How to Realize Remote Reading for Smart Water Meters?
The R&D and market application of smart water meters is to solve the problems of complex installation environment of water meters and time-consuming and labor-intensive manual on-site meter reading. It is an inevitable product of the development of the information age. When everyone understands the smart water meter, they are usually attracted by its functions such as remote reading of water consumption, online payment, accurate metering, and remote valve control, which bring great convenience to users. But do you know how the remote smart water meter realizes these remote meter reading functions?
To figure out this problem, we must first know that a cloud platform system is needed to realize the intelligent function of the smart water meter. Use the Internet to build a bridge for information interaction between water meters and meter reading systems. Smart water meters store information, and the system reads water meter data independently, and then integrates and displays the data information that users want.
Next, we need to understand how the water meter and the meter reading system communicate. Three common communication methods are mainly introduced here, namely M-Bus, NB-IoT, and LoRa communication.
The first M-Bus wired meter reading solution. This solution is composed of data converter, M-Bus water meter and concentrator. The data of the water meter is converted by the converter, then collected by the concentrator, and finally the meter reading system collects the data, that is, a meter reading task is completed. This solution has the advantages of low price of water meter hardware, strong reliability, fast data transmission speed, and stable communication signal.
The second is the NB-IoT wireless meter reading solution. After the user puts the smart water meter with its own NB module into operation, the water meter will automatically search for the NB-IoT base station, and then the meter reading system will receive the reported data collected by the NB module. The entire communication network does not require other third-party equipment, and the meter reading speed is fast. This solution is suitable for application environments with scattered owners, long distances, and high requirements for real-time data.
The last is LoRa wireless communication. LoRa is a wireless communication technology dedicated to long-distance and low power consumption, without the need for communication lines, and the water meter is powered by a built-in battery without power lines. With the LINSHU intelligent debugging module, the communication can be done by hanging the meter. It has the characteristics of small size, low power consumption, long transmission distance and strong anti-interference ability.
The remote meter reading can be realized thanks to the ever-changing science and technology. When we gradually understand various technologies, we will find that the realization of remote meter reading by smart water meters is not so mysterious, and we understand that it is just a process of transmitting information through the network.
