Agreed. I remember my mom tripping out about these a while back, and so I did some digging. Precursor: I am but a humble resi/commercial/industrial electrician, not a lineman or POCO employee.

There are a couple different configurations of these meters, typically one way broadcast RF and bidirectional RF. These use the same (or similar) frequencies as cellular networks. The bidirectional meter connects to a neighborhood gateway, which then transmits back to the POCO, while the broadcast meters (like my local utility) transmit a low range signal that's picked up a truck with a receiver driving through a neighborhood to collect usage information (and doesn't require the meter reader to walk up to each and every meter and physically read them). These are primarily used for efficiency and labor cost reduction. Obviously, the one way broadcast meters are not being read in real time, only the meters that are connected to the POCO through a network connection.

These meters only read the overall usage in your home or business, not individual loads. They are situated in line on both phases (or all 3 in a commercial environment) between the utility feeders and your main breaker (or through a current transformer for mains that are too large for a regular meter, but it effectively does the same thing), measuring the current flowing through them, and, through Ohm's law math (Watts=Volts*Current, Watts/1000=kW), reports usage. The only way to determine individual loads without extra equipment/monitors is through inference (which is actually pretty easy to due to the trained eye; for instance, when sizing generators, I'll run a power monitor for a few days to a week to gather load data, and it's fairly easy to surmise what spikes are what based on typical patterns and time of day). Some (read: very few) meters could do what's called load shedding (aka turn things off) to reduce demand on the grid, but even the few meters that have this capability are only able to disconnect your home/business entirely. Some utilities are offering incentives to allow high-demand appliances (ie air conditioners) to be managed by the utility, but outside of using utility-connected thermostats, they would rely on a separate load management module that is directly connected to the appliances they wish to control (and only then, it would be a simple on/off; this is where thermostats are preferable, because the POCO can stop Suzie from cranking the AC down to 60 and running like a stockcar when its 115F out, and set it to 78 to bring overall demand lower while not cooking her like a holiday roast). It's important to remember here that every single electrical appliance is physically connected to the grid via hardwire. There is no wireless electricity (for anything useful or practical pertaining to this conversation). It is possible to use powerline networking to control appliances, but that would require these appliances to be equipped with a communications module to respond. Electricity is pretty dumb; it flows wherever there's a free path of travel.

Also, there is no benefit to the POCO for turning any of your stuff on and off aside from load management for the wider grid. If anything, they'd prefer you using electricity that they can then charge you for.

The only real concern I could see with these is a nefarious actor having access to your real-time usage to determine your habits. I guess the argument can be made that the POCO is spying on you, but I really don't see a benefit to them knowing your usage aside from network/grid management. Perhaps a locality can use this data to determine if you're growing weed, but other than that, in a world where all of our information is harvested anyway, it seems pretty inconsequential to me. if you're that concerned, get a solar/battery system and turn off your main breaker.