Watergroup released -during OZ Water show 18– the first and long awaited Sigfox ready ultrasonic water meter (by HZ metering) for the Australian market.
WaterGroup, one of the largest integrated water savings companies in Australia, and global metering manufacturer HZ Metering (aka Huizhong in China) have officially announced a partnership to distribute this new smart water meter in the Australian market.
Called the Sigfox-NUmeter, this meter is the first commercially available ultrasonic smart water meter to have an IoT Sigfox module fully integrated into it.
Thinxtra provides the nationwide Sigfox backbone LPWAN coverage to make it easy to connect the NUmeter wirelessly to any platform used by Utilities, either be SCADA system or dedicated IoT platforms based on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services or else.
“The NUmeter will enable WaterGroup to help tackle two of the major challenges facing Australian utilities,” says Guenter Hauber-Davidson, the Managing Director of WaterGroup.
“First of all, each year, utilities deliver about two billion cubic metres of potable water every year – but about 10-12 per cent of this water is lost each year. This loss of water equates to over $400 million in water production costs every year. With the NUmeter we can provide utilities, with a cost-effective way to truly understand, in near real time, where the water is going – and where it is lost – in their water distribution networks.”
The second major challenge facing utilities was the major population growth predicted for Australia’s largest cities. This growth in population will drive growth in water consumption which in turn will mean that smarter management of water will become a must for major cities.
“We are seeing water and wastewater utilities across the globe implementing IoT smart water meters to access real-time information – that will help their decision making around planning of and investment in water infrastructure to meet the population growth challenges of the future and to become smarter cities,” said Mr Jianguo Dong, General Manager of HZ Metering
Renald Gallis, VP Ecosystem at Thinxtra added to conclude “With Sigfox network already covering most cities and regional councils, it becomes very simple to connect wirelessly the NUmeters for a very low cost. Many Water Utilities and Councils in Australia have been waiting for it to implement their smart water projects. This is opening the valve for better monitoring this scarce resource.”
About Thinxtra
Thinxtra is empowering the Internet of Things in Asia Pacific by deploying the world-leading Sigfox LPWA network as well as building a full eco-system of IoT solutions and services to enable the non-connected to connect, to increase productivity, accelerate decision making, improve quality of service and quality of life, and find more economical solutions to common problems.
Sigfox is the world’s leading provider of connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). The company has built a global network to connect billions of devices to the Internet while consuming as little energy as possible, as simply as possible. Sigfox’s unique approach to device-to-cloud communications addresses the three greatest barriers to global IoT adoption: cost, energy consumption, and global scalability.
PR Contact: Renald Gallis – VP Marketing +61 404 894 960 [email protected]
