Things can go wrong right from gaining access into the premises of the consumer to take the reading, to errors in reading and wrong billing.

A group of students of PES Polytechnic may be able to change all that. As part of their academic project Shravana Kumar S, Shree Yogeesh and Suresh Kumar BR with guidance from their project guide, Ramesh Iyer, have devised, what they call, a smart meter, which will be able to do away with all the problems associated with the regular meter.

Their handheld devise with a microcontroller, RF transceiver and LCD display can provide error free reading. Database can be uploaded into the handheld unit and the information collected can be uploaded to the server at the Electricity Board. It would involve use of a smart card unique to each consumer.

Meter tampering, a major problem for the Electricity Board can be totally done away with with the students’ smart meter as tampering would automatically disconnect power to the consumer and can only be set right by the Electricity Board.

Power can also be remotely disconnected for default in payment of dues or if their is no credit left in prepaid connections.

Their smart meter also has provision for pre-paid connections. The other advantages of their meter are that there won’t be any data entry errors and more number of meters can be read per day, and that too on the move.  The consumer can also get text information on the alpha numeric LCD display.