Blue Tooth Water Meters?

[smidsy]

Hey Guys,
A plumber was telling me today that water meters are now blue tooth, and they're read by a sensor on the garbage trucks as they do their run.
How long has this been around - and if you're having trouble with lazy readers, how would you get one retro-fitted.
Cheers
Smidsy

[China]

Not in my neck of the woods, to have one one fitted would not not be a individual exercise the company that supplies your water would have have the adopt the system then upgrade the entire network

[AlexS]

A few years ago Sydney water ran a trial of them in part of my suburb. I knew the guys who ran it and they presented a paper at one of our conferences. According to them it worked pretty well, not only for ease of reading, but they could pick up atypical patterns that could indicate problems like leakage or inefficient water use, as they log continuously. As far as I know the trial was completed, but I don't think the loggers have been installed elsewhere. I don't know if they are still in use or where removed.

[riverbuilder]

Yep, my electricity meter is wifi back to base now

[rrich]

Here our water meter has been blue tooth for 5 or 6 years. The electric meter is on some sort of network over the power lines. The natural gas meter is read electronically but I don't know how. I use to see the gas meter reader every month but I haven't seen her since the electronic reading started.

The intent of the electric meter being read through the power lines. Their intent is to implement 'Time of Day' pricing. It is supposed to save the residential customer money. Now if you believe that, I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

[smidsy]

The plumber I spoke to said that here in Qld the meters are read by a sensor fitted to garbo trucks.
One advantage of the new tech is that it stops gong shows like the one in Perth about 15 years ago - a meter reading was caught making up readings so he could sit at home and play x-box all day.