Advantages of NB-IoT smart water meters
Advantages of NB-IoT smart water meters
1. Easy to deploy, easy to maintain, easy to use
One of the driving forces for the promotion of intelligent water meters is to liberate manual meter reading. From the perspective of the water company, if the intelligent meter cannot meet the characteristics of easy installation, deployment and use, it is a bit of a loss to just transfer the manpower and financial resources of manual meter reading to deployment and operation and maintenance. For example, the self-organized network mode, although the communication speed is fast and the construction is convenient, but it does not have a unified standard, each enterprise operates independently, the operation and maintenance is difficult, the power consumption is high, and the installation location is required. Moreover, the interests of the water company cannot be guaranteed. Once there is a problem or bankruptcy of the networked enterprise, the operation and maintenance cannot be carried out, and the water company will suffer huge losses.
Furthermore, it is normal for a water company to use various water meters from multiple manufacturers. Because there is no unified standard, the multi-protocol access compatibility of various water meters is extremely poor, and it is impossible to achieve interconnection with each other. Due to the different meters, various supporting facilities emerge in an endless stream, and the diversity of water meter application layer protocols has led to the emergence of various business platforms. All these make the water company not only need to use the systems of different manufacturers, but also equip each meter with its own business platform when managing water meters, and even understand the entire networking process. It is conceivable how complicated the water company is in equipment maintenance and platform use under such circumstances!
Just imagine, if different manufacturers and water meters adopt a unified standard protocol, and all meter management and business platforms are integrated on one platform, not only can remote transmission be realized between water meters, but also no time-consuming and labor-intensive networking is required, let alone maintenance. With technology upgrades, the water division will be much more convenient in deployment, maintenance and use.
2. Quick use: universal, can be quickly promoted and used in the whole country
Regarding versatility, a simpler understanding is how to quickly promote it in the industry, across the country, and even globally at low or even zero cost after a successful pilot in one place. The rapid promotion requires three points: no need to rebuild the network, no need for professional maintenance, and future development.
For traditional remote water meters, rapid promotion is indeed difficult to achieve. Regardless of wired or ad hoc networks, the installation environment or use environment to operation and maintenance greatly limit its wide-ranging commercial promotion. For example, wired RS-485, the communication is stable and free from external interference, but wiring is required, and the usage scenarios are greatly limited. This is not suitable in an old residential area with complicated wiring, and installation in a new residential area will affect its overall Beautiful, future maintenance and upgrades are also very difficult.
Affordable: The cost input should be reduced, and the income should be improved
The Water Division is a non-profit organization and is very cost sensitive. The replacement of smart water meters is relatively large, and the investment in assets will be very high. Therefore, in order to achieve scale, the price of smart water meters must come down. As mentioned above, whether it is an ad hoc network or GPRS, they all require high investment.