Hey everyone, I never thought at this point in our evolution I would be compelled to ask about this, and although I live in a state that has both legal recreational and medicinal use, I prefer to keep my business to myself.
So…
Does anyone here have any knowledge of how these digital smart meters work? The apartment complex I live in just upgraded their systems from analog power meters to smart meters.
What should be done to mitigate any issues from any nosey nellys?
Always pay your bill on time.
If you’re in an apartment, it’s extremely unlikely you’re pulling down anywhere near the wattage to be noticed. What is more likely is smell and maintenance people.
Don’t worry about it.
A power company in my neck of the woods does a plan where you get free power between 9pm and 12pm IF you have a smart meter so they can measure the power you use in that period…so they can measure any and all usage.
They say the collected data is supposed to allow for more efficient power distribution.
All I know is my power bill almost doubled when they installed the new meter in Jan. There is also a 18% price increase set for next Jan.
They can check your meter remotely now, nobody needs to come out to your property.
They also sometimes overheat and throw sparks.
There are govt subsidies you can look into where you let them install solar panels and you can sell electricity back to the power company.
You dont suppose the power co could be privy to light schedule data?
I do suppose. But if you pay your bill, and you don’t have 25 1000w hps, I’d say your safe. I’d wager they aren’t collecting anything they don’t already get from your smartphone and internet activity and credit cards.
Lots of grows get busted splicing power, and loose lips sink ships. I don’t think power companies care as long as you pay them.
Perhaps. But if the data is so precise it can show spikes consistently for 12 hours a day and the manager also has access to that data, it may generate some interest.
Do we think people are sitting around monitoring individual data or is it most likely being fed into systems that aggregate it and then use algorithms and whatnot to optimize things for the company and their profit? If they are individually analyzing this data, then they should let go of all of those employees doing that and lower our rates. I wouldn’t be worried at all.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The smart meters are only looking at the raw electrical usage of the panel not individual loads on the circuits. At best they could probably detect huge power flucuations during certain time frames that could indicate there was agrow going on. However if you pay yourbill why would they care and also I assume you would have to have 10-20 1000W lights going to even look suspicous. The number of friends I have who have insane power billls because their kids won’t turn off lights or love to crank the AC to 60 degrees just so they can wear blankets while watching TV is enough to make me sure the power company aint worried about a hobby level grower.
But on the topic of smart power meters I was looking into smart power distribution boxes awhile back and since those are what takes the raw power in from the meter and distributes it to the electrical circuits in your home each circuit had a smart sensor on it. Those sensors were good enough to measure not only usage on that circuit such as amps/volts/watts but could actually analyze the electric wave forms of the device at the other end that was actually using the power. The company was building a database of known appliance wave forms so it could identify all the devices. This was done of course to make everything “smart” so that you could make informed decisions on when to run certain appliances during off peak hours etc. That was a little too big brother for me, but the smart meters by the power companies don’t have that level of sophistication to them…yet lol.
single modern day hobbyist computer can pull 1.5kw under load so im guessing theres a dude upstairs playing online multiplayer games 24/7 with another thing mining poopcoin in the other room using more than you. light schedule could be a thing but like you said its a legal state so theres probably closet grows everywhere running those light schedules so again too much noise to find you.
Physics dude here. A link to your mentioned big brother device would provide clarity here, but almost all (US) appliances/devices only receive current in these two forms:
Of course different appliances totally draw different amps and are used at different times of day, and a circuit could be design to measure the aspects of electrical current drawn and load. They could compare circuit usage to modeled patterns of appliance usage, but I don’t know of a way that they could determine that the 1.3 amps you are drawing are currently coming from your coffee maker, just that if somebody is drawing 1.3 amps at 6 AM in the morning, they could certainly make an educated guess.
As for worries? It should be very very low on your list, especially in an apartment. Pay your bills, don’t tell, don’t smell, don’t sell. And be ready for building maintenance!
If I am wrong, I hope an electrical expert can chime in.
Thank you for sharing that. Interesting. Paired with AI and a sufficient database, I can see some utility in this. But i dont think anybody is wasting resources or using tools like these to bust US home growers, fortunately!
While highly unlikely the power company would be of any concern, and paying bills on time should keep things that way. But an apartment manager who may or may not have a particular issue with any individual tenant, could, if they had the means at their disposal, such as a detailed graph of power usage, it would not take much from that point to dig a little further.
That is my concern.
I don’t know how big your grow is but my overhead lights in my apartment used to draw 1000w. I switched them out to LEDs and now they only pull 60. My grow is only 400w max so it’s a possible workaround.
I have my grow and use LESS power.
Or you could just tell them to go fuck themselves.
The apartment manager can always just come up with a BS maintenance reason, give you the required notice depending on area, and look around if they’re trying to be a prick to one tenant. Unfortunately, that’s apartment living. You don’t have many rights and good luck fighting for the ones you supposedly do have in the courts. Also, does the apartment have access to smart meter data or is that data only accessible by the power/utility company. Would be surprising to me they open up their system for apartment managers and stuff to get into their meters and all of that.
We likely live in different places but a tenant here can probably get away with not paying rent for a year before eviction if they felt like it. It is not in a manager’s interests to piss their tenants off.
this smart meter sounds like a corporate thing, like its a property management company with multiple locations and someone sold them the idea of being able to create efficiencies by installing these things.
that doesnt seem like the kind of situation where a single manager/employee can simply access the data and go rogue.