Electric Smart Meter

1,371 Views | 10 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by nwspmp
TexAg92
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AG
Our family has a new weekend house in College Station and the storms this week knocked out power while we were gone. I went yesterday and power was still out. When I called power company, they asked if I'd reset it yet with my tv remote!!!! I had never heard of this but it worked as the contractor in the meter resets itself with IR signal from any tv remote. Now my question is how was I supposed to know the power was out and is there a way to check and do this remotely without having to drive to BCS. It would suck to have a freezer thaw out because of not knowing. The customer service at BTU was not very knowledgeable beyond the remote so thought I'd ask on here to see how others handle being remote.
CaptTex
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AG
If you have wifi, hook up a camera or ring door camera, when the camera goes offline your power is out, or the internet is down. Also, storms knocking out power doesn't knock out a meter, to the point it needs to be reset so that's weird. I'd call back and ask for information from their metering department, or just go up to the office if you have a chance to.
txgardengirl
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https://outages.btutilities.com/

Check this during storms - but it's only accurate while the power is out.

Thankfully College Station doesn't use that system.
TexAg92
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AG
My ring is how I knew it was out originally but I had assumed that it had not reconnected with router which they sometimes will not do. I'm going to do what you suggested on calling back but wanted to see if anyone else had figured it out. Thanks.
Sweet Kitten Feet
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S
Put a smart plug on the outlet the freezer is plugged into. Plug freezer into smart plug. Set a notification to be delivered to you if the smart plug goes offline. I do this exact thing with a combination of Alexa and Hubitat if you're into smart home stuff.
Nosmo
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AG
You can monitor your power usage through your BTU account online.

It only allows you to see a "daily" total, but it updates every night about midnight. So right now (January 26), you can see daily usage thru yesterday (January 25).

It's pretty disappointing as most utility companies break it down by the hour each day.

But it's better than nothing.

TexAg92
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AG
Got the right person (actually 2) and found out that they had an internal error that led to BTU disconnecting service. They had corrected and reset meter but the smart meters require the IR update. Long story but their same error led to their having incorrect contact info thus it sitting in off position until we found it. Screw up all around!
cj774
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AG
I use https://www.smartmetertexas.com/home

Breaks usage down into 15 mins partitions.

Edit: Not sure if this includes the BCS area though. But does seem to cover a large parts of Texas from what I have seen.
Uncle Bug
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AG
cj774 said:

I use https://www.smartmetertexas.com/home

Breaks usage down into 15 mins partitions.
I might be doing it wrong (as in ignorant), but that site does not seem to have the option to select "College Station Utilities" as retail electric provider. Any insight?
cj774
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AG
I have used it in most places I have lived. My mistake if I assumed that College Station locations were a part of this site as well. :/
nwspmp
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Uncle Bug said:

cj774 said:

I use https://www.smartmetertexas.com/home

Breaks usage down into 15 mins partitions.
I might be doing it wrong (as in ignorant), but that site does not seem to have the option to select "College Station Utilities" as retail electric provider. Any insight?
This site only works in the deregulated utilities spaces typically; most municipal utilities aren't part of it (though some of the larger are I think). This is because the architecture for sharing the data between the responsible utility and the power broker are in place. Municipals don't have this as they handle the hardware and billing sides internally.

The remote thing is the "pizza box" safety (as I've heard it called). If the power has been cut off or signalled off for some reason, the concern is that a person may have left an empty pizza box on top of their electric stove top after they couldn't finish cooking dinner and had to order in. Power is restored, and the resident had forgotten to turn off their then powerless stovetop, which ignites the pizza box. It is a hypothetical for ensuring that the resident is responsible to ensure that no safety concerns have come up to which re-energizing the line would cause a problem.
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