‘Smart’ meters can mean a variety of things. It can be what is more correctly an ‘interval’ or ‘Time of Use’ meter, which is not particularly smart. This sort records consumption in peak, shoulder and off-peak bands and the customer is charged a different rate for the electricity recorded on each of those registers.
I have such a ToU meter and it saves me about $40/quarter. I can fill the dishwasher, set it to delay running till after 10PM so it costs only half as much to run. Similarly, I have a timer on the electric boost to my solar hot water so that most of the time, if it needs a boost, it will only happen on off peak rates in a few hours before dawn. I have recently arranged for our OC’s path and parking area lighting to be on a ToU meter. This means we will be charged more for a few hours in the evening but much less for most of the rest of the night while the lights are on. Overall we will have a modest on-going saving.
Smarter meters of various sorts can send a wireless signal into the house to a display that shows the present rate of consumption and cost and gives the consumer information to enable them to defer significant loads till it is cheaper. Even smarter meters can regulate smart devices such as electric vehicle chargers to turn on when the rates are cheaper and turn of when they are more expensive. With such controls could go electricity rates that are communicated to the meter and varied continuously to inversely reflect demand rather than in crude peak/shoulder/offpeak bands.
At the moment the cost of electricity supply varies by orders of magnitude through the day and through the year but the consumer has no way to respond to that when they are charged a flat rate. If you don’t have air conditioning you are subsidising those who do and run it at the flat rate price when demand and the cost of supply is very high. Smart meters of various sorts are a way to avoid the cost of having generating capacity sitting idle to cope with the few hours a year of very high demand.
It is the way of the future but there are some who rage against Smart meters on the internet for generally spurious reasons.