Copper collects utility data by listening to your meter's radio. Some meter types will work with Copper, while others will not. Let's learn about the types that Copper supports.
Gas Meters
Copper supports a variety of gas meters.
Gas meters supported by Copper have labels identifying the meter type. These labels may be located on the meter's top, front, or side, as shown below.
The meter is supported if the meter number begins with "12" or "28."
Electric meters
Copper listens for the radio signal broadcast by an electric meter to track its behavior. Supported meters have labels that begin with "04," "05," "07," "08," or "14." Here are examples of supported meters:
The type 14 meter is configurable. It MAY be supported depending on how it is configured.
The meter labels are typically located on the front face or the bottom of the meter.
The label will look similar to this example:
Water Meters
Copper currently supports two types of water meters; Kamstrup FlowIQ meters and Sensus iPERL meters.
A FlowIQ meter will look like the one shown below.
The Sensus meter does not have an internal radio and must be connected to a transmitter (type 11) to broadcast its data.
Smart Meter Support
Smart meters are part of a home-area network (HAN) such as Zigbee or a wide-area network (WAN) such as OpenWay. In order for Copper to work with these meter types, the utility must grant your Copper gateway access to the network. Some utilities provide a portal that allows consumers to grant access, while others must do it for you.
Smart meters will have a hexadecimal serial number (the digits will include "0-9" and "A-F".)