Problem with us reading data is that they’re then unable to read meter themselves. For some reason, only their device can read data because if someone else does, counter doesn’t match when they do. At least it was so in my case.
If that’s the case its bad programming/assumptions on their part - but thats indeed what I’m trying to get to the bottom of.
Personally, I don’t see the problem here. I can still manually provide the water meter with the mechanical readings, the RF readings are a convenience and for the last year all my water usage readings have been estimated, so it seems they are not doing the RF readings anyways, so reading the meter via RF myself and providing it manually is even sort of helping.
I’d rather be able to read the data from the meter myself and have the meter company get frustrated and replace it routinely than not be able to read the data at all.
I’m with Severn Trent Water, so my experience may differ from others. I haven’t yet received a water bill—usually issued every six months—since I started taking meter readings. I’ll be curious to see if this causes any issues. Of course, if it does, there’s no reason I couldn’t just provide them with a manual reading, as you would with an electricity or gas meter.
Hi @Richard.Huish thanks for the hard work on this, I managed to get it up and running!
Heads up: you have a couple of PR’s on your repo (I only just realised someone else raised some tweaks after posting up mine!!). They both just streamline getting up and running.
Cheers,
Adrian
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Thanks ever so much for the heads up. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen the PR’s
No problem at all. You may want to consider merging them (mine? 
- there’s some common overlap between the 2 - but I can confirm mine seems to be working).
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If you know the serial number and the manufacturing year…
Until the water company realises what is going on and charges you for any meter replacements. Think twice.
PS.:
Maybe you should read these two articles before you make this kind of selfish statements.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7342/
You are likely not being charged any extra to have a smart meter, which helps the water company to manage water supplies. But you wouldn’t care if the meter company should replace it regularly to support your needs. 
I would talk with the water company, because the article suggests that the installed smart meters are sending readings once per day, which could mean that there is a fixed infrastructure in place and the meters are set to a bubble up mode, or the whole tampering feature is turned off as they coukd assume that the infrastructure might not reach every meter successfully every time.
It is better to understand how it works, then making extra work to anybody else. But I think you have already stated that you do not care about it all.
Correct — in the UK, water meters are often accessible from the public road. I do not condone doing this! My statement was intended more to make a point than to suggest any action.
You do make a good point. A little tongue-in-cheek, I could imagine this ending up as front-page news and drawing attention to the issues being discussed here, particularly the water companies’ poor understanding of the “read number”.
@AltF4me PR’s merged and many other improvements made, thank you for your contribution. Sorry it took me so long to merge.
Then write to a newspaper or search for a support group regarding customer rights or smart metering issues, or the best, write to your MP, but don’t cause additional cost to a company which trying to invest to reduce pointless water overconsumption.
But as far as the Smart metering went in the UK, it would end up in a newspaper and everyone would say - “look another issue with the smart metering, what a surprise”.
PS.: Just to know, these meters have a solid reason for the read counter check.
I think this is getting a little off-topic.
Happy to report back if I get any hassle from the water company. I will mention that the last time the water company has actually performed a drive-by reading was Nov 2023, and I only recently started reading my metre, so it’s possibly unlikely that I will see an issue with the read count mismatch as they don’t appear to be actually performing the readings. 
However, thanks for the video link. There seems to be little context of what they are doing or any further details. I did some quick due-diligence checks and there are no published vulnerabilities associated with the Itron Cyble and the video content seems unrelated to the read counter check.
I would be interested to know if anyone has been able to modify the “awake time” of the meter (9am-5pm, only on weekdays), but I think it needs access to the OEM hardware. Would be great to modify to help with development.
Hi Gábor,
I’m a bit confused by the tone you’ve been using toward me in this thread. If I’ve done something to offend you, it certainly wasn’t intentional. The passive-aggressive remarks and the suggestion that I “don’t care” about the impact of my work seem misplaced.
I do appreciate the link you shared. That Polish article is really interesting, especially the part about the 1-byte configuration counter rolling over after 256 reads. It adds useful context to the discussion about tamper detection.
We’re all here to learn and share information. I welcome questions or concerns, but it would help if we kept things respectful and focused on the technical issues at hand.
Thanks again for the reference, and let me know if there’s something specific you’d like me to address.
You just stated:
So the company can be frustrated and do extra work due to your actions for your comfort to read the data.
You could pick up the phone and talk with the water company, explain them what you are doing, what you want and how this could be managed and ask for their permission to do this.
There is no language barrier, they have contact details on their website, etc., so nothing to stop you being fair and reasonable to do so.
Or you could fit a water meter on your end of the pipeline and read that one with any solution that you choose to. (Pay for the plumber and buy your own meter.)
And regarding reading other people’s water meters, smart metering requires encryption due to privacy. A watermeter can clearly show when you are at home or away from home.
Hi Gábor,
I appreciate your feedback and realize my earlier comment about reading a neighbor’s meter came across poorly. That was only meant as a joke about the hypothetical possibilities, not as something I seriously advocate. I’ve updated my post to make that clear.
As for the water company potentially replacing the meter out of frustration, I understand your concern. My main point is that, in my experience, they have not been regularly reading my meter anyway. If it ever becomes a problem, I’ll certainly talk with them and provide manual readings. I am not trying to make extra work for anyone, and I understand that others may have different circumstances.
Regarding your point about privacy and encryption, I agree that smart metering often involves sensitive data. But I do not believe that listening in on my own meter readings poses a privacy risk, and I have not tried to intercept anyone else’s data. My goal is to improve how I collect and integrate my water usage into my home automation setup in a responsible manner.
I hope this clarifies my perspective. If you have more insights on how to handle data encryption or permissions with the water provider, I’m open to hearing them. Ultimately, this is a community discussion about technical solutions, and I appreciate any constructive input.
Talk to the water company… Agree on terms.
Update – 17th April 2025
Exciting news! I’ve added several new features:
- Diagnostics for 433 MHz communication: Now includes RSSI (Radio Signal Strength Indicator), LQI (Link Quality Indicator), and signal strength readings to help with diagnostics and finding the best position for the transceiver.
- Meter sleep/wake tracking: New Time Start and Time End sensors show when the meter wakes and sleeps, read directly from the meter’s settings.
- Frequency discovery: You can now enable automatic frequency discovery for meter communication via the config file.
- Wi-Fi improvements: Added support for enabling 802.11g (11G) PHY mode via the config file, along with expanded Wi-Fi diagnostics and OTA updates.
- Reading schedule configuration: You can now define which days the meter should be queried (e.g. Monday to Friday, Monday to Saturday, or Monday to Sunday). This is also configured via the config file.
- Confirmed counter behaviour: As previously reported, I’ve now confirmed that the read counter can be “reset” or wrap around under certain conditions. For example, a reading that originally showed a counter of
255was followed shortly after by another showing it as1.
Current date (UTC) : 2025/04/17 17:21/50 - 1744910510
Data from meter:
Liters : 635633
Battery (in months) : 107
Counter : 255
RSSI : 226
Time start : 06:00
Time end : 18:00
Current date (UTC) : 2025/04/17 17:22/03 - 1744910523
Data from meter:
Liters : 635633
Battery (in months) : 107
Counter : 1
RSSI : 227
Time start : 06:00
Time end : 18:00
Important note on counter implications:
There’s a known issue where, if the water company makes a reading and the counter value differs significantly from their previous reading, they may assume something is wrong and replace the meter. In this edge case, one theoretical (but very much a last-resort) workaround would be to record the counter value at the time of the water company’s last reading, and then, just before their next visit, perform enough reads to cause the counter to roll over and match that same number again.
To be absolutely clear: I’m not recommending this as a good solution. It will drain the battery very quickly and should only be considered if there are no other options available and all alternatives have been exhausted. It’s a bodge, not a fix, but it might be the only logical fallback in a worst-case scenario.
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Did anyone try to get pulse readings even with this reader installed on meter? Can you somehow read magnetic pulses or does this module prevent that?
That’s not a bad shout to be fair, I’m not entirely sure how the transponder interfaces with the metre if it’s mechanical or electromagnetic pulses or a hall effect sensor (sensing a moving disc)
My initial thoughts are that the transponder probably covers the area where an external sensor could be added, but would need to do more research and possibly find a tear down of the insides of the metre to fully assess it.
I think I can get one to experiment with from local water company. I’ll get back to you.
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