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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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greatalbatross@lemmy.world

Local Only Water Meter? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] solidgrue@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

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@sopuli.xyz 3 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] Blip6338@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago

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

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago

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).