Over the years, various products have been devised for collecting water consumption data for a residential or commercial property. These products, however, have been focused on the passive collection of data for subsequent analysis rather than active management of the water supply system. In addition, there is a need for a system that is capable of automatically identifying the amount of water used by each fixture or appliance on a plumbing system without requiring a user to manually identify each water consumption event.
The most common method in use today for determining the volume of water consumed by a property is a water meter. While water meters provide an accurate assessment of the amount of water consumed over a period of time (e.g. a billing period), they do not provide detailed or real-time water consumption data.
There are multiple devices in the prior art that use a water meter as a platform for collecting water usage data. Devices can be attached to a water meter housing or integrated into a water meter register to measure the volume of water passing through the water meter through the use of magnetic sensors. By coupling the magnetic sensors to an electronic data collection system, devices in the prior art are capable of providing detailed water consumption data, but are unable to automatically identify the amount of water used by a specific fixture or appliance or allow a user to actively manage and interact with the water management system.
The present invention provides an interactive water supply management system for use in residential and commercial properties. The present invention provides a water consumption sensor capable of being externally mounted to a water meter and calibrated to the specific water meter's characteristics, circuitry for the collection of water consumption data, a communication system allowing interaction between the user and the water management system and a water valve shutoff capable of being mounted to an existing household water valve and capable of being controlled by the water management system. Additional sensors may optionally be added to the water management system to record and react to data collected by additional sensors, including but not limited to, temperature, humidity, combustible gases and moisture.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an interactive water management system designed to be used in residential and commercial properties.