Smart Meter, Dumb Consumer

Maybe it's me, although I don't think I'm that totally stupid, but I find the new so called smart meters hard to understand. When I look at this meter all I see is a bunch of different numbers that flash up for a few seconds to be replaced by different numbers.

With the old meters with the wheel, you could tell if you were using a lot of power at that time (the wheel was spinning fast) or a little (the wheel was barely moving). Now the only way is to subtract one number from the next (I think) but it's still not clear if it's a little or a lot.

I've also found that since the smart meter was installed our year over year usage seems to be about 20% higher even though no new appliance or other high use electronics have been added and we are not doing things much different than before. Why this is is unclear.

I'll have more to say about these meters later.