We want to replace water as well as electricity meter with LoRa (TTN) sensors.
There are various types of sensors that need to be replaced that do not have any pulse signal outputs (optical, electric) and the key question for me is:
Should I look for an integrated meter (LoRa module + meter combined), or should I get cheaper standalone meter that provide pulse signal output and use a separate LoRa pulse sensor? (which combinations)?
Two examples:
This water meter could only be made smart by using OCR - which is not worth the effort in my opinion. Thus I would replace it.
Same here, old electricity meter that only shows numbes and would need OCR.
Note: Both meters are used internally only, no official meters. What would you suggest or what’s your experience?
Most of the older Gas and Water meters do have a magnet which can be used to measure consumption.
The fact that there is an external module available make me think it is the case as well for your water meter.
Actually, I beleieve that your electricity meters also have a telemetrical output of some kind. Can you tell me what meter model(s) do you use? I can’t recongnize it from the pic above.
Does that mean there are no consequences when someone cuts the cable between the meter and the lorawan node and inserts a custom pulse generator to fool the readings?
For what reason? I don’t know in which jurisdiction the topic starter is located, but I believe that in most jurisdictions you anyhow cannot use “unofficial” meters for billing. So it’s just advanced smart plug.
We have electricity, water, and gas meters with pulse outputs that could be connected to a LoraWAN pulse counter. Some of our electric meters also communicate over RS485 serial. We do not have a LoraWAN solution for you however. I do work for EKM Metering and dont want to plug our products too much, but would be happy to answer any questions.
That said, evaluate the price and compare to others water meters with pulse output, since many times the prices for that modules are very high when purchased in few units or not being a company working in the sector (discounts are very high), sometimes higher than buying water meter + pulse generator.
In my opinion is better to have LoRa pulse counter as separate unit.
As for tampering, the LoRa (or not LoRa) pulse count units, can have anti-tampering function (cutting the wire a pin in the LoRA module change state and an alarm message is sent and/or status bit is changed).
Otherwise that function can be disable and used only 2 wires.
Lately we were testing some Adeunis LoRa units (ADR8230AA).
It is two channels pulse counter, so can be attached to two meters (or one 5 wire meter).
p.s.: I don’t work for Adeunis or any other meter manufacturer company.
