I need to read my water counters regularly each month and it drives me crazy. I simply just hate doing that.
I was thinking about the possibility of automating this somehow.
What I need is a way to read counters and send it wirelessly to a web server.

My first idea was to buy some very old smart phones with Android, create a small app to take pictures on a specific date, and send the picture over the wifi to a server for OCR.
An old working Android smartphone is like 30$ though I think.

Is it possible to build something cheaper than that?

 

I doubt that you could do it much cheaper. You can actually do the OCR on the smart phone, I have done it myself.

 

Use a simple network video cam?


http://www.axis.com/products/m10_series/

 

Have you seen the price of that thing?

 

actually an old Android phone is more like 50$ not 30$

 

Got specs on this "water counter" device?
Can you simply replace this "water counter" with one with some sort of analog/digital output?

 

Are you referring to this as a water counter?

 

My water meter is connected to a 2-wire phone line. Somehow the water company can read the meter remotely.

 

Are you referring to this as a water counter?

Yes, that's what I refer to.
But it's not that remote, it's in my apartment.

 

My water meter is connected to a 2-wire phone line. Somehow the water company can read the meter remotely.

lucky you.

 

Got specs on this "water counter" device?
Can you simply replace this "water counter" with one with some sort of analog/digital output?

I can't. This is totally in the hands of the utility company.