Ken,
I consider Smart Meters are, at the moment, pointless.
Why?
Certainly they are of benefit to the supply company, as they remove the need for a meter reader...but it is unclear if, should you change supplier, if the new supplier can access the smart meter. So until Smart Meters are "universal" they only help discourage change.
All the other reasons touted by the supply company are spurious. I really don't need to know, moment by moment, how much power I'm using. The meters don't in my view, provide data that facilitates sensible management of consumption. We use the power we need, we have LED lights almost everywhere and we mostly turn off devices we are not using.
I will decline a smart meter if and when offered:
Sorry to say Peter you are 100% wrong in this regard. Have a look at the 'Faster switching' initiative and how the DCC uses the smart technology to make it easier, not harder to change supplier.
If you're not interested in optimising your energy usage then a Smart meter is probably not for you, but you'll end up paying more for your power. It's true that Smart meters reduce the measuring and billing costs for suppliers, and they will be able to reflect that in their tariffs. Customers who choose not to take advantage of the technology will naturally not be able to benefit from the reduced rate tariffs.
There are lots of companies out there developing smart apps which use a combination of appliance databases and smart data to give a live view of your energy consumption at 15-second granularity.
Current pilots are using standard appliance profiles, the next generation will know the specific consumption profiles of particular models, so you'll be able to see how much an AEG 123 will compare to a Zanussi XYZ for your particular usage pattern.
KenA: for your particular requirement, I would think a monitoring plug as Alistair and others have already suggested would be the way to go. If you want to get really technical about measuring the true consumption of appliance, you'll need to read up on Power Factors. Devices like Fridges and Freezers quite often take power out of phase with voltage, meaning they appear to use more power than they actually do. Simple monitors are unable to measure this so they don't give a totally accurate view.
You know it makes sense! 
