Local Only Water Meter?

I tried my hand at rigging a proximity sensor to the water meter in my house. Sadly it doesn’t have the spinning magnet for the sensor to pick up.

I looked into other options for pulling data from the meter, but for each method, my very antiquated meter had a complication that would prevent it from working.

TLDR: Any recommendations for a home water meter that’s local and integrates well with home assistant?

I’m going to check with my water company first, but likely will remove the old meter and replumb a new “smart” meter and an automated shut off valve into the water supply. I believe the current meter is leftover from before the utility added new meters further upstream, so I’d rather get rid of the rusty piece of junk anyway.

GreatAlbatross Mod ,
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

I'm curious to hear what people come up with, as I quite fancy one too.

I would be wary of installing anything that actually touches the water that doesn't come from an accredited manufacturer, however. As you don't want Ali-express grade metal in your drinking water.

Which unfortunately means the options will be either expensive, or building off the back of other equipment currently installed (water meter, etc).

Blip6338 ,

If you are using zigbee you should check Sinope Sedna Walter valve with the optional water flow sensor. It is supported in zha using quirks from claudegel on github.

Just make sure you select the ZigBee one since their WiFi one need their proprietary hub to work.

GreatAlbatross Mod ,
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

That's a pretty neat bit of kit. If they did it in metric sizes, I'd be tempted.

solidgrue ,

Definitely check in with the utility before mucking with the meter. You can find your way into a lot of trouble tampering with active meters. Chances are there's new meter tech out your utility would install, and of which you could take advantage.

Check this thread. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/smart-water-meter/451935 . You'd install it down flow of your utility meter, and would need ESP32 to read the meter. It's a bit of work, but if you're already running ESPHome, it looks pretty straightforward.

On a long shot, you might consider looking into an inexpensively RTL-SDR software radio dongle, and use rtl_433 to scan a few common frequencies the utilities use to scan their meters from the street. I happened to find my neighbor's electrical meter on a common wireless weather station frequency, and if In were so inclined, could publish it to MQTT for HA to pick up.

Just a couple of ideas. Good luck!

watson387 ,
@watson387@sopuli.xyz avatar

You can get used Yokogawa AXF water meters pretty cheap on eBay. They'll put out a 4-20mA signal and as long as you get the right version for your local power you can just wire a cord to it and plug it into the wall. Only measure flow and I think temperature though.

skullgiver ,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

There's this project that'll try to read your old water meter with a camera. All you need is a $10 dev board of the right model and a power supply near your water meter.

brownmustardminion OP ,

I considered this. But unfortunately my meter has a large dial that slowly passes over the numbers, obscuring it. Also it’s rusting really bad.

GreatAlbatross Mod ,
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

Your meter may have some kind of magnetic flux that occurs as the dial spins, which you might be able to sense and interpret.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines
    •