EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by stevenma on Tue, 16/09/2014 - 16:43

I had some email contact with the German company developing this EnergyCam product a couple of years ago before I found OEM then had a marketing email from them yesterday and thought other members here might be interested too.

http://www.fastforward.ag/

In the download section under integrators there are Raspberry Pi example implementations.

I haven't studied the website yet but I wonder how well it will work with the lower contrast LCD displays found on newer meters?

Unfortunately, it looks to be fairly pricey but an interesting approach nevertheless.

Regards,

Steve

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by Simone72 on Sat, 27/12/2014 - 19:40.

Steve's right,
the cost seems excessive to me, and even these http://www.xemtec.com/11-0-AMR-Retrofit.html are not joking ...

I think it's better to fix it yourself DIY!

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by razvans (not verified) on Mon, 19/01/2015 - 16:00.

Hi Steve,

I'm looking for long time to find a solution for old meter. I have contacted fastforward company and also northstartelemetrics , however the price is to high. Could you help me please with the OEM manufacturer.

Thanks

Razvan

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by stiw (not verified) on Wed, 13/05/2015 - 15:14.

Hi Steve,

I would be also interested in the OEM, could you please share the info with me (PM?).

Thank you in advance.

stiw

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by mpruessmeier on Thu, 14/05/2015 - 10:40.

I purpose OEM is for OpenEnergyMonitor ;-) , is'nt it ?

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by Bill Thomson on Thu, 14/05/2015 - 11:02.

It can also mean Original Equipment Manufacturer.

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by mpruessmeier on Thu, 14/05/2015 - 11:31.

Okay ... maybe ;-)

I ordered 2 "Stromauge" by Umwelt-Messtechnik.de

http://umwelt-messtechnik.de/Smart-Grid-Komponenten/FAST-FORWARD/Fast-Fo...

and will tryout to bring the values to emonview by tristan.

Will give feedback then. shipping will be over 1 week ;-(

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by mpruessmeier on Sun, 26/07/2015 - 10:40.

So, a while is gone, now I tested the two "Stromauge". We used a stick from "imst" the "iM871A-USB" for wireless mBus at raspberry. The code from fast forward at "https://github.com/ffcrg/ecpiww" works well to fetch data over wMBus.

But the wmbuslib.so (originally from imst) only works with raspberry pi 1. Last week I got a new library compiled directly from imst to use with raspberry Pi2, I have to tryout.

i changed the code from fast forward to work with multiple manufacturers sending data over wireless mBus. So we got data grabbed from kampstrup energy meters with wmbus addin. We are working on that two.

the new process gets the name: eccwmbus and will be usable under github soon. The grabbed data will be pushed to emonHub and visible on emon view. I called imst, they have a module for raspbarry pi on SPI, too. Have to try it out.

greetings from Germany, stay tuned.

Re: EnergyCam - OCR Meter Reading Camera

Submitted by mpruessmeier on Sun, 06/09/2015 - 19:34.

Okay, now i got the codes for our wmBus Meters from NZR. and i look forward to do some coding.

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