The only meter in our house that I was not yet able to read out automatically was the water meter.
With the help of a great open source project by the name of AI-on-the-edge and an ESP32-Camera Module it is quite simple to regularly take a picture of the meter, convert it into a digital read-out and send it away through MQTT.
![](https://www.schrankmonster.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Bildschirmfoto-zu-2021-06-01-15-20-31-600x463.png)
The process is quite simple and straightforward.
- Flash the ready made Firmware image to the module
- Configure the WiFi using a SD card
- Put the module directly over the meter
- Connect to it and setup the reference points and the meter recognition marks
![](https://www.schrankmonster.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Bildschirmfoto-zu-2021-06-01-15-20-55-600x542.png)
As you can see above all the recognition is done on the ESP32 module with its 4MByte of RAM.
With the data sent through MQTT it’s easy to draw nice graphs:
![](https://www.schrankmonster.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/img_8278-600x941.jpg)