Hi All
I live in a flat and dont have easy access to my water meter but I want to try to measure my usage.
I learned about ultrasonic ones that clip onto the pipe so I’m looking for recommendations from people that may already have one set up
Ease of install is a must - Preferrably something that doesnt require cutting pipes and instead just clips on
Ideally, something that doesnt require cloud connectivity to work
I dont have power where my water pipe is, so I’d like something that’s battery powered
Must integrate with home assistant to track usage
Hopefully doesnt cost a fortune
I’ve seen a kickstarter for Aquaro but it doesnt go into detail on how it integrates with home assistant. Another one I’ve briefly looked at is StreamLabs
Does anyone have something like this set up and mind sharing their experiences/recommendations?
I myself am looking into capturing whole-house water usage metering and am not so interested in an ESP32 camera that would physically read the meter, but may have to go that way -
@tsumaru
I’ve been using a Flume device for about 2 1/2 years now.
I’m on the 2nd battery pack and was glad to see that I had an ‘old version’ which allowed me to replace the original set simply with four AAA batteries - I think the new battery packs are different now.
It requires a gateway, though, and is cloud-based, but seems rather reliable.
The advantage of the gateway is that, although it needs mains power, I can bridge a distance between my WLAN access point and the water meter that would otherwise be too long for a direct connection.
These are the sensors that show up through the Flume HA integration:
I tried a StreamLabs device before but couldn’t find a straight piece of pipe long enough to accommodate the sensor, so I had to return it.
@KruseLuds
I’ve tried the method described here for my gas meter, but haven’t been able to get it to work so far; one of my issues is access to a power socket
I dont have access to the water meter as its a block of flats (Also, its quite far from my flat in a central meter room) so I need to ideally measure it inside my unit - hence asking about ultrasonic devices
Looks like I am going to have to read my meter with an esp32 camera… I looked into StreamLabs and the sensor to put on the pipe is ~$350 and then on top of that you have to pay a subscription for access to the API to use the integration in HA… That’s a little ridiculous as any small savings I get from acting upon readings in HA would mean it would take ~350 years to pay for itself in savings. (I already have leak detectors everywhere.)
I am exploring something that clips onto the pipe to get a reading, without having to cut into it - i dont have mains power near there and i live in a block of flats with no easy access to my water meter
I bought one of these many years ago and use an ESP32 to count the pulses. Not ultrasonic obviously, but suitable if you can’t get to the main water meter and have room to install on on the main incoming within the property.
@tsumaru you categorically deny to answer my question, why? If you are sure about an ultrasonic solution link to where you found it. Then we miclght be able to help further.
Hm ok, it’s a kick start (not there yet) and a 389 device. With wifi. It seems it’s not yet a “commodity” device. You could try it, but I’d go with the addition of an extra meter of flow sensor in your pipe.
