Smart Meter Dashboard: Introduction
While browsing around some older posts on Hackaday, I came across a post about reading the broadcasted data from smart meters using a software defined radio (SDR). It got me wondering if my apartment’s meter broadcasted similar data. I knew that nobody physically checked the meter each month, so there had to be some kind of remote reporting capability. A few google searches later I found a timeline for my local power company’s installation of smart meters in the area, which roughly matched up with the date of the Hackaday article. On the off chance that the software would work with with my meter, I ordered a RTL-SDR supported tuner (a NooElec NESDR Nano 2+). A couple days later I had a successful test and a new project to try.
I’m wanting to make a dashboard to display a few stats to help track (and maybe reduce) my home power usage:
- Current usage rate (kWh/m)
- Final estimated bill based on historical rates and usage
- Current estimated bill since last reading
- Usage for the last 24 hours (by hour)
- Usage for the last 30 days (by day)
There will be a follow up post soon as I’ve already done some work on collecting and recording the data. Posts on the dashboard creation will follow as time allows.