Watercare - Smart water meter

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MurrayM

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#3218556 15-Apr-2024 12:55

I moved into a new house in November 2023 and since then Watercare have been sending invoices with zero usage. We've got one of those green smart meters. We've sent a few manual readings in. Latest correspondence with Watercare is that they're aware of the problem and we're on a list of meters to be replaced but that it won't happen until June/July. Until then they'll send out a meter reader to manually do a reading.

ezbee

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#3218566 15-Apr-2024 13:42

Electronics, and providing reliable RF communications with almost no power budget.
At a cost that does not put up charges on whats being metered apreciably.
Its tricky as water is 'currently' a fairly low cost commodity.

Water companies also have to deal with hardware suppliers that are
marketing magical performance with great 3d graphics.
Their antenna and RF modulation can be presented as some kind of magic.

Still you have a 'gnats fart' of RF power, an antenna near/in/below the ground plane.
Placement were water pools when it rains, where people mow their lawn, and eat weeds.
An antenna that stands up may be swiftly knocked down, or look like passing pets chew toy.
So its 'how low can you go', plus you have a cable from meter to cover to get damaged.

Then you have issues we have all seen with geography where this area
or that having poor cell or TV reception, which will be similar here.

Will probably take a few real-world knocks to refine.

Bung

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#3218719 15-Apr-2024 16:15

Locally the council is talking a system where the meters are interrogated by the weekly rubbish trucks.

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