Disadvantages? Depends on your viewpoint. I don’t want my usage monitored and recorded at 30 minute intervals, whether that qualifies for a tinfoil hat or not. They say that can be changed (by the user). Well, for now yes, and if you believe them, but reversing the issue - do they have any advantages for me that I care about? No. So why have it changed? If there’s any benefit from it, it’s theirs not mine.
It is, for now, an individual choice. If some want them, and a lot do, go for it. But I don’t want one, and judging by the trouble they’re having convincing people to change, nor do a very large number of others. Therefore I resent E.on trying to con me into it by pretending they “need” to, which was Grade A horse effluent.
There used to be one disadvantage, that being that most early meters weren’t transferable if you switched supplier, other than by reverting to basic dumb meter mode. That was the case when I had round 1 with E.on over these meters and, of course, not a point they mentioned when trying to foist one on me by deception. As I understand it, that’s no longer te case.
Differential charging? It’s a possibility. Would I change my mind to get it? No. If they start giving credit fr avoiding peak usage? Again, I still wouldn’t.
What it boils down to is that they offer me nothing I care about, and do compromise yet one more aspect of my privacy, not least letting someone at a company I certainly don’t trust get a pretty good remote view of when we’re home and when we’re not, just by power usage. That certainly could be abused. And I do care about that. The kicker is the deceitful way they went about it. That appears to be a lesson they still haven’t learned.