Smart Utility Meters

Background
Electric
    Analog Electric Meter - Single Stator Watt-hour Meter
    Digital Electric Meter
    Second Smart Electric Meter
    Two Tier Smart Electric Meter
    Inside a PG&E SmartMeter
    Repeater
Gas
Water, Water Leak, My Meter, Hose Bib Digital Water Meter
Propane
References
Links

Background

The failure of Tesla's electric power system is probably due to the fact that it contained no provision to meter the users. Some utility companies do not use meters, for example the Sacramento, California water utility, since they feel the added cost of the meters, reading the meters and additional billing complexity does not make economic sense. But for most applications metering the usage is the common practice.

The motivation for making this page was the recent mail from Pacific Gas & Electric saying they would be installing a "smart meter" in the very near future.

Note smart meters (Wiki) can be applied to any metered utility such as: electricity, gas, water, liquid nitrogen, etc.

There are different flavors of Automatic Meter Reading (Wiki AMR).

Types of Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) Systems

Walk By

In the simplest "walk by" system the meter can be queried by a nearby reading radio. But this requires a meter reader to get close to the meter, but it's easier and faster than reading the meter using your eyes and writing down the reading. The reading is automatically recorded along with the meter ID information. Also some systems, like for water, record hourly use rather than just the total. Note that the meter reader does not to remove the lid from the pit saving a lot of time. The meter only transmits the data after getting a query from the meter reading radio. The transmitter in the meter is low power (100 milli watts?) since it only needs to cover on the order of about 50 feet. 902 to 928 MHz ISM band My water meter.

Fixed Network

A more capable system used a fixed network where the meter communicates with the network so no meter reader is needed, but when a new meter is added it might get complicated if the network is very heavily loaded. Repeaters are needed since there's no central point where a single antenna can see all the meters. There are different protocols for this type of system, in one the central computer will query each meter in turn. The transmitter in the meter has more power (1 Watt?) and is a spread spectrum type to minimize interference with other systems. 902 to 928 MHz ISM band

Mesh Network

The current hot technology is the mesh network (Wki). The idea is that each meter is a node in the mesh and receives signals from nearby meters and relays them to other meters that are closer to a collection point. This allows easily adding and removing nodes. The problem in my case is that the meter can not hear or talk to the closest neighbor's meter so can not join any network. A meter reader comes once per month (he came today) and reads the meter using the optical link with a belt mounted device.. You'd think he would have an RF device that would allow reading the meter as he drove by in the street, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 902 to 928 MHz ISM ban. Might be my electric meter except I'm too far from the neighboring meters to form a mesh, so read manually just like the prior meter.

Electric

Also see: GE Portable Induction Test Meter Type 1B5Y (forcalibrating electric meters) & Sangamo Electric Meter

Analog Electric Meter - Single Stator Watt-hour Meter

Digital Electric Meter

17 Dec 2013 -Got this email from PG&E today, in response to my query to see why I could not see any on line indication that there was a smart meter here.

"We sincerely apologize; however, at this time your meter is not being read remotely. Pacific Gas and Electric Company will establish a remote connection with your meter once the SmartMeter Network is in place. This usually takes 60 to 90 days. Keep your eyes open for communications from Pacific Gas and Electric Company that will help you take advantage of this new technology."

I thought they would not install a Smartmeter if there was no way for it to communicate in the direction of downtown, but they did. I'm guessing that once they've installed a bunch of them the next step will to make a connection diagram, i.e. have a computer in a vehicle drive around and query meters and see what other meters they can talk to. This would be needed to determine how many and where to install pole mounted units to allow all the meters in this area to communicate with the rest of the system.

I'm guessing that the guy who used to read my meter manually now can just drive down the street and probably not even slow down to read the meter.

meter reads: 1178. Last month usage was 652 kWh, but that last couple of weeks has been the coldest in the past 20 years. There is snow on the ground that's over a week old, that's never happened before.

Installed 16 Nov 2013 (Saturday). If I refused the installation there would be a one time charge like $50 and a monthly charge of $10.
The SmartMeters have a wireless module, typically made by Silver Springs Networks (Wiki), that receives and transmits in both the:
902 to 928 MHz ISM band (peak power out 1.5 to 2.5 Watts) and in the (for meter to meter mesh networks)
2.40 to 2.45 GHz Wifi band (peak power out about 0.1 to 0.2 Watts). (for the HAN mesh network)
Note both these bands are in the Industrial, Scientific & Medical (ISM) frequency allocations (Wiki).
My guess is that the Wifi is to support both the Home Area Network (Wiki).
It's not clear which frequency my meter is using. As far as I can tell the meter transmits once each 15 minutes and with a duty cycle that's way below 1 percent so it's not an easy thing to catch it transmitting.

Installation by Wellington Energy (see their web page for the hand held optical interface test set).
If you know the name of the test set let me know. It's something like TruGPSE01

26 Dec 2013 - A technician came to confirm that the meter was provisioned correctly. He said they are doing that to some percent of all Smartmeters that were installed, but it also may be related to my asking PG&E why it wasn't working.

It's possible that the WiFi radio is for ZigBee (Wiki). If that's the case it would be for the HAN.

The technician who installed the smart meter had a hand holdable test instrument on his tool belt. It had two cylindrical protrusions which I'm guessing are an ANSI C12.18 Type 2 Optical Port. (Fig 4)
This my works with the two horizontal dots just below the lower right corner of the LCD. The left (darker) is the IR LED and the right (clear) one is the photo transistor
One IR LED pulse for each Kt (1.0 Wh in this case) in calibration mode. Each pulse is about 25 ms wide.

The PG&E My Energy page is not updated to show any SmartMeter data until a full billing cycle after the installation (about 30 days).

Fig 1 Analog meter just after being removed.
Total reading since house was built: 80215 kWh
Year of construction about 1992 or about 3800 kWh per year
or about 300 kWh per month.

The appearance of an analog electric meter is the same when the power is off and when the power is on if there is no load or a small load. That's to say if the disk is moving very slowly it would be hard to tell if PG7E was on or off.
Fig 2 Smart electric meter just after being installed
Model: GE I-210+
Wireless: Silver Springs Networks NIC 314 (Wiki)

mfg date 09/13
CL 200 -> 200 Amps
240 VAC
3W -> 3 Wire
ANSI C12.10 Form No. FJ2S
TA30 -> Test at 30 Amps
Test constant (Kt) 1.0 Watt hour
Fig 3 LCD

1 Main kWh display cycles between:
     segment check: -88888 and the
   kWh total.
     "ERROR" will alternate with the kWh total if there's a problem
2 Watt hour disk emulator - use stopwatch to time between
    --- and then ---.
Wh = Kh (10.0 Wh) * Number of rotations
3 subsidiary display cycles through:
     247 Volts (voltage of mains feed 240 is nominal)
     on     (maybe shows off if you don't pay your bill)
     Ad1 (maybe showing rate structure)
     2.28 kW showing current energy usage

     I expect the area 3 display will change when the meter has
     been programmed to other electric rate schedules or
     if time of use billing is implemented.
     Note: There is NO clock shown now.
PG&E: Reading the SmartMeter
The lower right "Delivered ->" shows energy direction

Fig 4 Video of LCD display cycle
The flickering may be caused by the Terralux flashlight since it does not show up in other videos.

Fig 5 Green LED blinking on right side

Fig 6 PG&E power shut down, LCD is blank
This is important to know when to turn of generator and reconnect house to PG&E.

Photo when the new meter is installed.
There are a number of motivations on the part of P.G. & E. to install these meters
July 20, 2006 CPUC approves PG&E smart meters -

Conduct remote meter reading
Pinpoint outages
Remote turn off/turn on capability
Provide more accurate billing
Prevent energy theft
Enable two-way communication to each customer's meter
Offer time varying rates to all of its customers
Accurately forecast load and identify load centers

Second Smart Electric Meter

2021 October 6 PG&E changed out my old smart electric meter because it had "gone blank", i.e. quit working. A few weeks ago, on two separate occasions, PG&E sent letters telling me that they would be shutting down my house to change a pole, but canceled the first scheduled day and never showed up for the second day. But I was told this was unrelated to my meter failure.

Fig 1 the second smart electric meter

The first smart electric meter was installed Sep 2013, so lasted just over 8 years.

Fig 1 the second smart electric meter

Two Tier Smart Electric Meter

This is not my meter, but belongs to a friend. It's setup for Time Of Use metering.
Landis Gyr (Wiki) (Now owned by Toshiba) model: Focus AXR SD

Fig 1 Line Voltage

I expect that the triangle with two dots is the
ANSI C12.18 Type 2 Optical Port.
Fig 2 TOU 01 total kWh

Fig 3 TOU 02 total kWh

Fig 4 "CLS" Clear Screen?

Fig 5 *** All LCD segments on

Inside a PG&E SmartMeter

Got a PG&E SmartMeter on eBay.

Socket Wiring

The top two lugs are line input from overhead or underground AC mains.
The bottom two lugs are line output to house.
The function of the center two lugs is not clear. They are insulated from each other and from the two line terminals.
Let me know about the center two lugs.

Fig 1

Fig 2 Line lugs at top, ??? at center,
and output at bottom
Fig 3 Rods connect Line toOutput.
That way the current transformers
can be wound without a gap.
Fig 4 LCD board at front
two radio modems just behind front

Fig 5 other side of radio modem board has
sensing circuitry and power supply
Fig 6 Line lugs at top
Fig 7 Line lugs at left
Fig 8
Black spaghetti tube = Black Line
Yellow spagetti tube - Yellow Line
Both current transformers go to a
single 4 terminal connector.

Fig 9 Back of combined radio board
and Front panel board.
Fig 10 Radio board on top,
Front panel board on bottom.
Fig 11
Fig 12

Fig 13
Fig 14 The current transformers connect
directly to this display board as well as
the voltage on the thin red wires.
Fig 15
Ant 1:
Ant 2:
Fig 16 reassembled w/o plastic frame

Fig 17

PG&E Green Book.pdf, 976 pages, Section 5 Electrical Metering -

Repeater

Although the smart electric meter was installed in Nov 2013, it was not until Jan 2015 that it worked. The problem was the mesh network could not reach to the collection center. To fix that PG&E installed a repeater on a power pole on a ridge line that has a very long line of sight.

Since PG&E already has a center tapped 240 VAC transformer on the pole (120-0-120) they wired up the 120 VAC power to the repeater directly to the transformer.
Green and white to the center tap and black to the right side 120 VAC terminal.
The local woodpeckers like this pole.

Also see my telephone pole web page and Ukiah birds.

Electronic Wireless Meter Reading

The meters have 2-way wireless connectivity. It may be Blue-tooth (Wiki) if so the max range is on the order of 100 m (300 feet). The idea is that the meters can use neighboring meters to form a mesh network and so in populated areas the communication between meters and a node can cover a large area. At the node the communication is transferred to a cell phone network and from there to the P.G. & E. central office. In my case I'm in the forest and I very much doubt there are any neighbors within range (in addition to the distance there's hills and trees). So I expect them to mount a lot of nodes on telephone poles in hope's of getting a cell phone signal (my cell phone only has 1 or 2 bars inside by house). It may be that the data is low speed and can be reliable at signal levels lower than would be needed for a voice connection.

There are some who are worried about the radiation and it's effect on their health, but as far as I know there's data that says it's harmless and no data that shows a problem.

Accuracy

There was a CPUC investigation into the accuracy of the smart meters based on radical increases in monthly bills. The meters turn out to be more accurate than the analog meters. The rate increases came from billing changes.

Frequent Reading

The meters are read once per hour.

Orwell's Big Brother

By monitoring your utility usage big brother can get some insight if you're home and if so you level of activity and even what that activity is. For example if you get up in the middle of the night and open the refrigerator door someone can tell that's what's going on.

Internet access to usage

I expect you will be able to go to a web page and see your electrical usage in the reading time interval step size.
See Your Power in My Account - 17 Nov 2013 (Sunday) setup "My Energy" page with PG&E, but so far they are not showing any smart meter stuff.

My Usage/ My Rates: "We're in the process of collecting your usage and will provide you with a rate analysis as soon as we have 9 months of billed SmartMeter usage."

Energy Highlights
Select "My SmartMeter™" and view your Energy Highlights for quick facts on your monthly energy usage, like what your next bill is projected to be, and your average daily cost for energy.

Hourly/Daily Usage
Select "Usage" and view your Hourly/Daily usage to see your gas usage by the day or your electricity usage by the hour.

Energy Alerts
Select "My SmartMeter™" and sign up for Energy Alerts to receive your choice of a phone call, text message or e-mail letting you know you're projected to move into Tier 3 or higher during your billing cycle. You'll also receive additional alerts if you move into Tier 4 or Tier 5.

Time of Day Billing^{Note 1}

The smart meters contain a digital clock that's set over the network so can bill at different rates depending on the time of day. If you run an air conditioner at noon your bill is going to go way up with Time of Day (Time of Use (TOU)) billing. I specifically asked about time of use billing and my smart meter does NOT have it.

Off Peak Load Control^{Note 1}

The idea is that you could load a smart washing machine and let P.G. & E. turn it on when the load is light. In exchange you would get a discount in the electric rate you pay. For big loads like an air conditioner the utility may make a free installation of a smart switch to allow remote On-Off control. But for smaller loads it will be up to the resident to acquire a smart appliance.

Peak Load Control^{Note 1}

If you agree to this option some appliances, like air conditioners, furnaces, clothes dryers, etc. would have an Off function that could be activated when the system load is high. There would be some limit on how long they could keep the appliance turned off. I've heard that some electric utilities have smart thermostats where the utility can change the set point temperature so save energy. In exchange the electricity used would be at a lower cost.

House On-Off

If you didn't pay your bill they could just turn off your whole house. When moving into a new house they could turn it on after a phone conversation were you setup your account.

Power Outage Detection

When there's a power outage P.G. & E. would notice at the next scheduled reading of your meter. If that was many times an hour they would know right away, I've heard the meter reports every 15 minutes.

There have been a few power outages since the electric meter was connected to the mesh network, and in all cases the response time seemed to be faster than with the old phone in system. I'm sure they know which houses are out and that tells them the most likely location of the problem.

Power Outage Mapping

Once they know there's an outage at some address I'm sure they will have a search procedure where they will query nearby houses based on the wiring of the grid, location of fuses, etc. and will quickly know the exact location of the problem. This will allow dispatching a repair crew instead of sending out a scout to find the problem.

Prevent Energy Theft

I'm guessing that this is about messing with an analog electric meter by using a strong magnet. The smart meter does not use magnetic fields like the analog meter and so is immune to this hack.

Home Area Network (HAN) (Wiki)

The idea is to have various appliances connected to a network including the smart utility meters so that they can be turned on remotely in such a way as to use energy when it's not in demand.
This network will not be a normal home WiFi type network because each appliance needs it's own URL and there are not enough of them. But it can operate using WiFi protocol.

Utility Inter-tie

The analog meter will run backwards if you are putting power back into the grid. This was not a recommended practice by P.G. & E., they wanted you to have a separate meter just for that purpose. It may be that the smart meters are designed to automatically accommodate feeding power into the grid. The most common system is a solar panel array that drives a special load controller combined with the utility inter-tie AC inverter. A big advantage of this type of system is that it's does not need a bank of batteries that have limited life and are expensive.

I asked if my new smart meter would work with by utility intertie photovoltaic system and the answer was that I would need to order a special meter that could meter returned energy. But since my system can not overcome my use there's no need for a meter that can measure power going into the grid.

Note1 - For residential customers as of July 2011, you have the option to agree to time of day billing. But you can see that large commercial and industrial customers have no choice except to be on Time of Day billing.
CPUC - The Benefits of Smart Meters -

"Beginning on May 1, 2010, large commercial and industrial customers will be placed on new Peak Day Pricing rates. Customers on these rates will pay different prices for electricity depending on the time of day. On the few hottest days of the year, prices for electricity used between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. will increase further. However, PG&E will notify customers about these peak days one day in advance, so customers can plan accordingly. Beginning on November 1, 2011, medium and small commercial and industrial customers will begin moving to new Peak Day Pricing rates.

Residential customers may elect to enroll in PG&E’s Smart Rate program, which is designed to encourage customers to reduce their electricity usage at during peak periods. Participants in Smart Rate may also elect a bill protection option for the first full summer of participation."

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

ACEEE Study Finds “Smart Meters” Not Smart Enough to Slash Residential Power Use and Significantly Reduce Consumer Electric Bills
In order to save electricity an "In Home Display" or a real time internet feedback system is needed that not only lets you know how much electricity you're using but also can let you know how well you're doing in relation to similar houses that are nearby. For example if a neighbor has a similar house but a much newer air conditioning system how much difference is there in monthly bills for the same time period. Substitute and other appliance name and do the comparison.

Smart Gas Meter

ACLARA does networking and smart meter readers.

Meter in downtown Ukiah on retail building.

You can see that it's a applique that's been added between
the body and analog readout rather than a whole new meter.

Water

A friend's meter.

This is a Badger-Meter, Recordall Transmitter Register Model 25 for 5/8" or 3/4" lines. Reads in Gallons. The transmitter is marked Orion.
Note: there are 4 digits with white background and 3 digits with black background. The rightmost digit is the 10 gallon test circle so does not move.
That leaves 4 + 2 = 6 digits that are live meaning the maximum reading is 9,999,999 or 10 million gallons.

The ideal location for the Orion RF (902 - 915 MHz ISM Wiki) transmitter would be in the lid of the utility box rather than below it for better transmit range.

Badger-Meter also makes an In Home Display that might work with this meter. That would be great for detecting leaks. But that might require repositioning the Orion transmitter so a stronger signal could get to the house? It turns out that the In Home Display only works if the utility company is using a Wi-Fi network to read the meters (i.e. if there's a Wi-Fi signal to feed to In Home Display. But Millview Water has not installed the smart meters with the antennas above ground and has not built in relay infrastructure needed, the meter reader still needs to get within a few yards of the meter in order for his laptop to get the wireless signal.).

The meter uses a piezo spark generator to send a high voltage pulse to the Orion transmitter. That may be it's source of power or it may have a long life battery?

4868566 Flexible piezoelectric switch activated metering pulse generators, Badger Meter, Inc., Sep 19, 1989, 340/870.3, 324/157, 310/339
                Called a "High Resolution" meter in patent 5298894.
5298894 Utility meter transponder/antenna assembly for underground installations, Badger Meter, Inc., Mar 29, 1994, 340/870.02, 343/872, 340/870.01, 343/719, 324/74
                This is a walk by automatic meter reading system.

5476731 Field-replaceable battery pack and method for underground installations, Badger Meter, Inc., Dec 19, 1995, 429/97, 429/98, 429/99, 429/100
6300907 Antenna assembly for subsurface meter pits, Badger Meter, Inc., Oct 9, 2001, 343/700.0MS, 343/846, 343/719, 343/850
7626511 AMR transmitter and method for both narrow band and frequency hopping transmissions, Badger Meter, Inc., Dec 1, 2009,
              340/870.02, 340/870.18, 370/310, 370/338, 340/870.01

Water Leak

The water bill was way too high so looking for a leak.
Here's a plot supplied by the water company:

My interpretation of the above plot:

The spikes are the irrigation timers because those are set to open once every other day for an hour.
The spikes appear to alternate where one is high the next is lower the next is higher and so on.
These spikes are mostly over 170 gallons and the time between the high and high (or low and low) is every other day, the same as the timer programming.
That amounts to over 5,000 gallons in a month, far exceeding normal total water usage, so a major problem.
Although the actual number of gallons varies a little that's probably due to changes in water pressure.
So there's two different irrigation circuits that each have a leak.
The drip irrigation emitters are about 1 gallon/hour and the timers are set to be on for one hour every other day.
A typical drip string has maybe 30 emitters, or should use 30 gallons in the hour and do that once every other day, but the actual usage is 4 or 5 times too high.
There are two kinds of problems with drip: First the end of the 5/8" tube opens or second, the emitter or 1/4" line opens. Since there are a lot of the 1/4" emitters and lines these easily get broken. Since there was a deer (although a fence is supposed to keep them out) in the exact place the emitters are located, i.e. at the Rose bushes, it's probable that a deer has broken many of the 1/4" lines.

Along the bottom there's a pedestal keeping the usage from going to zero and these are constant leaks.

These are the classical leaks, things like a toilet that never stops running, a faucet that always is dripping, a garden hose on all the time, etc.
I think these small leaks are what's keeping the curves from actually touching the zero use line, but instead being a few gallons above it.

On very hot days (the plot includes many days that are in the area of 100 to 110 deg F) the auto fill for a swimming pool will be adding water with a long time constant, i.e. it may take many days to make up the evaporation since the valve is identical to those used to fill toilet tanks. ~~This may explain the pedestals~~.

A rough estimate for normal evaporation would be 1/4" per day. If the pool was 16' x 40' that's 640 square feet times 1/48' of evaporation is 13.3 cu ft or 100 gallons/day.
If the meter sample rate is once peer hour then 4 gallons/hour would account for evaporation.

It turns out that one drip irrigation line uses 10 gallons in 2-1/2 minutes and a different line uses 10 gallons in 3-1/2 minutes, this is consistent with the spikes on the plot.

This brings up the idea that while drip irrigation conserves water when the system is new, it can waste more water than it saves when something goes wrong.
I've experienced a couple of occasions where the end stop on a 1/2' or 5/8" line opened up, wasting a lot of water. If 1/8" line is used to feed an emitter it's very common for the line to get pulled out of the main line by an animal. It's also common for an emitter to break creating a water fountain (if it's pointing up) but if it's pointing any other direction you don't see that there's a problem. So for the most reliable drip irrigation system only use large (1/2" or 5/8" line) and only install the emitters pointing up so you can see when there's a leak. Do NOT bury the system since that will hide problems.

My Meter

Because my friend has strange numbers on her bill, I checked my bill and for Aug 2014 it shows:
Last year 23
This year 3355
But there are no units of measure.

I looked at my water meter and it's been changed to a smart meter and they never told me they did that.

The radio transponder is made my American Meter Co.

Analog Water Meter

Analog water meter reads in cubic feet.
Notice the 4 white background digits are hundreds of cubic feet (748 gal/unit)
These are the units on my old water bills.

The rate in 2008 was $1.29/100cu ft.
There are other items on the bill that are fixed amounts related to the meter and cost of capital.

In 2014 the rate is $0.00192 per gallon

The old rate $1.29/100cu is equivalent to $1.29/748 gal or $0.001725/gal
So the new rate about 11% higher.

June 9, 2014
Reading shown is:
1057|780|1 (format:   WWWW|BB|P)
which is 105,778 Gallons since the meter was at zero.
If the typical monthly usage was 3355 gallons the meter was installed about 35 months ago,
or October 2011 is when it was installed.

Note the new meter reads in gallons and the prior analog meter read in hundreds of cubic feet.
The difference is the new meter reads 748 times higher numbers.
That's why the new meter has 4 digits with a white background,
i.e. the units on the white background are hundreds of gallons.
The billing rate needs to change to account for the change in units and that in turn depends on
how the meter is being read.

My current bill has the numbers for previous and present all jammed together like this:
00105347001056828 which is a 17 digit number not easy to divide into two numbers.

The Model 25 has 4 white digits, 2 black digits that change and the pointer which takes 10 gallons to make a full circle. So my readings are as shown below.
WWWW is the white background, BB is the black background and P is the pointer.
format:   WWWW|BB|P
Previous: 1053|47|0 GallonsPresent: 1056|82|8 Gallons
--------------------------------------------
Difference:    3358 Gallons in 30 days or 111 Gal/day. ($ 6.44 for the water)
The bill shows a difference of 3355 Gallons, why?

The rate is $0.00192 per gallon, or 0.192 cents per gallon, or about 20 cents per hundred gallons.

April 16, 2024
Battery is near dead in radio. Replacing both the radio and meter.
New unit has connector between radio and meter so next time only the radio will be replaced.

Hose Bib Digital Water Meter

Got this as a way of checking for leaks.
Top and bottom reading to 999.9 Gallons or Liters.

RainWise RW-9FM Digital FLow Meter

Turbine

CR2032 Battery

5 Gallon Bucket
11-1/4" dia at top
10"       dia at bottom
average diameter: 10.625
Bucket: 14" tall
Fill to 13" for 5 Gal. (1155 Cu In) Ridge at fill line.

5 Gal Bucket filled to 5.0 Gal

Meter after filling bucket reads 4.4 Gal
112% error.
Leaks.

Instructions

Press left button to zero top reading.
Press and hold right button to zero top & bottom reading.
Press and hold left button until Gal or LIT flashes, then press right button to toggle between GAL and LIT, then press left button to set.

Propane

An empty tank is one of the problems with having propane for heating a house. With the cold snap we are having in Jan 2023 the tank can run out if the local company does not drive by and check the level.

One way that should help is to add a Cell Phone connected tank monitor, like those made by Otodata. But even this can fail resulting in a empty tank. If the delivery man arrives and the tank is empty a pressure/leak test is mandatory. The gas will not be turned on after the tank passes the test and is filled because all the pilot lights will need to be relighted. If you are not home when the propane is delivered the tank may be full but the gas turned off at the tank. This is not a problem if you do not have any pilot lights or have automatic pilot lights, but if you have old fashioned pilot lights they need to be manually lit.

PS Another problem with propane is using it for an emergency generator. When the tank runs dry in a emergency it can take months to get more propane. Even now (Jan 2023) when we hare having an extreme cold snap the propane companies are rationing how much they pump to keep all their customers with some propane.

The Nee-Vo App or an app customized for your propane provider, like FerrellFill (Google Play or App Store)can be used.
The App also has provisions for Min and Max Level Alerts as well as Notification when tank filled. A running plot can also be seen (center icon at bottom).

Fig 1

Fig 2
Fig 3 Three ranges:
0 to 25% in the red - need or order more
30 to 70% direct reading
72 to 94% the amount depends on the temperature.
FerrellFill App

The Nee-vo app is on the Google Play & App Store. Fill out the form. When adding your tank the 9 character code is printed in the upper right of the label. Use upper case without any dashes.
If you have Ferrell Gas you can use the Ferrellfill app. BUT . . .
as of March 2023, maybe because of the unseasonable cold, they are not refilling tanks around 20%, but rather letting the tank get very low (mine is not at 7%). I tried to use the call customer service part of the Ferrellfill app and it did NOT work. This is because my land line phone is registered to my account which requires going through a qualification round of questions then being transferred to a "customer service professional". But instead of that was transferred to the que waiting for a "customer service professional". But . . . the que is screened for incoming phone numbers that are not associated with current accounts, so I got transferred to the qualification round of questions. As you can see this is an endless loop going nowhere.

I've been told that if you wait for all of the phone options the last one is to speak to a human, so DO NOT ANSWER the phone tree questions honestly, but rather try pressing 0 or waiting for that last option.

WO2020236225 Methods and systems for a wireless monitoring system for a tank, Otodata Wireless Network, 2020-11-26, -

References

Ref 1. Flipper Zero Kills Smart Meter?? - Reverse Engineering News - June 13th 2023 - Debunking the claim - he has many Smart Meter videos.

Links

Vehicle-to-grid - only works with plug-in electric cars that have the proper software, not the older Prius.

http://www.ekmmetering.com - self installed utility meters

Youtube - DEFCON 20: Looking Into The Eye Of The Mete r - Optical Port: ANSI Type 2 Optical Port,

Smart Meter RF Radiation Assessment

YouTube: Brian Friesen:

Let's Teardown - Residential Smart power meter - PG&E SmartMeter -

Recessim.com YouTube: Recessim - Smart Meter Hacking - Introduction

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Fig 1 Analog meter just after being removed. Total reading since house was built: 80215 kWh Year of construction about 1992 or about 3800 kWh per year or about 300 kWh per month. The appearance of an analog electric meter is the same when the power is off and when the power is on if there is no load or a small load. That's to say if the disk is moving very slowly it would be hard to tell if PG7E was on or off.	Fig 2 Smart electric meter just after being installed Model: GE I-210+ Wireless: Silver Springs Networks NIC 314 (Wiki) mfg date 09/13 CL 200 -> 200 Amps 240 VAC 3W -> 3 Wire ANSI C12.10 Form No. FJ2S TA30 -> Test at 30 Amps Test constant (Kt) 1.0 Watt hour	Fig 3 LCD 1 Main kWh display cycles between: segment check: -88888 and the kWh total. "ERROR" will alternate with the kWh total if there's a problem 2 Watt hour disk emulator - use stopwatch to time between --- and then ---. Wh = Kh (10.0 Wh) * Number of rotations 3 subsidiary display cycles through: 247 Volts (voltage of mains feed 240 is nominal) on (maybe shows off if you don't pay your bill) Ad1 (maybe showing rate structure) 2.28 kW showing current energy usage I expect the area 3 display will change when the meter has been programmed to other electric rate schedules or if time of use billing is implemented. Note: There is NO clock shown now. PG&E: Reading the SmartMeter The lower right "Delivered ->" shows energy direction
Fig 4 Video of LCD display cycle The flickering may be caused by the Terralux flashlight since it does not show up in other videos.	Fig 5 Green LED blinking on right side	Fig 6 PG&E power shut down, LCD is blank This is important to know when to turn of generator and reconnect house to PG&E.

Fig 1	Fig 2 Line lugs at top, ??? at center, and output at bottom	Fig 3 Rods connect Line toOutput. That way the current transformers can be wound without a gap.	Fig 4 LCD board at front two radio modems just behind front
Fig 5 other side of radio modem board has sensing circuitry and power supply	Fig 6 Line lugs at top	Fig 7 Line lugs at left	Fig 8 Black spaghetti tube = Black Line Yellow spagetti tube - Yellow Line Both current transformers go to a single 4 terminal connector.
Fig 9 Back of combined radio board and Front panel board.	Fig 10 Radio board on top, Front panel board on bottom.	Fig 11	Fig 12
Fig 13	Fig 14 The current transformers connect directly to this display board as well as the voltage on the thin red wires.	Fig 15 Ant 1: Ant 2:	Fig 16 reassembled w/o plastic frame
Fig 17

Analog Water Meter	Analog water meter reads in cubic feet. Notice the 4 white background digits are hundreds of cubic feet (748 gal/unit) These are the units on my old water bills. The rate in 2008 was $1.29/100cu ft. There are other items on the bill that are fixed amounts related to the meter and cost of capital. In 2014 the rate is $0.00192 per gallon The old rate $1.29/100cu is equivalent to $1.29/748 gal or $0.001725/gal So the new rate about 11% higher.
	June 9, 2014 Reading shown is: 1057\|780\|1 (`format:` `WWWW\|BB\|P)` which is 105,778 Gallons since the meter was at zero. If the typical monthly usage was 3355 gallons the meter was installed about 35 months ago, or October 2011 is when it was installed. Note the new meter reads in gallons and the prior analog meter read in hundreds of cubic feet. The difference is the new meter reads 748 times higher numbers. That's why the new meter has 4 digits with a white background, i.e. the units on the white background are hundreds of gallons. The billing rate needs to change to account for the change in units and that in turn depends on how the meter is being read. My current bill has the numbers for previous and present all jammed together like this: 00105347001056828 which is a 17 digit number not easy to divide into two numbers. The Model 25 has 4 white digits, 2 black digits that change and the pointer which takes 10 gallons to make a full circle. So my readings are as shown below. WWWW is the white background, BB is the black background and P is the pointer. `format:` `WWWW\|BB\|P` `Previous: 1053\|47\|0` `GallonsPresent:` `1056\|82\|8 Gallons` -------------------------------------------- `Difference: 3358` Gallons in 30 days or 111 Gal/day. ($ 6.44 for the water) The bill shows a difference of 3355 Gallons, why? The rate is $0.00192 per gallon, or 0.192 cents per gallon, or about 20 cents per hundred gallons.
	April 16, 2024 Battery is near dead in radio. Replacing both the radio and meter. New unit has connector between radio and meter so next time only the radio will be replaced.

Fig 1 Line Voltage I expect that the triangle with two dots is the ANSI C12.18 Type 2 Optical Port.	Fig 2 TOU 01 total kWh	Fig 3 TOU 02 total kWh
Fig 4 "CLS" Clear Screen?	Fig 5 *** All LCD segments on

RainWise RW-9FM Digital FLow Meter	Turbine	CR2032 Battery
5 Gallon Bucket 11-1/4" dia at top 10" dia at bottom average diameter: 10.625 Bucket: 14" tall Fill to 13" for 5 Gal. (1155 Cu In) Ridge at fill line.	5 Gal Bucket filled to 5.0 Gal	Meter after filling bucket reads 4.4 Gal 112% error. Leaks.