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I'm searching for a good water flow meter to add to my home controller project with Arduino. I have been searching in several pages and I only found some devices that work for low flow. I need to control the water usage in my home and I thought to add a flow meter at the point where the water enters my home, and view the data with Arduino.

Do you have experience with any flow meter with good quality?

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  • Don't you have a water meter in your house. These units can be read quite easily. Some have a rotating magnets, or like mine, a rotating dial with a large reflective surface.
    – Gerben
    Dec 17, 2015 at 16:04
  • I have, but not in my house. I'm living in a flat and flow meters they are in a room that I don't have access easy.
    – Juan Antonio
    Dec 17, 2015 at 21:16
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    I have a similar situation with my power meter not being in my apartment. I have an Arduino running on batteries, and sending the data wireless to an arduino in my apartment. If this isn't possible, I'd just buy a second water meter, similar to the one outside your apartment. Those units are made exactly for your purpose. I wouldn't want to risk having a water leak.
    – Gerben
    Dec 18, 2015 at 13:24
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    It would help to know more about the meter that you need – can you tell us the size of the pipe going into your flat where you would attach the meter and give us a rough idea of the flow rate that you need?
    – dlu
    Dec 18, 2015 at 21:55
  • I don't know how is the size of pipe, but I think that it isn't too significant. I always can buy an adapter. But the most important, the flow rate, well, I don't know how to size this. This is a normal house, we have only a bathroom. I found a project in the net in which some guys uses this flow meter: Koolance INS-FM17N. His flow rate range is 1.0-15LPM. I think that 15 litres per minutes is quite and enough, but i don't sure. What do you think?
    – Juan Antonio
    Dec 19, 2015 at 19:43

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I've used an arduino with an irrigation flow meter.

I think I'm getting accurate results, but I haven't checked against a bill. It can handle high flow, and the sensors will attach to any size pvc line. The sensor are a bit expensive, however. $150 for the sensor and $35 for the T junction that it plugs into.

However, as you are living in an apartment, you'll probably need a non-invasive sensor. Perhaps an acoustic one.

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