EKM Metering

Hi,
We have just ordered an electricity and water meter with the push system for remote reading and have some questions about getting connected to the cloud.

My question is, is there a way around us as landlords asking the tenants to connect the metering system to their wifi (or asking for the password so we can do it ourselves through their internet connection)? I'm wondering how other landlords handle this? I read somewhere that we can purchase a mobile hotspot through a cell phone provider and connect it that way - is this a reliable option? (Our property is in Seattle so signal strength shouldn't be an issue in our area.) If so, does the hotspot need an ethernet port (or any other specific feature) to be able to connect to the metering system?

Thanks,
Amanda

Hello Amanda, welcome to the forum!

Yes, the Push3 gateway needs to connect to the internet via either ethernet or wifi. So this generally narrows down your options to regular internet (DSL, cable, fiber optics) or cellular, or satellite.

For regular internet yes, you could either use your tenants internet, neighbors internet, or get your own internet service. The Push3 does not consume much data so your tenant or neighbor would not even notice you were on their connection. You could have literally hundreds of Pushes on their network and they still would not notice any effect to their internet service. You can connect via either ethernet (hardwired or using a powerline communication system) or via the built in wifi of the Push3.

Or you can get a cellular modem which would connect to your EKM Push via ethernet. We offer one here with a 2 year data plan as an example of what you could get: https://www.ekmmetering.com/collections ... ika-rut240. We have customers that have literally thousands of EKM Push gateways connected via cellular, it seems quote reliable for them, if you have a strong cellular connection at your location it should also be reliable. You can probably use a hotspot with a wifi connection, but I dont think it would be reliable enough (we recommend a cellular modem with an ethernet connection)

Or you could use a satellite internet provider (Starlink for example)

Once your Push gateway is connected to the internet via one of these options above, then it will start to read all of your Omnimeters and send this data to the cloud.

Hi Jameson,
Thanks very much for the information. Silly question, but I just want to be sure: If we use a tenant’s or neighbor’s internet, I assume we would need their internet password to get the meter connected?

Thanks!

If you want to connect your Push3 to a wifi network that has a password, you will need the wifi password. Or you can just connect the Push3 to a router with an ethernet cable and you would not need a password. Either way you will need your tenants permission to do this.