Reasons Why IOT Water Meters (NB-IoT) Are Popular with Water Companies
The development of the Internet of Things technology has brought about technological changes. In recent years, the Internet of Things technology has been promoted and supported by all walks of life, including the water meter industry. The traditional water meter reading method is gradually becoming a thing of the past. The use of IoT water meters can not only avoid the time-consuming and laborious manual meter reading, poor timeliness, slow statistical data, long statistical data cycle, and low work efficiency but also accurately upload data to provide data support for scientific decision-making by water supply management departments.
With the gradual progress of science and technology, we are entering an era of intelligence. In the field of water management, the era of smart water supply metering has also arrived, and various smart water meters are its products. Among various smart water meters, the Internet of the Things water meter (NB-IoT) is undoubtedly the leader.
What is an IoT Water Meter?
It is a wireless remote water meter that using 4G/NB and other Internet of Thing’s technologies, the data collected by the smart water meter, such as flow, temperature, signal strength, etc., are transmitted to the meter reading platform through the operator's base station to realize data collection, remote control, fault alarm and other functions.
NB-IoT has three major characteristics:
1. Wide coverage. In the same frequency band, NB-IoT has a gain of 20dB compared to the existing network, which is equivalent to improving the coverage area by 100 times and can cover indoors and basements.
2. Multiple connections, one sector can support 100,000 connections, low latency sensitivity, ultra-low equipment cost, low equipment power consumption and optimized network architecture.
3. Low power consumption, the working model is mainly based on standby, and it will only be activated when data transmission is required, so the standby time and battery life of the terminal module can be as long as 10 years.
Its distinctive feature is that it can collect data wirelessly, transmit data to the management platform regularly every day, and can generate weekly data, monthly data, and other demand reports for managers to analyze and use. There is no need for drilling, wiring, and other operations during installation. As long as the meter is installed on the pipeline, it can be uniformly installed on the system platform for operation and use, which indirectly reduces the cost from construction to operation.
The IoT water meter transmits data to the management platform wirelessly, and the administrator can see the valve status, battery voltage, and signal value of the water meter in the background. The valve switch of the water meter can also be operated in the background. The remote meter reading function provided by the Internet of Things water meter (NB-IoT) allows the water supply department to completely bid farewell to the traditional manual meter reading mode in the past. Using the Internet of the Things water meter, the staff can quickly complete the meter reading just by sitting in the office. It saves time greatly and provides convenience for water supply managers.
