About Reads

The term “Reads” can refer to many different things. For example, when someone says “reads” they could be talking about Meter Display Reads, Encoder Reads, Full Reads/Meter Visual Reads, or Billing Reads. Put another way, when looking at the dial on a water meter, a read could be:

• all of the numbers on the dial
• some of the numbers on the dial
• the numbers on the dial plus the number indicated by a sweep hand
• the number on the dial multiplied by a value that determines the resolution or where the decimal point should be placed.

This picture of a meter dial helps illustrate each type of read. Notice that there are eight numbers (16392000) across the top third of the dial, but only the first six digits actually move. The last two “fixed” zeros are printed on the dial. This means that the red rotating sweep hand points to the number that the fixed zeroes represent. That number is 15 in this example.

This table illustrates four different types of reads, what gets shown on the dial and the actual read. The table assumes an dial with a sweep hand.

When a read contains leading zeros, that is, the first n digits on the dial are zeros, visual reads might include the zeros or not.

Of course, there are other types of meter displays that do not have sweep hands or fixed zeros. This convenient interactive tool lets you experience how various endpoints and meters handle reads. Click the image below to open the Meter Tool in a new window.

Reads in BEACON

The following types of reads are found in BEACON for any given endpoint:

• The most recent Billing Read appears on Monitor page cards under the Reads tab.
• The Monitor page Consumption Graph shows billing reads when it is set to daily and hourly resolutions and you hover the cursor over a consumption bar.
• The last (or most recent) Billing Read is shown on the Assets page in the Provisioned Endpoints section.
• The last Encoder Read is shown on the Assets page in the Pre-provisioned Endpoints section. (Remember Provisioned Endpoints will not appear in the Pre-provisioned Endpoints section of the Assets page.)

Export operation	Type of Read
Monitor page>Actions> Latest Reads	Encoder Read
What it looks like in Excel
What it looks like in Sublime Text

Export operation	Type of Reads
Monitor page>Actions> Billing Reads	Read Billing Read Encoder Read
What it looks like in Excel
What it looks like in Sublime Text

Export operation	Type of Read
Assets>Endpoints>Pre-provisioned Endpoints>Actions> Export Reads to File	Encoder Read
What it looks like in Excel
What it looks like in Sublime Text

Export operation	Type of Read(s)
Assets>Endpoints>Provisioned Endpoints>Actions> Export Reads to File	Billing Read
What it looks like in Excel
What it looks like in Sublime Text

Export operation	Type of Reads
Export Data Services>Read JSON-format output	Read (line 9) Billing Read (line 11) Encoder Read (line 13)

Export operation	Type of Reads
Export Data Services>Read JSON-format output	Read (line 9) Billing Read (line 11) Encoder Read (line 13)

Export operation	Type of Reads
Export Data Services>Flow JSON-format output	Read (lines 8 and 10 – null indicates there was no ‘Point 2 Read’ on which to base a flow calculation)

About Resolution

Different size meters have different resolutions. That is, a single sweep or rotation could represent 10, 100 or 1000 gallons or any other unit of measure. Many utilities only read the leftmost four or five digits. In addition, they round to the nearest 10 or 100 units.