SmartThings Energy Unleashes the Power of Your Smart Meter

[SmartThings]

SmartThings Energy Unleashes the Power of Your Smart Meter

SmartThings Energy now allows UK households with a smart meter to manage their energy usage.

In partnership with smart energy technology company Chameleon Technology, we’ve expanded our UK Energy service to now include smart meters. Simply add your smart meter as a device to the SmartThings app to see how much your household is spending on energy. You can also continue to add compatible appliances that show you when and how much energy you are using – all in one place.

SmartThings Energy empowers customers to make better energy decisions. Cut down on usage, save money, and reduce your carbon footprint.

Find out more about this free-to-use service at www.samsung.com/uk/smartenergy/ .

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@SmartThings

and reduce your carbon footprint.

I love this. I think that Samsung should have kept in mind this when they released the up-cycle program for just a few years old and brand new devices.

Otherwise, it would be nice if the older washing machines, and fridges (the one with the wifi dongle), which both has electricity usage reports would be able to interface with SmartThings Energy… Or it must be my bad, that these devices are not showing up in SmartThings Energy. As there are no option to configure which devices will be added there. But if someone could share a screen grab where you can set it, then it would be great. Or a list of compatible devices maybe…

[fido (Mike)]

Only works for Smets2 meters, any Smets1 meters that have not been adopted by a supplier do not work, most Smets1 meters currently unadopted have no time frame on adoption despite published dates for adoption

Not read the full SP but it would not surprise me if it was Chameleon IHDs only that are Smets2

Would be nice to just see an official ST app that collated our power useage from smart devices we already have integrated into ST

[orangebucket (Graham)]

Presumably it is using the DCC so it needs either an upgraded SMETS1 meter or a SMETS2. No idea if mine has been upgraded. Haven’t been told either way.

Since going through the ‘Add Device’ flow crashes out instantly with a network error it is pretty academic at the moment.

At least it sounds better than going through the front door using the WiFi CAD on a Chameleon IHD3, particularly as I have an IHD2. Not sure if the CAD is a SMETS2 thing anyway.

[fido (Mike)]

As it is not possible to change a Smets1 to Smets2 unless the meter develops a fault, the likelihood for millions of Smets1 users ever being able to use any energy saving tech from the meter is zero

Having now read the blurb it appears the writers have no clue that there are Smets1 issues and that they are mostly unadopted across the board, simply writing ‘smart meter’ shows lack of understanding, there is also no details about Smets2 Chameleon only in the faq.

[orangebucket (Graham)]

Apparently identity is to be verified by uploading a ‘recent’ bill, where ‘recent’ means less than three months old. I get six monthly bills. One of the selling points of Smart meters is that billing can be an ongoing thing and bills are more or less account summaries.

[7andy (Andy Edgeworth)]

I don’t even get a bill anymore, just use the app…

[fido (Mike)]

You have to what !!

Smart tech really is not smart

Uploading your personal details to someone… sounds perfectly fine

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

Just looking at the posts from @orangebucket, @fido and @7andy, it became quite obvious that who developed this and who pushed it from Samsung has zero clue about the UK market.

And it seems like the same story over and over again.

Like the SNAFU of the device selection in Google Home and Amazon Alexa integrations.

The Up-cycle program what I assume is going to disappear in the gutter in a half or a year time.

The move from the old app to the current and any new re-skinning of the new app.

All built from management decisions and not from user expectations…

[fido (Mike)]

@GSzabados

Samsung has zero clue about the UK market.

And it seems like the same story over and over again.

BINGO !!! .

[orangebucket (Graham)]

@GSzabados

it became quite obvious that who developed this and who pushed it from Samsung has zero clue about the UK market.

I don’t dislike the concept, though I don’t particularly see the point in it, and Chameleon are certainly familiar with the market as their in-home displays are widely issued.

The marketing is a bit backwards. It starts off saying it is available to all customers of UK energy, and then concedes that you have to have a smart meter (not sure what the figures are for that at the moment, is it still less than 50%?), and eventually seems to concede they have to meet the SMETS2 standard, or be the older SMETS1 standard and have been adopted by the DCC (a single commnnications network for all UK Smart meters). The latter reduces the figures quite a bit, though I believe more have been adopted than generally thought. I just checked mine and it supposedly is adopted but I was never told.

Still not working for me.

Update: At the time of writing there are about 15.5 million meters on the DCC. About 6 million are SMETS1. Over 15 million SMETS1 were installed.

[orangebucket (Graham)]

@GSzabados

the device selection in Google Home and Amazon Alexa integrations.

I still haven’t worked out how that happened. Particularly the lack of Location level access when everything else seems to work at that level.

The Up-cycle program what I assume is going to disappear in the gutter in a half or a year time.

Yes, a commendable idea but an almost laughable implementation. There we all were waiting for obsolete phones to be repurposed for something useful. Instead perfectly good, high end phones are recycled for what is little more than a baby monitor.

The move from the old app to the current and any new re-skinning of the new app.

Not having that though. Neither may have run as smoothly as hoped but the new app is far superior to Classic and the re-skinning has improved it greatly.

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@orangebucket

I don’t dislike the concept

Me neither, but again this “from top to bottom” development is pointless.

Making energy usage decisions from a SmartThings sensor/graph/whatever? Nah…

Changing suppliers with U-Switch based on SmartThings?

(I have read many nightmarish story about people changing electricity suppliers and then it breaks their smart meters and no chance to fix it, even switching back to the original one.)

Have you seen any solar integrations recently? Does this whole thing works with any of your current sensors which has energy measurement? Does this whole thing working with Samsung products at all?

(How can you add even a device to it??? See my two screenshots below.)

The Information point in the top right … menu gives only a version number.

Is there any project owner or support personal who is looking at this and deals with any of these things mentioned here and reports back to the management with the clear message:

“WE F#CK3D IT UP AGAIN!”

This is the same story as the Android Auto. That looks pretty and sounds nice, but I stopped using it because it is not working well.
It pops up for you, do want to run this Scene, I click on it, and what it does, it opens the bloody SmartThings app on the Android Auto screen, but it does not run the Scene.
Ah, and the Scenes, I couldn’t managed to list any Scenes in the Android Auto SmartThings app screen. It adds any device what can be turned on and off, or has a similar state, but I cannot add a Scene what could be run. I mentioned here at the beginning of the Android Auto release, and engineer asked some question, and that was it. It has been never fixed. No other user showed me that they were able to add a Scene neither.
And that is just a few from the issues what I saw with Android Auto.

And of course, this is the same story as the Google Home and Amazon Alexa integrations.

“Hey, We have new integrations, try it now!”

-Users do not want all of their devices to be synced…

“Ah, yeah, we know that. But this was a mamagement decision and we cannot care less. The marketing is already out. We will fix it later… (psss, it means never)”

[Olicoley (Oliver Cole)]

Still nothing useable for me (how are we even supposed to add a smart meter!?) . Can’t find any instructions anywhere

Feels like a bit of publicity without having the product ready (yet/at all … jury is out).

I do like the idea in theory- I don’t use my smart meter normally as I don’t look at it but this might help me keep an eye on things and make more conscious choices so fingers crossed

[fido (Mike)]

@orangebucket

the new app is far superior to Classic and the re-skinning has improved it greatly.

Hope I haven’t taken that too much out of context by not copying the whole paragraph

The new app stinks, it is full of inconsistencies, illogical naming conventions, a front page that is the star at the bottom, no idea what the text says as it is unreadable but that page is unorganised and pointless, the list of things wrong out ways what is right 10 to 1, the old app was immediately understandable organised and had far superior accessibility features, it needed an update for sure but comparing the 2 and saying what we have now is better is something I do not agree with, the current app ‘the next big thing’ should be completely destroyed and re imagined imo

As a product of Samsung it is an embarrassment

[fido (Mike)]

@GSzabados

I have read many nightmarish story about people changing electricity suppliers and then it breaks their smart meters and no chance to fix it

Sort of yes, if you change supplier and you have Smets2 then as a general rule of thumb the new supplier should be able to enroll your meter onto there system and the IHD continues to work and if available sends back info

But

If you had a Smets1 installed because you were told it would save you money on energy and then you change suppliers, the new supplier most probably will not enroll your meter onto there system due to multiple reasons including lack of investment, that leaves thousands of people with useless IHDs that show no info and send no info anywhere, the new company will refuse to change your meter to Smets2 but will promise to enroll your meter soon… 4 years later soon
In my case BULB

[FrequencyLost (Colin Goodman)]

Was wondering where to look for support on this. Heard about it, then saw a notification of it in the new Smartthings app today, but like others have said, no instructions on how to add the smart meter.

Poked around and think this is the method. Add device by brand and look for Chameleon.
But my attempt fails at the last hurdle when uploading my recent electricity PDF bill (I’m SMETS2 with Octopus) I keep getting verification failed. Not sure where to go for support (SmartThings/Chameleon/Octopus) as theres no help option in the app

Attaching bunch of screenshots. Anyone been able to complete the setup ok?

[fido (Mike)]

I did read Octopus was not supported or an Octopus tariff of some type was not supported

[orangebucket (Graham)]

The instructions are in the ‘Handy Guide’ linked from the web page in the first post.

I just get an ‘Unable to add device’. Sometimes I get to choose the Location and Room before I get the error. Other times I just get the error.

[fido (Mike)]

I get what I expected, we have Smets1 smart gas and electric meters, Bulb have not adopted thousands of Smets1 meters

So much for the "all smart meters work bull$%it’