Smart-home IoT solutions - Solving the analogue energy challenge with a brand new wireless solution

Every home with mains utility provision uses meters to measure consumption. Traditionally these meters were analogue devices, requiring manual meter readings.

To collect independent meter readings, a company official had to visit each property one by one – a costly and inefficient process. We recognised this process could be streamlined and made vastly more efficient if a suitable wireless solution was integrated into the meter. With clear requirements and significant demand from several utility providers, we started investigating a suitable long-range, low-power solution for the application.

However, existing wireless bands were crowded, did not offer the required range or were too costly and power-hungry to be used for this application.

Meeting market demands with a brand new solution

We worked with our partner supplier Skyworks to develop an entirely new wireless solution. A new high-performance front-end module was specified to make use of an old pager bandwidth, which could efficiently transmit and receive the tiny pieces of data from home meters to a central gateway. Mounted into a service vehicle, these gateways could connect to hundreds of modules at a time, allowing for thousands of meter readings to be gathered every day by simply driving through residential areas.

The new front-end module was the first of its kind in the marketplace and exactly met the needs of smart-metering applications. Since its launch, it has enabled multiple European utility companies to make considerable savings in time and resources, whilst providing their customers with a better user experience. The solution has since sparked further development, and we have continued to work with utility operators to deploy meters with additional Bluetooth® capabilities.

This will allow customers to connect to their energy meters using their smartphone or tablet to see their energy consumption in real-time, enabling them to take steps to reduce it, save on their energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint.

Turning great ideas into a customer success

Using our specialist technology portfolio and a pan-European team of technical experts, we have enabled thousands of designs to be realised, pushing many sectors and markets to new boundaries. The most important thing for us is to work with you to find the right solution for your requirements.

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