Digital Transformation of Conventional Water Meter using ESP32-CAM

This project presents a cost-effective and efficient solution for automating the reading of conventional analog water meters by leveraging ESP32-CAM, a compact and affordable microcontroller with camera capabilities. Traditional analog water meters, while reliable and durable, require manual readings that are labor-intensive and prone to human error. To address these limitations, the proposed system uses image capture and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques to digitally extract numerical readings from the meter. The extracted data is transmitted in real-time to an online server using the ESP32’s built-in Wi-Fi, enabling remote monitoring. Additionally, a fallback mechanism is integrated using a microSD card module to store data offline in case of connectivity issues, ensuring data reliability. This solution minimizes human intervention, reduces errors, and enables efficient water usage monitoring, especially useful for smart city and utility applications.