OK, my apologies to Tim+ - I simply wasn't aware of this, and it defies sense that there should be a need for such frequent reports.
My own meter, at the back of the house - reports only when interogated, by a van passing the end of my drive. It looks no different to a manual reading one, just a mechanical digit display, in a brass cast case.
Need depends on what you want to achieve.
/Frequency/ of reporting makes it easier for users to relate use to activities. Many users won't recall (or keep a record of) just when they used the pressure washer or watered the garden a month or even a week ago. And of course it also gives earlier warning of some leaks.
/Granularity/ of data allows differentiation between slow leaks and normal use (where "normal" includes e.g. people flushing loos in the night).
OK, so they generate hourly records, but how do they get the data back to HQ?
Arqiva are touting their dedicated smartmeter network (which doesn't cover the entire UK) for water metering as well as gas/elec.
Same here and I had thought it used the same sort of thing as an rfid tag, the signal from the reader inducing enough current to trigger a response.
Depends who "they" are. ISTR mention of M-Bus, long-range WAN, and
4G/LTE as well as the Arqiva network Andy Burns mentioned.
My mobile phone battery is only good for a few days in standby. This thing needs to run for years.
However others have told us they are using the mobile network. **** knows how, and that explains why they aren't doing it where we are. No
**** signal.Andy
Our drive-by readable meter has exactly that.
Andy
I only get 2 or 3 days on standby.
When you say "using the mobile network" do you mean WiFi calling? I use it here now, discovered it when they were working on the masts for 2 months and the village lost its signal. I think your mobile provider has to offer it, mine did and there was no extra cost.
Network coverage and power consumption are manifest problems but a phone in standby ain't like a meter. The phone has to be ready and willing to send and receive all the time. The meter's comms unit only has to squirt a little data every so often. So the meter so can use e.g. LTE-M which lets it tell the network it doesn't want to be disturbed for a while and then go into a deep sleep.
NB that pretty well exhausts my knowledge of how LTE-M works :(
An update on this. An email today from Severn Trent tells me that they aren't going to bill me for the period between the last reading of the old meter and the installation of the new one, about six weeks.
I don't mean WiFi calling. That's what I use when at home, using the WiFi signal from my house routers to route all my mobile traffic, including voice, over the internet.
I mean LTE, 3G, whatever the current flavour is. That carries data, which used to be mainly digitised voice; nowadays it often carries encapsulated IP traffic.
Robin's limited knowledge of LTE-M is more than mine and sounds like the answer.
Andy
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