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Software Hardware Technology

Glitch Causes Smart Meter Displays In England To Appear In Welsh Language (bbc.co.uk) 107

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-learn-a-new-language dept.
AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Bulb smart energy users have reported their meter displays appearing in Welsh -- even though they are not in Wales. Some of the energy firm's customers said their displays were showing the text "defnydd heddiw," meaning "usage today." Fixing the problem involves navigating the menu, which also appears in Welsh. Bulb said the problem occurred with one in every 200 of its smart meters and could be resolved in five steps. One customer, James Tombs, who lives more than 100 miles from the Welsh border in West Sussex, said: "I don't live in Wales and don't know Welsh... I went on to the Bulb forums, found others with the same problem and followed directions to change [the] language." You can find instructions on how to change the display via Bulb.
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Glitch Causes Smart Meter Displays In England To Appear In Welsh Language More

Glitch Causes Smart Meter Displays In England To Appear In Welsh Language

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  • How can we trust the meters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @06:22PM (#58936786)
    If the meter software is so buggy it toggles basic settings at random, how can we trust it to be providing accurate readings to the electricity company?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you wish to continue...push "fjdbfybryvf"
      If you wish to change languages please "dfgfrgsdytr cbddgfrbyh"

      • The actual instructions (from the link in the summary);

        Press the 'OK' button at the bottom of the In-Home Display, and then the right arrow button until you see 'Gosodiadau Wedi anfon yr'.
        Press OK. This takes you to settings.
        Press the right button until you see 'Dewis iaith Wedi anfon yr'. If this doesn't work, you may need to try the next option, 'Clirio Gosodidau Wedi anfon yr'.
        Press OK.
        Select English on the left, by pressing the left arrow, then 'OK'.
    • It's like the lottery, if that bit flips high you lose (and the electric co. insists you pay) - on the other hand if it flips low you may be in some good fortune with free electricity (but the electric co. will be out within hours to switch out the defective device). But like a lottery most won't benefit from playing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Probably more like the casino. If it flips high you lose (BIG) and the meter is obviously infallible, but if it flips low it was obviously an error and you'll be billed an average rate for the month not less than you paid last year same month.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well you can be sure it won't give you a reading lower than the amount that you used.

    • Re:How can we trust the meters (Score:4, Informative)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @01:55AM (#58938054)

      If the meter software is so buggy it toggles basic settings at random, how can we trust it to be providing accurate readings to the electricity company?

      These aren't smart meters. They're in-home displays that let you get a real-time view of your smart meter.

      The actual smart meter that demarcs your house power wiring from the power company (and measures the power you consume so they can bill you) basically has no user interface - it just displays a count and provides a rate display to show how fast that count is increasing. The actual communications is fairly simple - there's the high voltage part and the low voltage part. The high voltage part contains the actual measuring sensors. This is provided to the low voltage part as a series of pulses - the frequency of which is proportional to your consumption. The low voltage part is what communicates to the power company. All it does is tallies the count and updates the display and sends the data to the network - both in the form of pulses and synchronizes its count with the network.

      Remember, this component is actually sealed and calibrated, so it has to be accurate.

      Some power companies offer an in-home display that lets them view their current consumption. It's this display that the user interacts with, and has the UI that switched languages. These displays let users view their current meter reading, their current consumption rate (not instantaneous) and their current bill amount. It doesn't matter if these displays are buggy since they only read data from the network.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      We can't, simply. The whole smart meter introduction is a complete shambles.

      SMETS2 has been delayed for so long because GCHQ still weren't happy with the design. The first generation uses GSM. As there is no authentication checks, you just need to be the base station with the strongest signal and it's talking to you.

      You have data implications. If it's pinging my usage every 30 minutes it's trivial to work out such things as when people are home. I'm sure this data will be sold to data brokers and eventually

      • Do you also run your pool pump when it gets light and turn it off when it gets dark? Sidenote: If your light is such a financial burden you're either doing something very wrong, or something very right.

        As for me, my smartmeter came with multi-tariff metering and on account that we're both nightowls yeah we saved shitloads going from a dumb spinning disc to a smartmeter. Best of all in the Benelux region they standardised the data communication port to smart meters so it's very easy to log and read my water,

    • They're easy enough to reprogram. HINT: Get your IR TV remote out.... I wonder if that's why only some of the smart meters reacted like this.

  • Blame the Russians... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @06:33PM (#58936842)

    Bulb smart energy users have reported their meter displays appearing in Welsh -- even though they are not in Wales. Some of the energy firm's customers said their displays were showing the text "defnydd heddiw," meaning "usage today."

    I am waiting for those incompetent media houses to blame the Russians...

    Counting 1, 2, 3...

  • needs more Hz (Score:5, Funny)

    by marcle ( 1575627 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @06:34PM (#58936848)

    Probably have a cheap chip in that meter. Welsh has been known to fry processors, due to the extreme consonant/vowel ratio.

  • Are they sure it's actually in Welsh? Seems to me just as likely that it's English rot13.

    • Are they sure it's actually in Welsh? Seems to me just as likely that it's English rot13.

      Google translate says it's Welsh.

    • i didn't read tfa because i heard about the news item on the radio, they say that even for Welsh speakers it's not easy to navigate the menu because it's such a poor (probably machine-) translation into welsh.

  • how is this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by etash ( 1907284 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @06:40PM (#58936882)
    news for nerds exactly?

    • how is this news for nerds exactly?

      Simple. Welsh is an invented language, like Klingon. Think about it - no real language would spell words that way, right?

      Thank you. Thank you. I'm here all week. Try the prime rib. I heard it's great.

      • how is this news for nerds exactly?

        Simple. Welsh is an invented language, like Klingon. Think about it - no real language would spell words that way, right?

        If you know that 'f' is pronounced as 'v' and 'dd' is 'th', It becomes a whole lot easier to enunciate.

    • Smart meters, bugs, a long lost bizarre language more difficult to speak than Klingon, and the ability for this to all appear like a government conspiracy. How could it NOT be news for nerds.

  • ... displays were showing the text "defnydd heddiw," meaning "usage today."

    Ah, Welsh. This reminds me of this gem about TECO Editor [c2.com]:

    It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text. One of the more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program, or even worse-- introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine.

    Your mileage may vary...

  • From TF-BBC-A:

    One customer, James Tombs, who lives more than 100 miles from the Welsh border in West Sussex, ...

    I thought they used the Metric System over there. Helping the BBC out -- according to Free Map Tools [freemaptools.com] -- this would be ... 191 km (direct) 240 km (road) for those living in UK / Wales.

    • Re:Miles? (Score:4, Informative)

      by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @08:04PM (#58937096) Journal
      It's the UK. They measure volumes in liters, distance in miles, and weight in stones.

      • In Wales, they store their Leeks under the bed, and their penises inside sheep.

        And the consonant/vowel ratio and use of the letter Y are intended to confuse and intimidate.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Metrication in the UK started well before entry into the EU or EEC as it was back then and was lead by industry. But hey got to keep the myths about the EU going.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Road signs and speed limits are the only major none metric thing left in the UK. Unfortunately the longer we delay the transition the more it will cost. For example the cost has gone from 300GBP million (inflation adjusted) in 1978 to 644GBP million in 2005.

        There is also the imperial pint for the dispensing of drau

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Road signs are in Imperial Miles, but other types of distance signs use metric. For example you might see a sign indicating that a building is 100m away, intended for pedestrians.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Yet in school (appropriately in Wales) in the 1970s and 1980s I was taught using exclusively metric, KMS and SI units.

    • We generally use miles in Britain

      but this .. "One customer, James Tombs, who lives more than 100 miles from the Welsh border"

      why use James, hardly anybody whose Welsh and lives in Wales can speak Welsh.

  • Not to belittle Welsh, but if the meters in the UK all defaulted to English and switching the language from English to Welsh required reading the instruction manual and/or spending 5-20 minutes of time, how many people in Wales would genuinely care enough to spend the time and change the language from the default English to Welsh?

    I mean, seriously. Most people in countries like Germany don't bother to change the language if it defaults to English & changing it would take more than ~30 seconds of effort.

    • Yes, there are 630,000 in Wales who speak and read/write Welsh as first language.

      • oh, and that's out of the 3 million population of Wales. So about 20% have it as their language. Hence, devices that actually can be set to Welsh.

        • OK, but that brings back the original question... what percentage of the 20% who regard Welsh as their "first" language feel sufficiently strongly about it to spend more than a few seconds going out of their way to change the language setting on a new electronic device from a default of "English" to "Welsh"?

          What percentage of that 20% could honestly say they're able to read and write Welsh AT LEAST as well as they're able to read and write English, let alone *better* than they know English?

      • Yes, there are 630,000 in Wales who speak and read/write Welsh as first language.

        There are very few of those cannot understand English. Moreover those who do can use English as fluently as if it were a first language, much better than most people can use a "second" language.

        • If I lived in or near enogh the french speaking part of Canada I had to learn and speak French (maybe for work) I'd still have my stuff set to English. it's the same thing, enough customers want Welsh so they do it. Just like the ATM machines around my neighborhood have alternative languages like Polish and Russian besides English.

          Somehow you seemed to be triggered that people would prefer their first language instead of your first language.

  • ...with smart meters showing power consumption in linear B [slashdot.org].

  • Not interested in a "smart" meter (Score:3)

    by Malc ( 1751 ) on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @07:06AM (#58938722)

    I don't really see the need for these things. I don't need more crap around my house collecting dust and that I will probably ignore after about two weeks. The meter I currently have might even be original (home built in 1935-ish) and pre-dates electronic meters. A sticker on it suggests last calibrated in 1978 - want to bet these new meters won't even last a quarter of this time? Given the 35 year calibration lifespan, I should check this :) So far I haven't seen anything that benefits me with these new meters, especially compared with what I have that just sits in the cupboard chugging away for decades.

    • I don't need more crap around my house collecting dust and that I will probably ignore after about two weeks.

      Cool story. What other useful technology do you ignore? Personally I log my energy usage. It has done wonders for identifying a leaking water main under the house, and a broken fridge seal which likely would have only been found when my quarterly bill was significantly higher than it should have been. That is before you consider the cost savings that multi-tariff metering these smart meters introduced.

      • Iâ(TM)m curious just how it helped you identify these issues. Do you have a smart metre for water too? I find it hard to imagine not noticing a faulty fridge seal that would have a significant impact on your bill - didnâ(TM)t it seem a little warm or sound like the compressor was running excessively?

        My electricity bill is a fairly consistent £25/month for a family of three. I have no interest in variable rate electricity because that comes with a burden of figuring out when to run t

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