In this article we will look at my meter cupboard and the meters inside it. In future articles we will see how I used a microcontroller and some sensors to meter the meters (at the time of writing the electricity meter works). From left to right, these are the electricity, gas and water meter:

Electricity

The electricity meter is a relatively new one with a digital display and a flashing LED. This LED flashes one thousand times for each kWh consumed, i.e. once per Wh.

Gas

The gas meter doesn’t have a flashing LED or something comparable. There is hope however, because there is a reflective area on the digit ’6′ at the far right of the display, just left of the ‘m2′. It also looks like there is some magnetic material in one of the last two digits, so there are actually two ways to go with this meter.

Water

The water meter doesn’t have a flashing LED or a reflective area anywhere. It also doesn’t have a colored dial, which most commercial water meter detectors use. There is a tiny bit of hope in the hole below ‘PR’. Using a magnetic sensor, I found some fluctuation in the values, but nothing consistent so far. The orientation of the sensor seems to be important, so I will fiddle a bit more with this one in the future.