Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2021)

IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP21K25-ART

Water Conservation Control by using IoT Smart

Meter
2021 5th International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC) | 978-1-6654-0360-3/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICCMC51019.2021.9418251

D.Sai Akhil
* L S P Sairam Nadipalli
Department of ECE
Department of ECE
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation,
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation,
Vaddeswaram,AP, INDIA
Vaddeswaram,AP, INDIA
anchaanilkumar143@g mail.co m
[email protected] m

A.Anil Kumar
N.Ganesh
Department of ECE
Department of ECE
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation,
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation,
Vaddeswaram,AP, INDIA
Vaddeswaram,AP, INDIA
saiakhildhulipalla2000@g mail.com
[email protected] m

Abstract- As modernization brings employment as well their last two years summer as their groundwater had been
as the population in Cities. Due to an increase in drained out. So for future generation's sake, the water needs to
population, many cities in the world are facing water crises be conserved and to be used efficiently and properly [7-9].
as their groundwater levels are decreased. To overcome Due to human activities, many natural resources are
this problem, a smart solution is proposed with the water uncertain as urbanization, and there is an increase in the
meter using IoT. Here, a meter is designed which population of the city. A huge demand for the water, so that
calculates the number of liters consumed by the family or the authorities must consider water transmission ways, cost
management, storage, water treatment, and billing for water
a person and consider some threshold value if their
consumption. The authorities must take necessary steps to
consumption exceeds the value will control or stop the
make the people conserve water [10-12]. By displaying a price
supply for that day. This data can be obtained by the
chart or the available plan details, the threshold value can be
consumer from the Android app or the cloud server. obtained from a family or a person [13-15]. If the family or a
Keywords: Flow Sensor; ESP8266; Cloud; Water Meter, person had reached the threshold value they can choose two
Internet of Things (IoT). ways either the speed of the water flow will be reduced or they
can reduce the water consumption so that the remaining billing
is as per their plan. The primary aim for the company
I. Introduction providing water was to consider and prepare a plan for
managing water distribution. They need search for a solution
The world is heading and encouraging new which should be of less cost for a customer. The main revenue
technologies, Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the new for the water utilities was the billing from the consumption.
technologies in the world [1-3]. IoT made human life much Operators attempt to rebuild the majority of their costs for a
easier in different ways, the term IoT refers to any physical new installation, operation, general upkeep, and so on through
device that connecting and exchanges data with other devices use and billing metres in the capital. For the past decade, IT
over the internet and making the device “Smart”. This IoT can and communication infrastructure have been used to maintain
be implemented from household objects to industrial purposes, customer relationships and billing management (CRBM). This
which had reduced the interference of humans with their work CRMB will not receive continuous consumption data from a
and made them smartly do their work [4-6]. This IoT had a larger number of water users [17-18].
wide range of applications as well as sound usage in cities (i. e This article explains the implementation of the smart water
made cities as Smart Cities) for their homes, water meter using IoT. Here, this project is useful for the small cities
management and monitoring, Waste Management system, for the production countries with limited infrastructure and a
Lighting, Parking, etc. Nowadays the cost of IoT has been limited amount for investment and a good expansion to the
decreasing as there is a significant growth in the technology urban habits. The prototype simply relies on Internet of Things
and their new ways of implementation. Basically, water was (IoT) with the water meter along with the cloud-based server.
an important source for humans, animals, and plants to live. Here, the entire process was with using ESP8266, a flow
One should use water in a good and efficient way and make sensor, and a Cloud-based server. Here it measures the total
sure that not to waste natural resources. Nowadays , water that water consumption by a family, or a person, and the
exists in some parts of the world has been facing water crises. consumption details can be monitored by the customer using
In India, some of the parts (cities) had faced water crises in the server. In a smart water meter, there will not be a

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tampering process such as Automated Meter Reading (AMR) called data. By using data pin, the sensor can produce pulses.
which was an efficient process to keep track of the These pulses will help to produce the number of liters are
consumption. There is the billing process, it is according to the passing through the sensor.
plans they had chosen. If the family or a person was out from
home, it will cut the water supply and reduces energy D. Software Used
consumption. Billing costs will be transparent and there will
less wastage of water. Arduino IDE is used to develop the code and upload the
code on MCU for Implementation and Testing.Thinger.io is a
II. Proposed Methodolog y cloud to visualize the output.
1. Arduino IDE: Arduino IDE is an open-source
ESP8266 is a device used to provide internet
software package that's utilizes the Arduino module
connectivity for projects. This is also known as a Wi-Fi
Module. It is used to fetch the data and can easily upload the for writing and collecting code. For many DIY
projects, the arduino is a great single-board
data and making the Internet of Things possible. A flow sensor
is used to read the water flow from the sensor as to how many microcontroller solution. It will examine the
integrated development setting or ide that's
litres of water does the family or a person had consumed. And
this data is finally uploaded into a cloud server (Thinger.io) to accustomed program. It is easily accessible for
operating systems such as MAC, Windows, Linux
monitor the consumption readings in real-time for billing
purposes. Thereafter using a relay speed control process will and runs with built-in functions and commands on
the Java Platform that plays a vital role in debugging,
be done. High-speed flow purpose 12V Relay will play a vital
editing, and compiling code in the environment. It is
role and for Low-speed flow, 5V Power supply will come into
the picture. Relay is used to control the DC Motor on 5V to an official Arduino software, making it too easy for
even a common person without basic knowledge to
12V and12V TO 5V. The DC Motor is to observe the speed.
compile code.
2. Thinger.io: The Thinger.io is an easy-to-use and
A. Block Diagram easy-to-understand IoT platform with clean, neat, and
easy design to provide developers with wonderful
experiences. Project implementers can create a free
account. It is possible to attach any source IoT
platform device. That's not a problem with Arduino,
ESP8266, Raspberry Pi, Intel Edison, etc. The
Thinger.io platform senses devices in real-time and
acts on them. Its technology minimizes the
bandwidth of information, processing power, code
size, and increases the scalability of the server. Any
type of information will easily be stored in its data
buckets, and its dashboards can display the
information stored or received in real-time just as
Fig 1 : Block diagram of the proposed model easily.

In this article different types of devices are used for this

project, which is explained below. E. DC Motor

A DC motor is one of a class of rotary electric motors that

B. ESP8266 convert electrical energy from mechanical energy into direct
current. The forces generated by magnetic fields rely on the
The ESP8266 is a Wi-Fi Module, which is having more most common types. It can be represented as a ferromagnetic
features to use at a less reasonable cost and also small in size cylinder with a solenoid at its disposal, regardless of how
as 4MB Flash memory. It is a Micro Controller and also a Wi- difficult the winding is until electricity is supplied. This
Fi transceiver. It has an Access Point and a station. The other solenoid's wire is made of the wire bundle used in each of
name for ESP8266 is NodeMCU. In this type of them. The place of the rotor is similar to an electromagnet, the
microcontroller, 2 models are there namely NodeMCU 0.9 & rotor works.
1.0. and in the proposed work NodeMCU 1.0 was used.
F. SPDT Relay
C. Flow Sensor
A switching device is a relay usually uses a magnet coil to
control their internal mechanical change mechanism contacts.
The quality of the control is measured using a Model
If a relay touch is open, this turns power ON for a circuit when
No. YF-S201 and it consists of magnets internally, which is
working on principle called Hall Effect. Ideally it is well the coil is triggered. Relays let a low current circuit be
operated by one or higher current circuits. SPDT Relay
suited for the identification of the flow of water. It consists of
3 pins, where two pins are called Vcc, ground another pin (5V&12V): The SPDT (Single-Pole Double-Throw) transfer

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has a single Form C setting, a break before making or moving
contacts. That is, a standard terminal meets the other two,
never encountering both at the same time. Such transfers have H. Circuit Diagram
a total of five terminals when two loops are counted.

G. Flow Chart

Fig.3. Circuit Diagram of proposed model

III. Results and Discussion

The above block diagram consists of multiple sensors like

water, gas, and sound sensors, which are used to monitor the
environment quality. The sensors are used to collect the pH,
sound, turbidity, humidity, and temperature in the
environment and the data is given to the microcontroller. Here
in the program, a formula was applied for pulses that are
coming from Flow Sensor, no of liters passed through the flow
sensor is Liters = Pules / (7.5 X 60 ). The voltage conversion
in the system is that every pulse occurs with 5v, and all of
these pulses are stored in a variable, which can be used to
update the Thinger.io IoT platform.

A. Real-Time Circuit

Fig 2: Flowchart of the proposed model

Fig. 4. Real-time Circuit.

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 The flow rate indicates the flow rate of the water per
minute. For the sake of the water, the flow speed is measured
as per the minute from the pipe outlet.
B. Dashboard Results The total flow was the summation of the total water flow
passed from the sensor. The total volume of the water was
consumed by the consumer.
The indication gauge indicates that the water consumed by
the consumers in a controlled manner, either it indicates the
zone of water consumed and flow will control according to the
indications from the gauge.
Figure 6 depicts the indication gauge, which indicates the
consumers about the water zone of their consumption. In the
above reading, the consumer was identified in the yellow
zone. This meter has three types of zones indications . They
are:
a) Green Zone: The value a consumer or a family
has set for their daily consumption of water. For
the green zone, it has a limit of 0 to 4 litres and 4
litres was the limit of the respective consumer.
b) Yellow Zone: The yellow zone has a value of 4.1
to 8 litres, if the consumer had crossed the green
zone limit the speed of the flow will be reduced.
c) Red zone: Here the limit was above 8.1 litres, if
the consumer had reached the red zone slowly the
water flow will be stopped.

Fig. 5. Whole Dashboard.

IV. Conclusion

The water meter prototype proposed was speculative to work

with the assistance of the Node MCU, Flow sensor, Relay, and
a DC Motor. The DC Motor is used for prototyping purpose in
real-time and it was replaced by the water pump. The
dashboard results are very useful for the consumer to get their
data about consumption and their levels or zones, as well as
billing details. The readings will be purely transparent and
produces the reading about their Flow Rate, Total Flow (i.e.
Total Consumption), and Indication Gauge (about their zones)
according to their consumption the flow. The control has been
resulted in the indication gauge. By this prototype, 1000’s of
liters of water will be saved in the world. This can be the
simplest solution for water-conserving.

Fig. 6. Indication Gauge.

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