I am waiting in for a delivery so had a look for my dads "lost" SSE smart meter. predictably there is a smart box wired into the meter that wasn't there last time I was here.
I found the thing he was referring to. It is a plug in to a wall 13 amp socket device that gives you usage info. e.g. how much you have spent since midnight . One thing I noticed was it made me go and look for lights that could be turned off!
That sounds more like a stand-alone energy monitor. They have a current transformer that clips round one of the meter tails (and thus they can only measure current, so are wildly inaccurate). A smart meter would just be a different type of meter, with no additional boxes connected.
No, my "smart" meter also has a standalone box as Varche describes which does look very much like the old style energy monitor, but is talking to the meter rather than attaching a monitor to the meter tail. Doesn't say much that is useful after the novelty of seeing how much it all costs. Mine hasn't been plugged in for months.