They know what you are doing inside your house.

So far, they still have to stop off and read my meter (about every two months, the off month is {estimated.") Hope it stays that way.

So, we know of transmitters in the 1 watt and 3 watt levels. What might be the range where they can be heard? Do they get turned off between readings or continuously transmit, and what exactly does get transmitted? Who's paying for the transmitter power when no one is listening? Or, who's listening when the power company isn't?

 

Well, Not Exactly.... The Meter is NOT an FCC License Free Device. (CFR47Part15) These are licensed to the Utility, on the same FCC License that they USE for SCADA, Power Dispatching, and talking to their Maintenance Trucks, and People. Establishing a Interfering Signal would bring the local Utilitys Comm Guys down on you like a Ton of Bricks, with them would come the FEDs, who do NOT take kindly to violations of the Communications Act of 1934 as Amended. All these new Meters, are Transponders that talk back to a Base Server at the local SubStation. It then sends the data over either Fiber, or SCADA, back to the Power Dispatch Center, and from there to the Billing System. If a bunch of meters just go off-line in the same area, they will be looking for the reason, real quick. I would be more interested, in finding out if the 3 Watts was being tapped off BEFORE, or AFTER, the Power Senser. ..... YMMV....

 

I suspect that much of the stuff posted on Youtube about this issue is Tinfoil Hat Hype, as I doubt that MOST of these so-called "Smart Meters" are really as smart as they are made out to be. If you have Dumb Appliances, it is going to take a MASSIVE Computing capability, and use a FFT DSP System, to determine the difference between a dryer motor, and a furnace motor, that are basically the same Horsepower, and why would the Power Company, or anyone else CARE, which one and when it ran? I put most of this HYPE in the same class, as the HYPE about much of the worlds technology, in that the purveyors of this stuff, are really paranoid personalities, and also do NOT have the technical skills to understand the technology they are speaking about. The whole idea that these things communicate back down the power-lines to Load Dispatch Center, is a fallacy in and of itself, as the RF can't get by the First Transformer, without MAJOR changes in the distribution network. That upgrade alone would cost them MILLIONS of Dollars. The typical way for these to communicate is with LOW Bandwidth RF signals that talk back to a Base Tx/Rx Box at the local Substation, that then communicates back to the Load Dispatch Center over the fiber that carries all the Remote Monitoring & Control Systems for the subStation. This type of system is setup as a Meter Based Transponder, and when the Meter receives a Polling Signal, from the SubStation, it dumps it's information back to the subStation Box. Since this is a LOW Bandwidth System, they can NOT be sending a lot of data over the RF link, as they have thousands of customers on each subStation, and there is only so much time in the day. Also consider that these will only work well, if the substation serves a relatively SMALL Service Area, as the Maximum RF Power is only 3 Watts, and there are NO External Antennas, allowed in this service, so range is limited to a couple of miles MAX. If you live more than that from your subStation, you aren't going to be worried about Smart Meters. Just my Opinion.... YMMV....

 

I am not too sure about this, but at one point the idea was for the meter reader to drive past and poll the transmitter with a specific location code. At the time this "knowledge" was imparted to me it wasn't possible to transmit back over the incoming power lines due to pole mounted transformers. That may no longer be true,