Utility Company R&D

The Challenges

1. Getting the data from the existing meter

Without changing meters, JFDI experimented with various methods for reading the meter. Accuracy, reliability and low power consumption were all of vital importance. Also noteworthy was the ability to operate in hostile environments. Existing meter stock from several manufacturers required several casing designs, with IP6x penetration ratings an important factor. JFDI’s solution is 100% accurate within normal usage conditions. It remains in an ultra-low-power mode for 99.98% of the time, ensuring that the lifetime of the consumer-replaceable batteries is slightly shorter than their shelf-life. #classified 3D design and 3D printing allowed JFDI to rapidly prototype casing designs resulting in a final design suitable for user installation and mass production.

2. Transmitting the data to a local receiver

Meter placement varies widely, making RF communications challenging. So we needed to stick to low frequencies and wide-bandwidth, frequency-hopping, and spread-spectrum technologies and have a local station for receiving and relaying the data. This is exactly what the meter suppliers fixed networks do. Transmission four times a day was plenty for everyone’s purposes. JFDI came up with an innovative and revolutionary combination of technologies that ensure reliable transmission & reception whilst not requiring a private fixed network to be installed. #classified

3. Relaying the data to the cloud

Our client had no prior use of cloud computing facilities and no scalable, fault-tolerant way of automatically receiving and storing data transmitted from meters. JFDI created cloud-based backend storage, a customer web portal, and a secure REST API to glue the process together.

4. Fault tolerance, redundancy and failover

Some intelligent metering solutions aren’t fault-tolerant, and data gets lost in transmission. Some seem to take security not at all seriously because, after all, it’s only metering data. When it all breaks down, which seems to be all too often, someone needs to go and read the meters, which is slow and costly. We built in the best currently available security protocols with options to upgrade security in future. Each stage in the process caches its data, and possible outages are recognised and reported. We even managed to create redundancy in the system. #classified

5. A Gamified Consumer App

The final stage in the process was to use all the gathered data to achieve the other original goal: Engaging consumers to encourage them to exhibit more desirable behaviours and refrain from detrimental behaviours. Gamification can help with this. But creating a gamified user experience is a specialist job. As well as a customer service portal, a smartphone mobile app was cited as a significant requirement to serve as a site and focus for the gamified process. JFDI enlisted the help of leading gamification consultancy Gamification+ to design a roadmap of features to not only enthuse and engage users now but keep them engaged far into the future. A range of reward types ensures that the app will appeal to all the diverse personality groups comprising our client’s consumer base.