How to tell if a ‘smart meter’ has been installed at your home

During the past few years millions of smart meters have been installed at homes — often with home owners never even realizing it.

So first, you need to know if you have one.

And if you do, tell your utility company that you are opting out and want it removed immediately.

The old faithful for measuring a home’s electric use was the analog meter. And you can easily tell if you still have one of these.

It has a spinning disk, or wheel on the front, and it also has those little clock-like faces that measure how much electricity you’re using.

So what should you be on the lookout for? These smart electricity meters come in various designs depending on your utility company, but most will have a digital LCD display on the front.

They also usually come with a bar code and several different strings of numbers on the face.

A “smart” gas meter is also fairly easy to identify, even if it has an analog dial on the face like the old ones do.

Simply examine the side of your gas meter. The new digital ones will stick out about three inches. The older, analog kind will only jut out around an inch.

Also, if your gas meter is inside of your home, look for any wires that run from the meter to the outside. That’s proof positive that you’ve got one of these dangerous new devices inside your house.

Sources:
“Power savings of smart meters prove slow to materialize” Matthew L. Wald, December 5, 2014, The New York Times, nytimes.com

“NV Energy turns over documents in smart meter inquiry” Anjeanette Damon, December 19, 2014, Reno Gazette-Journal, rgj.com

“How to tell if I have a smart meter” Smart Meter education network, smartmetereducationnetwork.com