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.
There’s this project that’ll try to read your old water meter with a camera. All you need is a $10 dev board of the right model and a power supply near your water meter.
I considered this. But unfortunately my meter has a large dial that slowly passes over the numbers, obscuring it. Also it’s rusting really bad.
Your meter may have some kind of magnetic flux that occurs as the dial spins, which you might be able to sense and interpret.