As a consumer, you can usually still avoid the installation of a smart meter. Ask yourself if it's practical that a washing machine starts in the middle of the night and wakes you up you or your neighbours and the laundry will have wrinkles in the morning? You can buy old refurbished analog/digital meters for cheap and measure what you want and it will consume no power nor will it send your confidential data (privacy). And you can combine it with a Arduino if you want the data on your computer. Many smart meters also send the data over a GPRS modem every 15min (have an inbuilt SIM card), that you cannot snoop so easy.
The whole smart meter movement is not about technical advancement, it's about they want that you pay higher prices for consuming less and they don't have to build a better power grid infrastructure in the next few years. It reminds me of the telcos 15 years ago when phone calls and internet over modem was cheaper in the night when most people sleep, and very expensive during working hours.
> You can buy old refurbished analog/digital meters for cheap and measure what you want
But can you use them? New Zealand power retailers install their own meters - you can't supply your own. You can certainly install additional metering of your own but you can't get rid of the smart meter.
Are things different where you live?
Also, I disagree with your final paragraph. Our local distributors have been spending lots of money installing new lines and upgrading the network, and the retailers are changing the meters because it means we get an accurate bill every month (rather than an estimate for two out of every three months) and they don't need a meter reader to visit every property every three months. It's a significant improvement in service and it simplifies their operations at the same time.
> But can you use them? New Zealand power retailers install their own meters - you can't supply your own.
You can use you your own meters, but the last one facing the power grid is installed by the infrastructure provider. So you can mearsure with old refurbished meters your washing machine, swimming pool, etc. Ask your power infrastructure provider, they may sell you old analog and/or digital meters. And depending on the local law, you have the right to "say no" to the installation of a smart meter.
> Our local distributors have been spending lots of money installing new lines and upgrading the network
That's great. At my location the power infrastructure is the same since around 1960 (old wooden power poles on the country side, etc.) and the power line goes also from roof to roof, and if you want underground cable you have to pay it yourself. Almost every thunderstorm we have a short power-outage, because of the wooden poles. They only repair, and don't upgrade the infrastructure at all.
> the retailers are changing the meters because it means we get an accurate bill every month.
Where I live, central Europe, you have to read the traditional (analog or digital) meter yourself every month and send the data via email/postcard and someone controls your meter infrequently every few months/years at your location. If the device would be called digital meter (like the industrial ones) and send the data only once a week or month, it would be fine. On the other side the new smart meters send the data every 15 minutes over GPRS cell-phone technology.
Don't know about NZ, but in Australia the networks own the meters, and the law is clear: you connect to the grid, you must give them access to their network gear. And they send over their own meter readers.
Conspiracy theories are less explanatory than the fairly simple "The utility company makes millions of truck rolls every month to do something that an API would do better, faster, and for free. Truck rolls are insanely expensive."
The whole smart meter movement is not about technical advancement, it's about they want that you pay higher prices for consuming less and they don't have to build a better power grid infrastructure in the next few years. It reminds me of the telcos 15 years ago when phone calls and internet over modem was cheaper in the night when most people sleep, and very expensive during working hours.