DimDrive IoT based smart energy meter and controller
Electric meter is the need of every house in this modern era. Various traditional analogue meters are used world-wide to periodically monitor the usage of utilities usage like gas meter, electric meter, water meter, for the billing purposes. Similarly, smart computerized meters are also used which a
2025-06-28 16:26:43 - Adil Khan
DimDrive IoT based smart energy meter and controller
Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject SummaryElectric meter is the need of every house in this modern era. Various traditional analogue meters are used world-wide to periodically monitor the usage of utilities usage like gas meter, electric meter, water meter, for the billing purposes. Similarly, smart computerized meters are also used which are connected to the grid that empowers the two-way communication between the meter endpoint and utilities. In past, various smart meters are designed in modern countries of the world like China, but the main issue with those is their cost, availability, and customized approach specifically designed for the those countries households and are also limited to specific purposes like unit calculation or bill generation. Therefore we intend to develop a web & android based smart electric meter that will predict a user-defined duration bill based on the various appliance, will generate monthly bills for those appliances customized by the user for self-reference, and will perform load balancing by controlling the connected appliances with module. The aforementioned objectives will be achieved with commercially off the shelf available hardware components. Moreover, the user of the smart electric meter will be able to register via the web application or can be issued credentials to access his/her to access the web and android application. The web and android application will allow the user to visualize the aforementioned objectives’ results in various ways. Ultimately, the smart meter will allow the user to act accordingly that can be generating a bill, shut down a particular appliance to compliment the consumption of electricity, and/or can be a button away from taking a look at his/her monthly potential bill that will provide mental, and financial ease to the consumer and will also reduce the unwanted usage of the resource and ultimately will make the world a better place to live on.
Project ObjectivesDimDrive: The Smart Electric Meter is a web & Android based electric meter that is mainly focusing on:
- The prediction of a user-defined duration bill, based on the possible connected appliances.
- The generation of monthly bills for those appliances customized by the user for self-reference.
- And on the performing load balancing by controlling the connected appliances with module. Along with that, the system will look after Alerts, Remote monitoring, and load balancing.
The proposed system is consists of two main hardware modules, one is the main meter which is responsible for calculating the overall energy consumption and the other one is the controller which will be used for controlling different devices remotely connected to the controller. In addition to this there are two interfaces for the users (admin/user) to interact with the system remotely through cloud services. The Figure 1 shows the overall architecture and flow of the proposed system.
Figure 1: Overall Architecture of the proposed system
The electric supply is coming from the main line and go straight to the main smart energy meter. From the meter it will go to the home/building for further distribution. The smart energy meter consists of following hardware.
- HLW8012 (used for units consumed)
- Wemos mini D1 (used as a microcontroller and wifi module)
- Relay (used as a switch)
- Display Screen (to display the recent readings)
- 220V AC to 5V DC power supply module (to power the hardware)
The smart meter will calculate the overall units consumed and will send it to the cloud server. When the supply goes to the building there is another device connected, called controller. The controller consists of following hardware.
- 220V AV to 5V DC power supply module (to power the hardware)
- Wemos mini D1 (used as a micro controller and wifi module)
- Multichannel Relays (to control the connected devices)
- Display Screen (to display the wifi connections and devices)
There will be some devices connected to the controller through relays and send the numbers of the connected devices to the cloud server.
Furthermore, we have two interfaces for the interaction with the system remotely. The android application will be used by the user which will fetch the data of both the smart energy meter and the controller from the cloud server through APIs. The user will be able to analyze all the data coming from the cloud. As this would be the two way communication between the system and the user, so user can control the devices connected to the controller from the android application. Similarly, the web application is for the admin from where admin can manage the users and the overall analytics of the systems. The admin can communicate with the system from the dashboard of the web application.
Web ApplicationThe web application will be used by the admin to manage the users. The front end of the web application will be developed in the React JS and the back end will be developed in Node JS. APIs will be used for communication between front and back end and MongoDB will be used as a database which is online.
Mobile Application (Android)
The mobile application will be for the android operating system on Flutter framework, which will be used by the user to interact with the system and to see the data of the system and will be provided online on Google Play.
Cloud ServerMicrosoft Azure will be used as a cloud server. It will use MQTT protocol for communication.
Benefits of the ProjectWe are providing a solution which will facilitate end users by providing user-friendly, compact device called DimDrive which will allow the end users get the insight of consumption of electricity on daily basis, monthly basis, and ultimately on annual basis with the help of provided user-friendly, modern technology based Web application and Android application. Furthermore, to maintain the quality, web application will be implemented which will be playing a back bone role by allowing the admin to control the system, registration of users, and visualization of the performance of various deployed DimDrives. Additionally, DimDrive will allow the user control his/her house/building electricity consumption using the Android application via controlling the various appliances consuming the electricity, along with that the daily electricity consumption threshold can be set which will complement the first objective of the system. Lastly, DimDrive provides the facility to generate monthly bill for self-reference and better plan his/her daily electricity consumption which will complement the pocket of the user and allow an individual spend a quality life in an optimized manners.
Technical Details of Final DeliverableFirstly, to ensure the working of each component, each component will be tested with a hello-world based program, that is basic functionality of each component will be tested to ensure the future accurate working collectively of those components. Secondly, each component that has a relation with the following component will be tested and checked on various possible test cases. Ultimately, the overall integration of components will be performed on various test cases. After successful integration of hardware, the system will be integrated with the modern technology based software part. After finalizing, the proposed system will then be checked out on the real time arrival of electric energy for which a small supply can be made into the system according to the process discussed in the methodology to ensure the achievement of the objectives that will allow to have an eye on the consumption, control, and on the balancing of load that will lead to stable consumption, better usage, and less load on the pocket, collectively, that will lead to make the world a better place to breath in. The ultimate Deliverable of the proposed system will be a product in a compact form (hardware based) with two basic modules i.e. Smart Energy Meter and the Controller. Additionally, there will be an android and Web applications with these hardware which will be used to interact with these hardware remotely.
Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemCore Industry ITOther Industries Energy , Manufacturing , Others Core Technology Internet of Things (IoT)Other Technologies Artificial Intelligence(AI), Cloud Infrastructure, OthersSustainable Development Goals Affordable and Clean Energy, Responsible Consumption and ProductionRequired Resources| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 77800 | |||
| HLW8012 | Equipment | 3 | 1200 | 3600 |
| Wemos D1 mini | Equipment | 4 | 700 | 2800 |
| Solid State Relay (SSR) | Equipment | 9 | 3500 | 31500 |
| 7 inch Nextion HMI LCD touch display screen (smart display) | Equipment | 2 | 15200 | 30400 |
| Documentation | Miscellaneous | 7 | 500 | 3500 |
| Meetings with stack holders | Miscellaneous | 5 | 600 | 3000 |
| Meetings with WAPDA officials | Miscellaneous | 1000 | 3 | 3000 |