WaterMeterKit is a compact ESPHome-based water meter sensor for Home Assistant. It measures real-time water usage from compatible analog water meters and is designed for fully local operation without cloud dependencies.
Product page: https://watermeterkit.nl/en
The WaterMeterKit uses a magnetic sensor to detect the rotating element on your analog water meter, counting each liter that passes through. Compatible with most major water meter brands including Actaris, Elster, Honeywell, Itron, Sensus and more.
Compatibility guide: https://watermeterkit.nl/en
- Real-time water usage tracking with pulse meter sensing
- Temperature and humidity sensing with HDC1080
- WiFi onboarding with captive portal fallback
- Fully local operation with Home Assistant and ESPHome
| Version | Chip | Connectivity | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| V2 | ESP8266 | WiFi | Current ESP8266 hardware revision for analog water meters |
| V3 | ESP32-C6 | WiFi | Latest hardware revision with ESP32-C6 |
We publish one customer-facing firmware variant per hardware revision.
| Hardware | Variant | Description |
|---|---|---|
| V2 (ESP8266) | WiFi | Standard WiFi firmware with captive portal and Improv Serial |
| V3 (ESP32-C6) | WiFi | Standard WiFi firmware for the ESP32-C6 platform |
- Install the WaterMeterKit on your water meter.
- Flash the firmware with the web flasher or ESPHome CLI.
- If WiFi is not configured yet, connect to the fallback hotspot.
- On V2 hardware, you can also use Improv Serial over USB for wired provisioning.
Web flasher: https://smarthomeshop.io/en/firmware Quick start guide: https://smarthomeshop.io/quick-start-watermeterkit
If you see the error ESP does not have enough space to store OTA file, that applies to the ESP8266-based V2 hardware because of its 1MB flash limitations.
For recovery or reflashing, use the USB web flasher:
- Connect the WaterMeterKit via USB-C
- Open https://smarthomeshop.io/en/firmware
- Select WaterMeterKit and flash the latest firmware
- Customer-facing release notes: CHANGELOG.md
- GitHub Releases: https://github.com/smarthomeshop/watermeterkit/releases
watermeterkit/
├── watermeterkit-v1/ # Legacy V1 naming kept for backwards compatibility
├── watermeterkit-v2/ # V2 ESP8266 ESPHome configurations
├── watermeterkit-v3/ # V3 ESP32-C6 ESPHome configurations
├── CHANGELOG.md # Customer-facing firmware notes
└── images/
Pre-built firmware manifests are published on the gh-pages branch.
- V2 WiFi:
watermeterkit-v2-manifest.json - V3 WiFi:
watermeterkit-v3-manifest.json
| Sensor | Description |
|---|---|
| Current Usage | Water flow rate in L/min |
| Total Consumption | Cumulative water usage in m³ |
| Water Meter Initial Value | Configurable starting point that matches the physical meter |
| Water Meter Total | Absolute water meter reading that survives reboots and OTA updates |
| Temperature | Environment temperature |
| Humidity | Environment humidity |
| WiFi Signal | WiFi signal strength |
| Uptime | Device uptime |
WaterMeterKit V1 and V2 store an absolute water meter total so the reading survives reboots and firmware updates.
- Read the current value on your physical water meter.
- Enter that value in
Water Meter Initial Valuein Home Assistant. - Use
Water Meter Totalas the absolute meter reading going forward.
To reduce flash wear on the ESP8266 hardware, the value is batched during normal use and also saved on clean restarts or OTA updates.
PRs and issues are welcome. Please keep changes modular and follow ESPHome best practices.
- Product info and guides: https://watermeterkit.nl/en
- Store: https://smarthomeshop.io
- Community and support: https://smarthomeshop.io/discord
This project is released under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
