Hi,
so basically I’m looking for a cheaper Moen Flo alternative. A water meter and shutoff valve combo that is installed on the pipe (not on the water meter) that works with Home Assistant. The Flo it ridiculously expensive in my opinion. I’m trying to find something at least 5x cheaper.
The water meter is the priority. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a combo unit. For shutoff I can just use a cheap Tuya shutoff motor, like this. I already have one lying around.
I’ve looked at all the cheaper options listed here, but all of them are attached to the existing meter itself, and either monitor turning of that little wheel, measure by magnets, or just do ocr. Unfortunately, I can’t use any of those. The meter is far away from the house inside a shaft in the ground, so I won’t get any wireless signal. I could potentially solve that with a range extender. However, the main problem is that the water company takes readings manually, so I can’t attach some device that will obstruct the view… 21st century… I know…
So something that is installed on the pipe would be a much more elegant solution. The Flo looks great, but I’m not spending $500+ on this.
Ideally, it would be battery powered, since I’m not a huge fan of putting a live wire in a outdoor water shaft, but that is probably asking too much…