Hello,
Has anyone managed to make the Elster digital water meter smart and integrate with ESPHome/HASS?
Below is the photos of the meters, there’s not a spinning wheel like the older versions 
Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask 
Aydan
This is an interesting water meter, with apparently integrated smart options.
Some Internet searching learns that this type of water meter Elster V200H has, depending on the version, two (or even three?) options to read the data:
- it has a wireless option: 868 MHz M-Bus T1
- it has a wired option: pulse output with by default 1 liter per pulse, which apparently also can be set to 0.1 10 100 or 1000 liters per pulse
- it has NFC option with access to the last data point after power down (this is not yet clear to me)
I would think that at least it must be possible to use the wired pulse output and connect this to an ESP device, using a pulse_counter.
Hey,
You legend. Ill take a look at the pulse option as think that’s the only real way I can do it. As it looks like the Wireless is encrypted I would say.
What pulse counter sensor do you think would be best? I’m in the UK if that helps.
Aydan
Check if there is some kind of port where you can insert a probe. My Elster water meter here in Australia has a port behind a little rubber plug. I’m experimenting with a simple reed switch at the moment that I insert into the meter - so far with mixed results.
I saw however that you can buy a probe specifically for my meter in the UK.
You should be able to use the ESPHome Pulse Counter Sensor, and there are many examples of water meters setup like this to be found.
This is an example of how I did it with my water meter (using an external proximity sensor as pulse sensor):
# ESPHome Pulse counter water meter
esphome:
#.....
on_boot:
then:
- pulse_counter.set_total_pulses:
id: pulse_counter_water
value: !lambda 'return id(global_water_total);'
on_shutdown:
then:
- globals.set:
id: global_water_total
value: !lambda 'return id(water_total_liter).state;'
interval:
- interval: 30s
then:
- globals.set:
id: global_water_total
value: !lambda 'return id(water_total_liter).state;'
# Global variables
globals:
# Global variable to store total water volume during reboots
- id: global_water_total
type: int
restore_value: yes
# Sensors
sensor:
# Water meter setup
# Water rate in L/min
- platform: pulse_counter
pin: GPIO13
update_interval : 6s
name: Water Rate
id: pulse_counter_water
count_mode:
rising_edge: DISABLE
falling_edge: INCREMENT
internal_filter: 500ms
unit_of_measurement: "L/min"
icon: "mdi:water-outline"
# Total volume in Liter
total:
name: Water Total Liter
id: water_total_liter
device_class: water
state_class: total_increasing
accuracy_decimals: 1
unit_of_measurement: "L"
icon: "mdi:water-plus-outline"
# Total volume in m³
- platform: template
name: Water Total
device_class: water
state_class: total_increasing
accuracy_decimals: 3
unit_of_measurement: "m³"
icon: "mdi:water-plus-outline"
lambda: return (id(water_total_liter).state * 0.001);
update_interval: 6s
binary_sensor:
# Indicates each pulse
- platform: gpio
name: Water sensor status
id: water_sensor_status
internal: false
pin:
number: GPIO13
inverted: true
mode:
input: true
However, you first have to ensure that you indeed have this integrated pulse output option on your version of the V200H.
And from the images and datasheets that I found it is not clear where the socket is located on the meter and what kind of connector is needed, so you have to look into that as well.
Awesome! Ill take a look and see what works best
Thank you!
Hey 
,
Any luck with reading something from this Elster meter? I have same one, tried WMbus reading, but 868MHz band is dead silent, no signal whatsoever, even encrypted one. Had antenna just next to the meter and nothing peaked up over the background noise. So I am assuming that this feature is disabled in our city. Before I’ll follow the rabbit hole with the IR interface - were you by any chance able to read pulses from it?
Hey,
sorry didn’t see this!
No i had no joy 