In the past I've put together projects that would count the revolutions on my gas meter needle and counted them to give me a remote view of my gas meter. However more recently I've gone rather low tech but with surprisingly great results.
Bought a wifi camera with IR LEDs for a tenner (god bless the chinese). Pointed it at my gas meter in the meter cupboard. My supplier allows me to submit meter readings by uploading a photo of the meter. So I've now written a small utility that runs on my NAS that takes a snapshot of my gas meter everyday and uploads it to my energy supplier.
I have no idea what effort it take them to convert an image into a meter reading, I really hope they are using some OCR. But with this I have the benefits of a smart meter, without the smart meter. So until there are some really attractive real term gas tariffs, this will do.
Smart gas meters do not send their readings back as often as the electric ones because they try to conserve their battery. So now my bills are as up to date as can be. Job done.