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My water company (Vitens) is placing a new water meter at my place next week (monday)
Does anybody know what water meters they use nowadays? I am curious if there some way to interface with it.

What is the reason they are replacing your current meter?

Let me quote the letter (in Dutch):

"Vitens heeft bij u een watermeter geplaatst, waarmee uw waterverbruik wordt gemeten. Op basis van de opgenomen meterstand stuurt Vitens u jaarlijks een afrekening.
Het is dus belangrijk dat de watermeter goed functioneert omdat u tenslotte het juiste verbruik wilt betalen. Daarom vervangen wij periodiek de watermeter. Uiteraard zijn hieraan voor u geen kosten verbonden."

Guess I am getting a smart meter?

That would be nice.
When do you plan to start plugging in to it? Monday evening, before dinner?

Hehe, you know me too well

I'm not so sure, could be just a replacement because its old?
Water companies are not that far regarding smart metering...........

I have had the same letter. They just replace the old one with a newer type. No way I could get them in replacing it with a meter with a sensor option. Not even when I paid for it myself.

Joost

The standard water meters they install in belgium have a sensor option, i just had to remove the plastic cap and insert a Allegro A3214 Hall-Effect sensor (1€)
Check your new meter, when installed, if it has a tiny plastic cap somewhere, and if it has, have fun measuring your water consumption.

Edit:

I went to the vitens website and they had an image of the meter i have:


If they install this one, take a look at the left side, you see a small black plastic cap, remove it and insert a hall-effect switch in there.

So, today they replaced the meter. The new model is a sensus 620. meterwisseling.nl/UserFiles/File/Downlo ... rs/620.pdf
I seem to be lucky! There is a pulse counter available, the HRI pulse module (sensusesaap.com/files/ls_8100_int_hri_0 ... i_0001.pdf)
Now let's see if I can get one of these units.. for a reasonable price..

Thats good News for you, perhaps you dont need the extra device.
Devices like rfxmeter can be connected i guess. perhaps the connector is not standard...

I did some more digging.. first I thought it might be possible with a hall effect sensor/reed contact. But it seems the HRI unit really reads the counters, from the manual:

The dial of the 620 meter is equipped as standard
with a pointer able to activate the HRI sensor.
The HRI reproduces the mechanical register index
exactly, by detecting the direction of rotation of
the pointer. It provides a reliable pulse- and data
interface for remote and mobile readout. The
HRI can be fitted in the field on already installed
Sentinel water meters or ordered factory fitted to
the meter.

So I think I need the interface, which is 100 euro's including shipping.. hmmm.. Guess I'll double check with a hall effect sensor first..

To follow up on this, I've created my own sensor for this watermeter.
Right now it's still in a breadboard phase, I will post some pictures later. The idea is to detect the amount of reflection from a CNY70 reflective sensor to determine the color that is passing (silver reflects more light then red)
Total component cost was like €10,- Including a Atmega 328 chip.

Anyone else has this watermeter?
Here's some sample output from the software:



I still have to crosscheck how good this method is after a couple of days though...

So you dont need the extra expensive interface
Thats good!

Indeed, and I had some fun along the way!
The reason I'm wondering if anyone else has this watermeter, is whether it would be interesting to replicate my setup...

Nice job! I'd like to see some pics