Monitoring a 'smart meter' - getting data out

Clement

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So I have an Eon smart meter and as far as I can see theres no way to easily get any usable data out of it and into my Domoticz home automation system.

Its Zigbee wireless signal is encrypted so I can't listen in with Zigbee gear and the usb port appears to be disabled.

I'm thinking the only options will be to either,

1) Try and periodically scrape some information off my account webpage

2) Point a webcam at the monitor and use OCR

Has anyone managed to get anything useful off their 'smart' meters ?
 
You'll have no luck in sniffing the HAN to pick up the zigbee readings - despite the scare stories it has not been cracked and as your meter will be SMETS1 they will use a proprietary protocol anyway.

Every time I have tried OCR for meter reading is has been universally cack, I did find one good system which 'watched' the last character and created a 'pulse' every time it changed - worked well until meter readers opened the box and it then went mental :)

I'm not sure on which electricity meter you will have from E.ON - either an L+G or Elster I guess - you may find it still has the old school flashing LED on it - you could use an LED capture device to record each flash - this will equate to an amount of energy. This is reliable as the LED reader usually shrouds the LED and prevents ambient light interfering.

Unfortunately until SMETS2 and compatible CADs become available widely I think you are probably stuck with option 1.
 

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