FAQs

Take a look at the frequently asked questions (FAQs) provided below to find answers to common inquiries. You can reach out to us by tweeting or leaving a comment on our Facebook page.

Frequently asked questions

Even the most user friendly system can leave you with some questions. We welcome all your queries as SmarterHomes is built around 'your' issues. Please browse through the FAQs listed below to get answers on various common queries. You can tweet to us at @smartrhomes or post a comment on our Facebook page.

The meters conform to IS 4064-3:2005 standards. This is the standard for residential water metering in India. You can check the working of the meters through your app at any time, by doing a “Bucket test.”

  1. Close all the taps in your house.
  2. Wait for a couple of minutes and refresh the App to make sure that the latest data is being shown on it, The app shows the total consumption for the day on the home screen.
  3. Fill a bucket with 10 litres of water.
  4. Wait for a couple of minutes and refresh the screen again.
  5. Check that the consumption has increased by 10 litres. In case of doubt or difficulty please feel free to contact SmarterHomes support number or raise a
    ticket through the app.

The app is available publicly. You can download and register after your project has gone live. (Registering before this results in an SMS with a message that will ask you to check with your Facility Manager for the Project Status or to update your registered number.

Most of us have no idea of our own actual consumption. The metering brings out the truth. Sometimes, we may observe that the meters are recording more than what we thought we consume. In such cases, doing a bucket test (described above) should confirm if the meter is right.

Also, you may see that the meter records consumption when there is no one at home. If there is consumption indicated every day, it is an indication of a leak in the house. Leaks can even consume up to 300 lit. per day. Most cases of leaks are in the flush tanks and wash basin taps. Many leaks are imperceptible. You can use the App to check hourly consumption. You may see consumption being recorded in the night/early morning hours. In such cases, you can follow a simple procedure to investigate. See point 5 below.

Occasionally, you may see a random 0.5 lit or 1 lit. and no repeats of this nature occur. There is no cause for concern in such cases. Plumbing systems are complex and there is bound to be pressure variation. Sometimes the pressure variation will result in a small bit of water dripping through. It may so happen that this small bit of water causes the meter to cross the least count, and this gets registered as a minimum consumption. As a matter of abundant caution, you can perform the bucket test to confirm everything is okay.

In your app, there is an option to see the consumption in terms of volume or in terms of money. The system uses the rates specified by the Association to convert the volume to money.

The App indicates consumption, but I have not used water.

In this case, there is a very slow leak somewhere in the line. The meters have detected leaks that are not obviously visible to the eye. Most such cases are in bathrooms. One method of confirming a leak is to do the following:

  1. Close the manual valve (stopcock) at the entry into the bathroom. (Ensure that the geyser is switched off.) preferable at night.
  2. Check for any consumption indicated by the app from the time the stopcock is closed, preferably till the next morning, or if possible, for a full day.
  3. If no consumption is indicated, then it indicates that there is a leak in the line after the stopcock. In case your apartment is unoccupied, but water is being consumed very slowly, there is a good chance that the flush tank is leaking or the washers in a tap need cleaning and/or replacement.

To ensure that you get the data of your apartment and not that of your neighbour, SmarterHomes pre-maps your apartment to your mobile number. When you register your app, your mobile number is used as verification.

Yes. One mobile number is treated as the registered mobile number. After registering the app on this number there is an option to add up to three additional members.

Yes. As mentioned above, the person with the registered mobile number (owner or tenant) can add the other (tenant or owner) as an additional member.

Occasionally, the data in your app may not get updated immediately. This would happen mainly because of network outages. Rest assured, your data will get updated in some time, As mentioned before, the system is built to store data till the next level acknowledges receipt. So, when the network recovers, the data will be updated.

On registering for the first time, it may happen that instead of an OTP, you get a message to say that your number is not registered in our records. This will happen if your number is not updated correctly in our records (or that the project is not yet handed over.) Please get in touch with your FM to get it corrected. You can then try again.

Knowing how much water you consume is the first step towards saving water. Real-time data about your water consumption on your smartphone helps you combat water wastage in your home and society. Armed with actionable data, WaterOn by SmarterHomes empowers you to adopt simple steps to save water and money.

My neighbours consume the most water in my community.

This is a feeling that most of us have before we start looking at our own consumption. The truth is that once we get the right tool and support to monitor our own consumption, we might notice that we are also wasting water that can otherwise be saved.

Research and our customer data show that the households who have adopted water metering have observed a reduction of 35% in overall water consumption in a couple of months. The best part is that the reduction sustains and even gets better month after month.

Our Urban Water Champions are also able to reduce their energy bill as lesser water needs to be pumped to overhead tanks. Moreover, most apartments also get lesser sewerage bills.

Brilliant decision. You should check with your RWA and ask what they are doing to monitor water consumption in your housing society. You can contact us and share the details of your RWA and we will make sure that they see value in adopting water metering.

Traditional water meter installation requires a tremendous amount of re-plumbing and narrow ducts in the buildings pose a challenge while installing. However, WaterOn meters do not require any complicated plumbing. Our installers simply visit your home, cut a pipe, and install the meters. You can now start metering your water.

People say installing water meters is very expensive as it involves huge piping and labour costs.

WaterOn does not require laying new pipes to connect water meters hence it is the most feasible way of saving the cost of hardware and labour. WaterOn metering solution costs approximately half of the traditional metering system.

One unique feature of the WaterOn solution is that it deploys individual water meters at each inlet point. The SmarterHomes platform receives data from these meters and then unifies all the insights in one household account. So, as an apartment resident, you will see the total consumption of all inlets and the individual data of each inlet. Installing meters at individual inlets also helps in controlling water supply to just the inlet where there is a leak instead of blocking the supply to the whole apartment. The solution eliminates re-plumbing efforts and helps save costs significantly.

Absolutely no-one. The system is 100% automated and consumption is reported to the system in real time. The readings are automatically computed at the end of your billing cycle just like your phone bills. You will also receive a copy of your bill in your email. Tabulation of meter readings and fixing tariffs are error-prone when done manually.

WaterOn is an IoT-enabled intelligent metering system. It even reports and escalates any potential errors in advance to the support desk and rectifies itself proactively. Our dedicated support staff is always there to help in case something goes wrong. You can leave a message on our customer care helpline and on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Absolutely. You can just log in to your app and check if there’s an alert. You can easily close the water supply with just the touch of a button on the app.

Currently, the app is available for Android and iOS platforms. The latest version of the app can be downloaded from Google Play Store and iOS App Store. For other platforms, you can request access to https://smartrhomes.com/mportal/ by raising a ticket to SmarterHomes support.

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