Secure Meters: Smart Meters and In-Home Displays

Secure Meters is one of the manufacturers whose equipment appears in Great Britain's smart metering system, and its in-home displays (IHDs) are among the most widely issued in the country. The display is not sold to households: everyone who gets a smart meter installed is provided with an in-home display, and getting a smart meter installed is free for UK energy customers¹. The funded package covers an electricity and/or gas smart meter, an in-home display and a communications hub³.

The display itself is a portable touchscreen device showing near real-time energy usage data, and it is the part of the system a household actually looks at⁴. The meter behind it sends readings automatically to the energy supplier through the Data Communications Company's secure network, so billing does not depend on the display being switched on⁵. The vast majority of smart meters in Great Britain are operating in smart mode, and 90% of installed meters were doing so as of April 2025⁶.

What follows covers what Secure Meters equipment offers in the UK, the specifications that are published, the warranty position, the cost picture, the company's status and what the whole arrangement means for a household's energy independence. The honest summary is that the display gives a household its own view of consumption, while the metering and data route remain national infrastructure operated by others.

What Secure Meters offers in the UK

The clearest product fact in the published record is the Secure Meters C1727 Smart Thermostat, listed as Innovation Measure 016 in the Energy Company Obligation approved innovation measures guidance⁸. It appears in successive versions of that guidance, from the January 2022 version through the April 2023 and October 2023 editions to the January 2026 update, which indicates a product that has stayed on the approved list rather than a one-off entry⁸.

The thermostat connects via two modes, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)⁸. That is the whole of the published connectivity specification. There is no published figure for its temperature accuracy, its control range, its display size or its compatibility with specific boiler brands.

For the in-home display itself, the position is different. Secure Meters displays are issued as part of the standard installation package rather than marketed as a retail product, and the published material describes the category rather than the model. An in-home display is a portable touchscreen device that shows near real-time energy usage data, and it is what allows a household to see consumption as it happens rather than waiting for a bill⁴. The display is one of three funded components, alongside the meter and the communications hub³.

Smart meters themselves must be compliant with the Smart Meter Equipment Technical Specification (SMETS), which is the technical baseline every meter in the national roll-out has to meet¹³. The original technical specifications for smart metering equipment were published as industry recommendations in 2011¹⁴. That specification work is what makes a display from one manufacturer able to pair with a meter from another, and it is why the display is best understood as a component of a national system rather than a standalone gadget.

Specifications: what is published and what is not

The published specification record for Secure Meters equipment in the UK is thin, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not contain. The C1727 thermostat's connectivity is stated as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy⁸. Its battery is described as unreplaceable and covered by a twelve-year manufacturer's warranty⁸. Beyond that, the approved innovation measures guidance lists the product by name and measure number rather than by technical detail¹⁰.

For electricity meters generally, the accuracy requirements are set out in the Measuring Instruments Directive. Meters must comply with Annex I and Annex V of the 2014 EU Measuring Instruments Directive, and must be of accuracy Class A or better as defined in Annex V; meters marked Class 1 or 2 are not compliant¹⁵. On-board electricity meters are exempt from these requirements¹⁵. That is the standard a Secure meter installed in a UK home has to meet, whatever the model.

What is not published matters as much. There is no stated display screen size, no stated wireless protocol for the display itself, no stated operating temperature range and no stated model number for the Secure in-home display in the material available. A household trying to identify which Secure display it has will find the model on the unit itself rather than in any published comparison.

Warranty: twelve years on one product, nothing published on the rest

The only warranty term in the published record for Secure Meters equipment is the twelve-year manufacturer's warranty on the C1727 Smart Thermostat's unreplaceable battery⁸. That figure appears consistently across the 2023 and 2026 editions of the approved innovation measures guidance, so it is a stable published term rather than a one-off⁸.

No equivalent published warranty term exists for Secure Meters in-home displays or for the meters themselves. That is not the same as saying there is no warranty; it means no term is stated in the material available, and a household should not assume one. The practical protection for an in-home display comes from a different direction: consumers with issues with their in-home display are in scope of the smart meter Guaranteed Standards of Performance covering issue resolution¹⁶.

Those standards are the regulatory route. The first three smart meter Guaranteed Standards of Performance, covering installation timeliness, installation quality and issue resolution, opened in February 2026¹⁷. Ofgem consulted on introducing a set of new Guaranteed Standards for a range of smart metering-related issues, with the consultation naming Graeme Kelly as contact¹⁸. Separately, suppliers face compensation requirements for delayed or failed installations following reforms brought forward by Ofgem¹⁹.

What it costs

There is no published price for Secure Meters equipment sold to UK households, and no manufacturer list price for an in-home display. The reason is structural: the display is not sold, it is issued. Getting a smart meter installed is free for UK energy customers, and the in-home display comes with the smart meter². The funded package is an electricity and/or gas smart meter, an in-home display and a communications hub³.

The costs that do exist in the record are system costs borne by suppliers rather than by households. The Guaranteed Standards of Performance carry £26m in set-up costs, annuitised to £5-6m annually, plus £9m annual ongoing costs, borne by suppliers²¹. Those figures describe the regulatory framework around smart metering, not a charge to a customer.

Historic cost figures exist but should be read as history. A 2001 report put a smart display meter at £75 to £120, with cost estimates supplied by BEAMA, and assumed an average cost of around £150 per installation, rising to around £200 per installation once added costs were included, which applied to a sample of 500,000 meters implied a cost of £100 million²². A 2010 consultation put the cost of smart electric meters for 77% of SME electricity customers at the same as for domestic customers, £58²³. These are not current prices and should not be used to estimate what anything costs today.

Where a household wants a display or monitoring device beyond the issued one, prices are quoted by the seller rather than published as a standard figure. The wider cost picture for monitoring equipment is covered in what home energy monitoring and management costs.

The company's status

The published record does not give a company status for Secure Meters. That absence matters, because the rule for any equipment maker is that a warranty is only as good as the company standing behind it, and where a status is not stated it should not be assumed.

What the record does contain is a status for a similarly named but different company. Smart Energy & Powwer Limited is listed as Active in Energy Ombudsman support material²⁴. That is a separate entity and says nothing about Secure Meters.

The organisations that are clearly identified in the smart metering landscape are different again. Smart Energy GB is the not-for-profit campaign helping everyone in Britain understand the importance of smart meters and their benefits to people and the environment³. The Data Communications Company has held the Smart Meter Communications Licence to build and maintain the secure national infrastructure underpinning the smart meter roll-out since 2013²⁵. The DCC network operates to security levels endorsed by the National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ⁵.

The Government has published its decision on the future framework for smart meter installations and the supplier obligation, and the 2022 to 2025 rollout framework has now concluded²⁶. That is the policy backdrop against which any equipment maker's UK position sits.

What it means for energy independence

An in-home display is the cheapest and most immediate piece of energy independence a household can have, and it is worth being clear about how far that independence extends. The display puts the household in control of its energy usage, meaning it can take energy-saving steps to reduce CO2 emissions, and it shows consumption in near real time rather than through a monthly estimate⁷. Smart meters put consumers in control of their energy use, allowing energy efficiency measures that help save money on bills, offset price increases and reduce carbon emissions²⁸.

The dependence that remains is substantial and worth naming plainly. Readings are sent automatically via the DCC's secure network to the energy supplier, so the data route runs through national infrastructure rather than staying in the home⁵. The display is issued with the meter and tied to it. The meter itself must be SMETS compliant, a national specification¹³. The household does not own the data pathway and cannot reroute it.

There is a second layer of dependence that matters for anyone thinking about self-sufficiency: the display is a monitoring device, not a control device. It shows what is being used. It does not switch anything, store anything or generate anything. A household wanting to act on what the display shows needs either behaviour change or separate control equipment.

For households generating their own electricity, the smart meter has become the practical route to payment. Under the Smart Export Guarantee, the typical meter for export payments is a smart meter²⁹. That is a case where the smart metering system extends a household's independence rather than limiting it, because it is the mechanism through which exported generation is measured and paid for.

Satisfaction data suggests the arrangement works for most people. Satisfaction for smart meter owners reached 86% in July to August 2025, compared with 83% in January of that year⁹. Smart meters have been installed in 65% of homes and 61% of businesses⁶. The roll-out has been tracked in quarterly official statistics since at least 2015³⁰, and the consumer benefit case was set out in government progress reporting as far back as 2013²⁸.

Where the arrangement has limits

The limits fall into three groups: what the display cannot do, what happens when it fails, and what the household cannot see.

On capability, the display shows near real-time usage data and nothing more⁴. It does not provide appliance-level breakdown, it does not control loads, and it does not store a long history for analysis. Households wanting that level of detail need separate equipment, which is covered in home energy monitors and consumer access devices.

On failure, the protection is regulatory rather than product-based. Consumers with issues with their in-home display are in scope of the Guaranteed Standards of Performance covering issue resolution¹⁶. The first three standards opened in February 2026¹⁷. Compensation requirements apply to delayed or failed installations following Ofgem reforms¹⁹. Ofgem has also consulted on reforming suppliers' meter inspection obligations, noting that other regulations and policies, including safety obligations and enhanced theft detection and billing accuracy obligations, protect consumers with traditional and smart meters more effectively than the existing inspection obligation³².

On visibility, the household sees its own consumption but not the system behind it. The DCC network operates to security levels endorsed by the National Cyber Security Centre⁵, and the data protection arrangements around smart meter data are set out separately in smart meter data.