Help Connect app with smart meter

[ryanaua]

I am working on a app that keeps track of how many electricity and gas your house uses , how many km your car uses and all the things that cause greenhouse gases. Now I am almost finished doing the part of the car. But I have a problem with the part of how many electricity and gas your house uses. I have an idea but I don't know if it will work and how to do it. For it to work you should have a smart meter and somehow the app will connect to the smart meter and the smart meter should send the data to the app but can this be done. If not is there any other way that an app could keep track of how many energy and gas you use without having to fill it in manually cause honestly I don't think anyone will do that.

 

[The_Chief]

It seems to me that the smartmeter would have to be programmed with a protocol that delivers real-time usage data to the phone (and the app). That would require, very likely, a rewrite of each smartmeter model's program... something that the manufacturers will most certainly refuse to do based on the time, effort and expense of doing so. It's a good idea, and I commend you for your ingenuity. But the execution of this idea will involve a whole lot of partnership with the manufacturers. If they plan to push out a software update anyway, you could ask them nicely to throw some code in there for your app. That's all I can think of at the moment

 

[psionandy]

As the Chief says... you're going to need (and to read) the documentation for the (different types?) of smart meter to see if they have a protocol built in for doing this. And if there is some way that you will be able to access it.

 

[AZgl1500]

The power company just this week installed a Smart Meter on my house so they can get meter readings via a computer.
you are not going to ever be allowed to know the protocol they use for that, as they don't want anyone messing with their stuff.

I bought a couple of induction coils with a LED monitor screen so that I can visually see how many amperes are being drawn from each leg of the incoming power line. Why? I have an Emergency Standby Generator of limited means.... if someone wants to add more power to the generator, I want to know if the additional current will overload the Generator's current breaker and trip it off.

I suppose, if you could use something like that to a monitor device, connected via WiFi to your app.... but that is all going to be Cost Prohibitive, and the average joe blo consumer won't pay for it.

 

[Slug]

you are not going to ever be allowed to know the protocol they use for that, as they don't want anyone messing with their stuff.

That surely depends on the company providing the service? I know of at least one in the UK that has a companion app which allows monitoring of consumption data.