Showing posts with label mains electricity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mains electricity. Show all posts

Friday, 3 August 2012

Npower SmartPower Meter Hack

I got a free wireless electricity meter monitor from npower a few years ago and was thinking of ways in which to intercept the signals so I can add electricity usage to my house hack.

It looks like it's just a re-badged Prelude 1 made by GEO

This is a shame, as GEOs "Base Level" devices don't have any way of exporting the data, whereas their "intermediate" devices do.

I was inspired by this hack, but found that they were reading the LED light that flashes when the electricity meter records a unit of power going through it.

At first I thought I could physically open up the case and tap into it's circuitry, but this would be messy.

30 minutes of Googling later and I've found out it uses Wireless M-BUS as a radio standard between the battery powered receiver (attached to my mains electricity meter) and the little black npower reciever (with LCD display).

I doubt I can easily connect to the transmitter using M-BUS as the two devices are paired using encryption keys. Looks like I'll have to open up the wireless meter after all and see whats inside. Maybe there are some data tags I can connect to and steal the data that way, but it's unlikely.

Or I could just go and buy a new wireless electricity meter (defeating the point of a hack) or build one from scratch using an electricity clamp current meter. That would be more fun, but less of a hack and more of a build-from-scratch.

I've bookmarked everything and will shelve this plan for now :)