An IOT-based smart water meter and water quality monitoring system

Abstract

NWSC is the main Public Water Utility Company in Uganda serving over 15 million customers. From the services it provides, it receives a number of complaints that mainly fall under water quality and water consumption in form of high-water bills. As a result, NWSC facilitates its staff in terms of accommodation and transport to carry out physical billing and investigate reported water quality complaints. Therefore the objective of this project is to develop an IoT based smart water meter and monitoring system that measures water consumption and monitors water quality in real time by measuring water turbidity and pH and assessing the measured values against thresholds and when measured values are above set thresholds, a notification is sent to both the user and NWSC informing them of poor water quality. The meter also studies the client’s usage habits and establishes a pattern and when their consumption goes higher than their average, it notifies them. Both the water quality and consumption values are uploaded to a thingspeak server where they are stored and analysed for easy understanding of the user hence this water meter is targeted for the urban consumer who has regular internet connectivity. The water meter is divided into two separate systems, the water quality system and the water consumption system that communicate with each other hence these two systems can be placed at different suitable locations in one’s home.