I tried my hand at rigging a proximity sensor to the water meter in my house. Sadly it doesn’t have the spinning magnet for the sensor to pick up.
I looked into other options for pulling data from the meter, but for each method, my very antiquated meter had a complication that would prevent it from working.
TLDR: Any recommendations for a home water meter that’s local and integrates well with home assistant?
I’m going to check with my water company first, but likely will remove the old meter and replumb a new “smart” meter and an automated shut off valve into the water supply. I believe the current meter is leftover from before the utility added new meters further upstream, so I’d rather get rid of the rusty piece of junk anyway.
Slightly old post, but hopefully still helpful to someone:
I managed to read out my analog water meter using the following ESP32 image: https://github.com/jomjol/AI-on-the-edge-device
It uses an ESP32-CAM module that actively reads your meter, using machine vision. The data is then published via MQTT. There are even some stl files for cases/mounts for common energy meters.
Once setup properly (with a 3D printed case from the provided stl files), I found it to work quite well. I have a pretty clean standard German water meter though.
I’m curious to hear what people come up with, as I quite fancy one too.
I would be wary of installing anything that actually touches the water that doesn’t come from an accredited manufacturer, however. As you don’t want Ali-express grade metal in your drinking water.
Which unfortunately means the options will be either expensive, or building off the back of other equipment currently installed (water meter, etc).
Incase you’re still searching, chech my other comment here.