Automatic Meter Reading

Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the technology of automatically collecting consumption, diagnostic and status data from electricity, gas or water meters and transmitting that data to a central database for billing, troubleshooting and analysis. It saves utility providers the cost of sending staff to each meter's physical location to take a reading, and it allows bills to be based on near real-time consumption rather than on estimates drawn from past or predicted use. AMR technologies include handheld and mobile reading devices as well as fixed network systems built on telephony, radio frequency or power-line communication. AMR is a one-way technology: it differs from the two-way communication of advanced metering infrastructure, which also lets a utility send information and commands back to the meter. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/