How to read new water meters - remotely

adrian92

Is there any way , apart from opening the meter cover outside , that I can get a device inside my house to pick up the metering data to monitor my water usage?

Hoagy

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88696591

adrian92

Thanks , for your reply. I am surprised in the 21st century that I walk outside my house and lever a cover on a public road to attempt to get a meter reading

Sir Arthur Daley

You could install your own in your premises to suit your location for monitoring.

adrian92

Thanks. That was my original question - How would one do that?

Sir Arthur Daley

adrian92 wrote: »

Thanks. That was my original question - How would one do that?

There are ones available that are roughly the size of a circulating pump with male bsp connections, roughly €25 would buy you the unit, be simple install just mains in and mains out.

Domymac

most water mains enters the house at your kitchen feeding your sink and straight to your attic.
so best to fit the meter under your sink . just get a meter that reads m3 to match the meter outside

dingding

I think the issue was that if you got the encryption key and the other information you could make a transmitter that could swamp the signal from the meter and send rouge readings to the equipment that is reading the meter.

Even as it is on an unlicensed spectrum it would probably be possible to jam the signal from the meter.


I think it would be very unlikely that Irish Water would give any of the information you require as it would allow you to compromise the system. It was probably a mistake to go for an unlicensed frequency band as the signal could be impacted by other transmitters in the same frequency bands.

http://www.water.ie/docs/Irish-Water-Meters-and-AMR-technology-English-08082014.pdf

From this doc there are two types of meter, one polls the meter for the meter to respond, and the other one transmits the data intermittently.

DublinDilbert

dingding wrote: »

I think the issue was that if you got the encryption key and the other information you could make a transmitter that could swamp the signal from the meter and send rouge readings to the equipment that is reading the meter.

Even as it is on an unlicensed spectrum it would probably be possible to jam the signal from the meter.


I think it would be very unlikely that Irish Water would give any of the information you require as it would allow you to compromise the system. It was probably a mistake to go for an unlicensed frequency band as the signal could be impacted by other transmitters in the same frequency bands.

http://www.water.ie/docs/Irish-Water-Meters-and-AMR-technology-English-08082014.pdf

From this doc there are two types of meter, one polls the meter for the meter to respond, and the other one transmits the data intermittently.

Even if they used a licenced band it would be easy to make a jammer. Gsm is a licenced band and you can purchase jammers for it.

The encryption on these would be fairly decent I would imagine to prevent spoofing of meter values. Probably using asymmetric encryption such as rsa. The likes of the French utilities have been doing amr for a long period, so technology is well developed.

dingding

If it is an unlicensed frequency band I assume it would not be illegal to transmit at this frequency.

While if it was a licensed frequency action could be taken against the jammers.

adrian92

Many thanks to all for suggestions. I just wanted to know if could monitor my water usage inside my home.
I notice that Irish Water is buying meters ( one of two suppliers) from a Vermin Missile Arms Manufacturing plant. deihl?

adrian92

Mistake. vermin I meant German

Sleeper12

Domymac wrote: »

most water mains enters the house at your kitchen feeding your sink and straight to your attic.
so best to fit the meter under your sink . just get a meter that reads m3 to match the meter outside

Not in Dublin it doesn't. It comes in from the road, under your front garden & usually comes in under the front door.

A lot of stop valves are under the stairs though most are under the kitchen sink.

mickdw

Is not really an ideal solution to fit another meter in the home to act as a monitor as you could get a leak between meter on road and meter in home and end up with a big bill for missing water that never reached your monitoring meter.

scudo2

mickdw wrote: »

Is not really an ideal solution to fit another meter in the home to act as a monitor as you could get a leak between meter on road and meter in home and end up with a big bill for missing water that never reached your monitoring meter.

But that would be the best way to realise you've an external leak rather than shooting the kids.

Fit the internal meter.

mickdw

scudo2 wrote: »

But that would be the best way to realise you've an external leak rather than shooting the kids.

Fit the internal meter.

Well yes but that means you need to go opening the meter in the street again which is what the op was trying to avoid

Sleeper12

Just took a meter reading. 81000 litres since may. That's €450! My 2 kids are over 18 so we have 4 adults in the house. I'll get allowance for 1 adult. My water bill will be over €1000 per year without the rainwater harvesting.
Scary

maxamillius

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Just took a meter reading. 81000 litres since may. That's €450! My 2 kids are over 18 so we have 4 adults in the house. I'll get allowance for 1 adult. My water bill will be over €1000 per year without the rainwater harvesting.
Scary

How did you take the reading if ya don't mind me asking?would like to get mine

Sleeper12

maxamillius wrote: »

How did you take the reading if ya don't mind me asking?would like to get mine

You just lift the lid (screwdriver will be handy) remove the white foam insulation. You'll see the meter. Mine reads 81. 1 =1000 litres. 1000 litres =€5

maxamillius

Sleeper12 wrote: »

You just lift the lid (screwdriver will be handy) remove the white foam insulation. You'll see the meter. Mine reads 81. 1 =1000 litres. 1000 litres =€5

Oh right,I was under the impression we were not able to read it that it was done remotely?!

Gatling

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Just took a meter reading. 81000 litres since may. That's €450! My 2 kids are over 18 so we have 4 adults in the house. I'll get allowance for 1 adult. My water bill will be over €1000 per year without the rainwater harvesting.
Scary

It won't be as scary when the grown ups are paying there share of the bill

maxamillius

I don't really fancy giving irish water mine and my kids pps number and bank details to be honest!reckon they can jog on!

Sleeper12

maxamillius wrote: »

Oh right,I was under the impression we were not able to read it that it was done remotely?!

It is done remotely but you have to be able to read it yourself too. Otherwise they could lie or just make a mistake.

maxamillius

Sleeper12 wrote: »

It is done remotely but you have to be able to read it yourself too. Otherwise they could lie or just make a mistake.

Ye was thinking that,must go have a look so,cheers pal

Sir Arthur Daley

scudo2 wrote: »

But that would be the best way to realise you've an external leak rather than shooting the kids.

Fit the internal meter.

Agree also, the 2 meters would have to run in sync putting up the same mileage and if they start to differ it would be a leak present.

adrian92

Tried to read my street meter. The radio transmission unit is mounted over the meter display , hence not possible to read the meter!

RainyDay

maxamillius wrote: »

I don't really fancy giving irish water mine and my kids pps number and bank details to be honest!reckon they can jog on!

So you won't get the allowance for the people in the house so.