Monitor your Utility Meters // MeterMon and RTL-SDR

Guide, Home Assistant, Projects

Blacklist DVB Drivers

  1. Create new configuration file
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf

2. Paste in the following code

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

blacklist rtl2832

blacklist rtl2830

3. Save the file by pressing CTRL-X and then Y to save. Restart your box after this to ensure the drivers have been blacklisted

Install MeterMon with Docker

  1. Run the following command to pull the image.

If you are using a Raspberry Pi:

docker pull seanauff/metermon:arm

If you are using a workstation / x86_64 based system



docker pull seanauff/metermon:amd64

or


or
docker pull seanauff/metermon:latest

2. Then run the docker run command with the required MQTT information (make sure you replace everything in straight brackets [] ).

docker run -d -e MQTT_BROKER_HOST=[host] -e MQTT_USERNAME=[user] -e MQTT_PASSWORD=[host] -e RTL_TCP_SERVER=[server] seanauff/metermon:[tag]

3. This is the full MeterMon docker script

docker run -d -e MQTT_BROKER_HOST=[host] -e MQTT_USERNAME=[user] -e MQTT_PASSWORD=[host] -e RTL_TCP_SERVER=[server] -e RTLAMR_FILTERID=[meter1,meter2] -e METERMON_SEND_BY_ID=true -e RTLAMR_UNIQUE=false seanauff/metermon:[tag]

Setup Home Assistant

Gas Sensor from MQTT (sensors.yaml)

- platform: mqtt
  state_topic: "metermon/66154761"
  name: "Gas Meter Reading"
  qos: 0
  value_template: "{{ value_json.Consumption }}"
  unit_of_measurement: ft^3
  device_class: "gas"

Water Meter Sensor from MQTT (sensors.yaml)

- platform: mqtt
  state_topic: "metermon/31297404"
  name: "Water Meter Reading"
  qos: 0
  value_template: "{{ value_json.Consumption }}"
  unit_of_measurement: gal

Gas Sensor Conversion into Metric (templates.yaml) FIXED – SORRY

- sensor:
    name: Gas Energy Metric
    state: >-
      {{ states('sensor.gas_meter_reading')|float*0.0283168 }}
    icon: mdi:fire
    unit_of_measurement: "m³"
    state_class: "total_increasing"
    device_class: "gas"

Hack a “Virtual” Gas Meter into HA’s Energy Dashboard

            {
                "type": "gas",
                "stat_energy_from": "sensor.gas_energy_metric",
                "stat_cost": null,
                "entity_energy_from": null,
                "entity_energy_price": null,
                "number_energy_price": 0.39597
            }

My Full Energy Dashboard Config (/config/.storage/energy)

{
    "version": 1,
    "key": "energy",
    "data": {
        "energy_sources": [
            {
                "type": "grid",
                "flow_from": [
                    {
                        "stat_energy_from": "sensor.whole_house",
                        "stat_cost": null,
                        "entity_energy_from": "sensor.whole_house",
                        "entity_energy_price": null,
                        "number_energy_price": null
                    }
                ],
                "flow_to": [],
                "cost_adjustment_day": 0.0
            },
            {
                "type": "gas",
                "stat_energy_from": "sensor.gas_energy_metric",
                "stat_cost": null,
                "entity_energy_from": null,
                "entity_energy_price": null,
                "number_energy_price": 0.39597
            }
        ],
        "device_consumption": [
            {
                "stat_consumption": "sensor.power_1"
            },
            {
                "stat_consumption": "sensor.power_2"
            }
        ]
    }
}

3 comments

  1. Good writeup. Was there a reason you chose Metermon over other options? Seems like their are a lot of tool that are pretty similar.

    I’ve ran into trouble getting this to completely work. I’ve had to manually start rtl_tcp for some reason (rc.local script isn’t starting it). And when the metermon docker container starts, the connection is made to the MQTT broker, and a few lines of meter data are sent. But then it freezes, stops. Log files show “receiver context cancelled” and “read:connection reset by peer”

    I think this may have something to do with some troubles people have been having with MQTT versions 6.x that seems to be generating this error :
    ERROR (MainThread) [supervisor.services.modules.mqtt] There is already a MQTT service in use from core_mosquitto

    Did you overcome any similar issues when you performed the setup?

    1. I tried most of them, I think metermon addressed a lot of the issues I ran into with my meters. But nothing super different that a few other docker set ups.

      Maybe try doing a cron job to start the service? A few other people noted they had problems with the rc.local. Maybe your Linux distribution uses something different?

      1. Figured it out- rtl_tcp wasn’t running in root.

        Once that was fixed, running quite nicely. Only thing is that its only seeing the gas meter- not water or electricity. I’ve had in on long enough that I think I would have grabbed the water meter if it was intermittent like you stated with yours.

        Is there a way of adjusting the frequency that is searched- the documentation doesn’t seem to indicate what the default frequency is? Or does it nominally check a certain frequency range?

Comments are closed.