Water Metering
uCIFI® is an alliance whose mission is to develop open standards to enable interoperability for smart cities. The alliance aims at providing a common framework for different vendors’ devices to communicate and exchange data seamlessly.
When it comes to water metering, uCIFI® defines a data model that specifies the structure and format of the data exchanged between water meters and the utility systems. The data model includes various parameters and attributes related to water consumption measurement, meter status, and other relevant information. Here are some common data points found in a uCIFI® -based water metering data model
Meter Identification*
Unique identifier for the water meter
Meter Reading
Current water consumption reading
Meter Status
Status of the meter (e.g., active, inactive, malfunctioning)
Meter Configuration*
Configuration parameters specific to the meter (e.g. communication settings)
Alarms and Events
Notifications or alerts related to metering issues, leaks, tampering, or abnormal consumption patterns
Meter Location*
Geographical coordinates or address information indicating the meter’s physical location
Meter Health*
Diagnostic information about the meter’s performance, battery level (if applicable), and communication signal strength
The uCIFI® Data Model has been designed on top of LwM2M standard and can be transmitted using various communication protocols, such as CoAP and MQTT, deployed over various communication technologies, such as Cellular, Wi-SUN, LoRaWAN and more. There are even recent standardizations to allow the mapping of such Data Model in case the meter device does not natively support LwM2M.
The uCIFI® data model ensures that the water metering data is structured consistently across different devices, enabling easy integration and interoperability between various systems, including meter data management systems (MDMS), billing systems, and analytics platforms.
It is also important to mention that uCIFI® Data Model can be extended, in future, to incorporate additions requested by meter manufacturers, regional requirements and the utility’s specific needs.
*The common data specified above can be found in conjunction with companion objects specified by OMA and uCIFI®.
