame stab at some headline sensationalism.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
By not shitting all over adjacent spectrums. They all operate within the 2.4Ghz range and they can do whatever they want within that range as long as they don't mess up nearby parts of the spectrum. There are other regulations as well, such as power output that are part of the FCC rules but that's it. These smart meters are probably within spec but hogging the whole spectrum all the same.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Better design and manufacturing will help, but at some point we're simply running out of room in a given slice of spectrum. More complex modulation schemes, better-engineered RF stages, and things like TDMA and CDMA, along with more computing power, have resulted in huge improvements in efficient spectrum usage over the past few decades. But we're probably getting close to the limit of what can be done to shoehorn more data into a given bandwidth. Even if consumers are willing, (or forced), to pay more for better hardware, that only postpones the problem for a little while.
Additionally, although the FCC says a device "must accept any and all interference", it does NOT say it "must accept any and all interference AND CONTINUE TO FUNCTION TO THE USER'S SATISFACTION". The FCC may have the power of law, but it has no power over the laws of physics.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The new thing being pushed to the utilities and some are attempting to roll out with there deployment is mesh type communication with the meters and central control stations. This network can run on 2.4Ghz and/or 900Mhz part 15 frequencies. Question is what will happen if your running a 2.4Ghz mesh network and you end up in an area that is saturated in the 2.4Ghz range. Is this system smart enough to not try to step on frequencies that are already being used?
Also these new smart meters are a lot more sensitive to the amount of power being drawn by the consumer resulting in a "more accurate billing" during peak/non-peak times. Also these meter can be sent a command to turn off the electricity if you havent paid your bill.
Not only that, but how are they going to take care of the Wardrivers who are going to drive around to see how much electricity is being used. If now so much, hey, perhaps the owners are on holiday...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The issues is that the frequency bands we use day to day aren't separated enough. A few years ago trying to cram 10 devices in the 2.4 GHz spectrum inside a house was fine but now everything and your grandmothers rolling pill is broadcasting over 2.4 GHz. Newer routers are going into the 5 GHz band but it's not really a great solution.
The problem with everything using the 2.4 GHz band is that almost no devices are smart about how they make sure of that band. This is a problem we deal with a lot when it comes to sensitive embedded systems. You need to make sure that the signal you want isn't the raw signal you send, you need to encapsulate the single into a modulated and coded scheme. Using techniques like:
Channel Coding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_code
Phase Modulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_modulation
The more "secure" or encoded the signal the smaller the chance that any other signal will play off it and alter the key data. Now I'm not saying that this is a perfect solution but it is a start to smart design. Amount several other option such as not letting your embedded solution be sensitive to every other signal in the air. I know there are FCC regulations and all that jazz around this but it still all boils down to smart design. As more and more devices are occupying the 2.4 GHz band smarter and smarter encoding methods are going to have to be taken into practice, this might even boil down to editing the FCC regulations on wireless devices.. I would hate to think my wireless pacemaker is going to short out because my gas meter wanted to log 1 KilloWatt.
If anyone is interested it's a good idea to read:
http://wireless.fcc.gov/index.htm?job=rules_and_regulations
I'd be curious what smart meter provider they use. While there are some very sophisticated/expensive models, most of them only send very short data bursts every 15 or 30 minutes. Because of this, I suspect this article is just another consumer-paranoia attempt to blame smart meters for anything they can think of.
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
Freezers will run in infrequent bursts. It's likely not the end of the world if your food spends a few hours at -1F instead of -4F.
Those smart meters can be bricked. Just search around. And you could also get creative, say encasing your meter in a nice grounded Faraday cage. That will block out a 2.4GHz signal.
Even if consumers are willing, (or forced), to pay more for better hardware, that only postpones the problem for a little while.
Except that the perfectly usable 5GHz spectrum which the cheap-asses who make gadgets and lowball consumers who buy them seem to ignore entirely has enough non-interfering channel space to make that "little while" into a matter of a decade or two.
Someone had to do it.
I make the RF chips used in this sort of meter. The signal is very narrow band. The 20 dB bandwidth is under 2 MHz. They also only transmit in very short bursts. Plus, the power output is user configurable down to around -35 dBm, to help reduce interference even more. Your wireless mouse is noisier.
So what do you think is more likely... A narrow, low-power, low-duty cycle signal is causing major interference? Or a bunch of old people, who know that new-fangled smart meter just got installed, are suddenly noticing a bunch of new "problems"?
Considering your machine will be compiling 90% of the time, it won't affect you much at all.
This got me thinking: In my area they're moving to smart water meters and these new smart power meters. We have the smart water meters installed already, I wonder if the city even thought to test it nearby a smart power meter. I would assume that the RF is not necessarily on all the time, but who knows they've designed it. If these new meters participate in a combination hub-spoke/p2p where every meter is talking to each other as well as relaying to a base station, it's conceivable that the two smart meters will actually interfere with each other, never mind the dozen or so wifi hotspots around my house.
That'd suck for my phone's wifi, but pretty much every other device in my house is near a wired port thanks to me finally getting around to wiring up my whole house with cat6.
"the Device MUST accept any and all interference."
If that were possible, we'd have infinite bandwidth.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Obligatory Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee
802.15.4 defines the standard that these guys are using - also known as ZigBee. ZigBee is a lower powered WPAN type of "mesh" networking used in things like smart building communications.
There are generally two options for frequency - "900MHz" and "2.4GHz". They operate in a mesh network typically (or virtual star), but usually do so at lower powers. What isn't being fully called out is that most 2.4GHz devices will cause nasty interference to Zigbee, since they typically run at lower powers (0dBm or 1mW) at channel widths of 5MHz (802.11b/g/n uses 20MHz channels by default), using similar encoding as the older 802.11b protocol. Most consumer WiFi routers run between 40mW to 100mW (~16dBm to 20dBm). 1mW (0dBm) will most likely look like noise to WiFi. If the meter operator was considerate, they'd pick one of the few channels that lies between or just outside the typical WiFi 1, 6, or 11 spaces (eff those guys who use channel "3" or "10"). That all said, if the meters are using a ZigBee Pro implementation, they may be transmitting at a much higher level - up to 100mW (20dBm), which would be quite intrusive to WiFi if using a ZigBee channel that overlaps WiFi. Anyone affected by that would HAVE to use a different channel if the meter or meters were constantly transmitting.
In my profession, I'm part of a team that supports the deployment and operation of some very large warehouse WiFi deployments (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz), and thus we're quite protective of the 2.4GHz band within the four walls. I can't tell you how often we've been approached by people who want to deploy ZigBee building controls in this band, each time refusing them since we know we'll make each other's lives miserable. Our 802.11 operation will likely render their equipment useless. We let them know that 900MHz or wired RS422 are both fantastic options in this case.
I bet the power company didn't consider the alternatives... or just didn't know and/or care. Not everyone is an RF expert, and the "wireless" buzz-word wins in may board rooms especially if it saves money.
$ man woman *
-bash:
Buy a cell/wifi jammer and hook it up to a motion detector. Place it where no one can see it and attach a motion sensor to it that will turn it off when someone comes near the meter. If they gonna fuck with you,you might as well fuck with them. Maybe they'll replace it with a dumb meter.
Same thing weed growers to. Hook up a motion sensor just above the meter so when the meter reader come it activates a relay which shuts down the lights so the meter spins at a sane speed.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
According to BC Hydro, the new smart meters we are getting only broadcast twice a day with each broadcast being less than 30 sec. I have no reason to not believe them, and have not had any wireless device issues in the 4 months since my neighbor hood got the smart meters. I suspect there are a lot of different models with a lot of different broadcast patterns and levels which makes this article way to general to be of any true use.
I think you actually fail to understand the concept of interference. Hardware that isn't physically damaged in any way by the interference and goes on with its day still may not be able to maintain a high enough S/N ratio to function as the user desires.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The article would be better if the manufacturer and model number of the meter was mentioned. How often do those meters transmit? Did someone misconfigure them so they're reporting too frequently?
The whole "smart meter" thing is backwards. It gives the utility too much info, but doesn't send anything useful to the end user. Sending out downstream signals like "You are at 80% of quota, need to conserve power is currently HIGH" would be useful to appliances. But no. You can't even buy something that plugs into the power line and repeats what the meter is measuring.
Because of this, I suspect this article is just another consumer-paranoia attempt to blame smart meters for anything they can think of.
Just curious... Why would consumers be paranoid about this technology?
Isn't a smart meter just a device that can:
- Measure use just like the old ones
- Automatically report the use so they don't have to visit the house to do the accounting
- Control certain appliances based on greenness and/or cost of the power
What else can it do? Thought Control? Read minds?
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
It's amazing, when you think about it, that devices like cell phones can have as many as three separate radios, all duplex, all operating at the same time, in one little box. Running a receiver next to a live transmitter used to be considered impossible.
For a worst case, the Marine Radio Historical Society operates KSM, once a major RCA ship-to-shore station. The transmitters and receivers are in separate buildings several miles apart, to keep the transmitters from swamping the receivers. Receivers are much better now.
There are a couple of ways these things are designed. There are the p2p ones you're talking about and then there are some that use a licensed frequency to communicate directly with towers. I'd find out which strategy your municipality went with before worrying.
People are worried because this ridiculous shit is going around as a chain email: https://goldsilver.com/video/smart-meters/
Also people think it's going to give them The Cancer because, you know, RADIATION.
I use 'homeplugs' - those devices where you plug in an RJ45/CAT5/Ethernet cable and it sends the data through your power lines. I assumed smart meters did the same thing. Does anyone know if (UK) power meters interfere?
Well 2.4 is not up for sale. It is a "relatively" worthless band. Due to it being on the edge of the interference caused by microwaves.
That, but also something i remember from my CB days and now ham days. Device manufactures did not (still don't) consider it worth the expense to put better filtering in electronics. Because they knew interference was rare. Unless you lived near an interstate. They also knew the customers had to deal with that little stamp on the back of nearly every device that states you must except interference even interference that causes undesirable operation. They had a get out of jail free card. So it was up to the end user to provide better filtering. Gawd knows i had a neighbor or two who did not have cable. Confronting me about the interference i was causing when at higher power levels. That stamp gave me a get out of jail free card as well. Manufacturers are just used to putting the minimal amount of filtering in. If you have problems to bad. If the problems get worse maybe they will reconsider. I won't hold my breath though.
If the RF spectrum in his house is running Gentoo, he could compile a kernel with the rotating staircase deadline scheduler or the brain fuck scheduler, and all devices will timeshare the spectrum just fine.
I meant the things that die from interference. FCC cert should mean they are able to cope, yet people report stuff dying.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Maine
No. Make those kind of claims in an apartment complex in a city like New York. Then we'll talk.
If the "smart meters" used cellular tech they would not have to drive down the street, but let the meter call home and report.
Most of them that I've read about use powerline IP to communicate back. Y'know, over the millions of miles of network the power company already owns.
I'd probably rather have a wireless one, though. The "beauty" of the powerline IP ones is that they have realtime access to them. So, the power company can:
All with the benefits of being run by a highly-regulated utility with a monopoly grant. Gimme a wireless one that I can just shield from the direction of propagation I care about any day.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2 things on this. Firstly there are limits to what a device needs to put up with. i.e. having an FCC cert doesn't mean a device will survive a trip through a microwave oven. It only takes into account interferences from a certain general case, and I guarantee you that there are many devices on the market which can't so much as sit near a 2-way radio without adverse effects.
Secondly, how many of these devices become bricked? The FCC cert basically says the device must accept external interference. It doesn't say it needs to remain 100% operational while receiving it.
Except that the perfectly usable 5GHz spectrum... has enough non-interfering channel space to make that "little while" into a matter of a decade or two.
Does that estimate take into account the likely exponential growth of wireless in the home?
In my area Rogers, a cable/internet/cellular provider, is advertising home security systems, with notifications going to the user via cell phone instead of to a monitoring service. I suspect this will make home security systems more popular, and with crowding at lower frequencies I predict that door and window monitors and motion sensors will start to use 5GHz spectrum.
Add in the WiFi that's starting to migrate to 5GHz, the DECT phones that are already there, web-enabled appliances, and whatever new latest-and-greatest that comes along in the meantime, and that 'decade or two' may be more like a 'decade or half'.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
well, from the top of my head I know of a Fluke multimeter that would die if you put a cellphone next to it - something FCC cert should pick up but didnt. FCC is useless.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I think the name should have tipped you off :)
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
802.11g is 54 Mb/s, and 802.11n tops out at 600 Mb/s.
Under optimal conditions (Signal-to-Noise let it operate at max spec), when there are no outside disturbance (the WiFi network must not fight for the frequency against Bluetooth, wireless mice running variants of W-USB, Wireless Smart Meters, cordless phones, even micro-oven, etc. Although latest version of Bluetooth a smart enough to avoid disturbing WiFi), that's the band widtht that has to be shared among all the devices on the WiFi networ (given that today even fridges start to get online collections....)
So in practice, be prepared to expect much less.
Meanwhile, 100MBit is what you get on a given cable, and as virtually any one uses switches or routers nowadays, that means that this the actual speed between the two endpoint.
Real world data rate achieved with gigabit network is even better.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Well that's very interesting because I HAVE noticed a significant increase in network interference (network dropout and reboot) since Corix installed the Smart Meter on my neighbor's house. (I deferred installation on my own, preferring to take a wait-and-see approach.) My router sits in the middle of my house; the Smart Meter is located on the wall of my neighbor's house nearest my own. There's no question in my mind that this is a real phenomenon. Where did you get your information about the twice-a-day broadcast frequency from?
licet differant, aequabitur
What's bad is the Flukes are horrendously expensive multimeters. I was looking at buying one recently, but just couldn't stomach paying $4-500 for a damn multimeter (I really wanted one with temperate and capacitance measurement, besides the basics). I ended up buying a cheap Chinese-made one for $30. It might not be quite as accurate, but after Danaher took over Fluke, I don't think I can really count on their quality to be all the great any more anyway, certainly not enough to justify the cost.
Does anyone else make any really good multimeters these days? Or have all the T&M makers been bought up by Danaher, leaving two choices: 1) massively overpriced, low-quality shit, and 2) Chinese-made low-quality shit that doesn't cost much?
The twice-a-day is from BCHydro's web site. "Smart meters are active for an average of one minute per day. Residential smart meters are active for a total average of one minute per day, which includes the relay of information that may be required for data transmission and coordination between meters. In fact, the exposure to radio frequency from a smart meter – over its entire 20-year life span – is equal to a single 30 minute cell phone call." BC Hydro FAQ
I work for a power company currently installing these smart meters and its pretty funny reading all these comments. I cannot speak on behalf of other companies but our meters are no more dangerous than your average Linksys wireless router. Our meters transmit every 4 hours and only for seconds. Hops go from meter to meter or router and eventually the collector. The meters have the ability to be read from our network so the meter readers are getting drunk and filling out applications. Also it's nice to have your power cut on or off in minutes instead of calling and waiting for someone to drive out to your place to turn power on. They will not kill your kill your uncle on life support, fry your dog or make spooky sounds on your baby monitor.
One comment I haven't seen in this discussion so far is that if you have solar or wind power and want to sell power back to the power company, you need a smart meter. As more and more people start doing that (with the encouragement of the government and the power companies), if these meters are already in place it saves everyone a bit of hassle and expense. For the power companies, conservation and cogeneration are by far the cheapest forms of 'new' electricity per KWH - as I recall from several years ago, power made available by conservation costs about 1/2 of what a new power plant costs. This is why the companies have been providing subsidies for higher efficiency appliances and in some cases no interest loans and outright grants for customers who install solar. And now some solar panels are below $1 per peak watt. Smart meters can (theoretically, anyway) help balance out all these tiny local point generating sources. Of course, solid state inverters that latch onto the local line frequency make this all possible.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
FCC certification does not mean the devices should be able to cope. The line 'the device must accept any and all interference' means 'it is not the FCC's problem if this device operating in unlicensed spectrum is interfered with'.
That line does not mean what you think it does. It means that you can not complain to the FCC about interference with the device, not that the device must continue operating normally. That is as opposed to licensed spectrum, where you CAN complain to the FCC if you are interfered with.
In some cases, accurate smart meters have replaced very old analog meters. These old meters may have developed excessive friction in critical bearings, resulting in dramatically low readings. I've read of people whose bills have quadrupled after the installation of a smart meter. Understandably, these people are very unhappy and some have complained loudly.
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Yep, that solar plant is never going to fail.
Let's see. A meter-reader in a suburban area can read at least 15 meters an hour, so that's 2400 a month.
Minimum 2000 x 2400 = 4,800,000.
The population of Nevada is 2,700,000.
You, sir, are a LIAR. And paranoid.
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This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:
(1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and
(2) This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
Sent from my PDP-11
Initial accuracy of the chinese multimeters are good. I have both. For the Fluke there's more to it than just a name. They have much faster update rates, their least significant digit is actually worth being displayed on the screen, and most importantly they seem to hold their calibration over a wider range of temperatures and for longer.
At my work they have someone come in and calibrate our equipment 6 monthly. My Fluke meter typically comes back with "no change" written on the test cert, and my Protek has some significant number if you're doing any kind of precise measurements.
Mind you for the home the cheap chinese ones are fantastic.
As far as use of unlicensed bands go, yes. That is kind of the point of unlicensed operation.
The FCC may have the power of law, but it has no power over the laws of physics.
Pretty soon, they won't have the power of law either. The Republicans have already targeted the FCC for elimination, along with the FAA, FDA, and EPA. The FCC costs the government money, which could be used instead for the military-industrial and prison-industrial complexes, and Teabaggers don't like spending money on any kind of regulatory agency, only military contractors. When a Republican gets elected next year, expect to see the FCC disappear quickly. Then companies will be allowed to do whatever they want in any slice of spectrum, with no regulations at all. Of course, there'll be all kinds of interference and nothing will work well, but the corporations will just blame each other and the consumers/voters will be so stupid they'll believe them.
Of course, someone will probably reply saying that it's impossible that a Republican will be elected President next year because they're all wack-jobs, but I'm sure they said the same thing right before Bush was elected. Then, like now, the Democratic alternative was so lame that enough people stayed home allowing the Republican to win.
You sound like a typical Teabagger.
We are not hitting any limit, not until our wi-fi cards are offloading to the gpu.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
Great, now we can get some quality RF engineering, when the dust settles down. (They have to do it, if they want their shit to work even part of the time, with no FCC).
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
That site is line of sight...
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
What's bad is the Flukes are horrendously expensive multimeters. I was looking at buying one recently, but just couldn't stomach paying $4-500 for a damn multimeter (I really wanted one with temperate and capacitance measurement, besides the basics). I ended up buying a cheap Chinese-made one for $30. It might not be quite as accurate, but after Danaher took over Fluke, I don't think I can really count on their quality to be all the great any more anyway, certainly not enough to justify the cost.
Does anyone else make any really good multimeters these days? Or have all the T&M makers been bought up by Danaher, leaving two choices: 1) massively overpriced, low-quality shit, and 2) Chinese-made low-quality shit that doesn't cost much?
Be careful with the cheap Chinese multimeters... they're known to catch fire and whatnot. Probably not as big a deal as the mechanical Wiggys literally exploding in your hand, but still bad.
Catch fire? How? Catching fire requires some kind of power source, and I thought these meters usually only had regular alkaline AA batteries or the like, not the lithium batteries that are known to catch fire when defective. I just looked at the cheap "Aidetek" meter I bought and it uses two AAA alkalines; I don't think you can get that kind of battery to catch fire even by shorting it out.
Catch fire? How? Catching fire requires some kind of power source, and I thought these meters usually only had regular alkaline AA batteries or the like, not the lithium batteries that are known to catch fire when defective. I just looked at the cheap "Aidetek" meter I bought and it uses two AAA alkalines; I don't think you can get that kind of battery to catch fire even by shorting it out.
You know how sometimes when you use a multimeter, you stick a couple leads into a power source of (usually) up to 600V? That's the time things can catch fire. It's happened to me twice using cheap multimeters. Now I stick with Fluke. Milwaukee's supposed to have pretty good ones too, and for a little less money than Fluke.
I see. I'll watch it if I find myself wanting to probe any high-voltage sources, but luckily I don't generally do that.
We'll the power company could also not be getting good equipment that leaks across frequencies. I remember back in the 70's man we used to get CB traffic through the TV. Cheap Japanese junk as where now we have cheap Chinese stuff that falls apart.
Well you postpone one problem while you create another to be exact but more problems are just more opportunities to screw something up. The FCC....gotta go.
I do. It's called crap equipment when corners are cut that wont stay in it's channel. For those that don't understand the concept, think of your land line. The signal needs filtering that costs another 1c capacitor. Well, you see with that cordless phone who cares but it sure messes with everything else.
Did you think the FCC would actually ban something because of this these days? Things could play better within the same frequencies if every device was made to. I bet you would get a 50% bump in bandwidth just by doing that.