3 ms·

And even meters that don't have zigbee might be readable using an RTL-SDR. You do have to figure out which one is yours and which are your neighbors, though.

joezydeco 6y ago
Pretty sure that the datastream is encrypted. Being able to sniff your neighbor's power consumption from far away is a pretty large security hole.
- KingMachiavelli 6y ago
  At least the ones I have seen are not. I am able to read the all the power meters in my building with a cheap USB SDR and this software. https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr I have not gotten around to figuring out which one is mine or a good way to system to store/display the data but I certainly can read the date. In the grand scheme of things it is a minor to medium security flaw, power usage could be used to infer which houses contain valuable items and when people are home. I'd say medium at most since a lot of other things Visible curbside indicate this as well (lights, cars in the driveway, etc.). On the other hand, electronics are pretty efficient. A wealthy house with all the lights on is still using less electricity than a small apartment using an electric stove. But I guess if you were really interested in stealing electric cars then it would be really useful.
- tyingq 6y ago
  I imagine it depends on location, but there are places where it's wide open. "Using a cheap RTL-SDR, it didn’t take long for [k-roy] to tap into this transmission and stumbled across the power readings for his entire neighborhood using a simple command" https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...
- cromka 6y ago
  As was pointed out, you still have to figure out which signal comes from which meter, so unless you find a way to tag them all, they’re anonymous.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Sometimes they are. I gave up on playing with my water meters because of it; my RTL-SDR can pick them, alright, but I checked the manufacturer docs, and the meters encrypt the datastream.

joezydeco 6y ago

Pretty sure that the datastream is encrypted. Being able to sniff your neighbor's power consumption from far away is a pretty large security hole.

KingMachiavelli 6y ago
At least the ones I have seen are not. I am able to read the all the power meters in my building with a cheap USB SDR and this software. https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr I have not gotten around to figuring out which one is mine or a good way to system to store/display the data but I certainly can read the date. In the grand scheme of things it is a minor to medium security flaw, power usage could be used to infer which houses contain valuable items and when people are home. I'd say medium at most since a lot of other things Visible curbside indicate this as well (lights, cars in the driveway, etc.). On the other hand, electronics are pretty efficient. A wealthy house with all the lights on is still using less electricity than a small apartment using an electric stove. But I guess if you were really interested in stealing electric cars then it would be really useful.
tyingq 6y ago
I imagine it depends on location, but there are places where it's wide open. "Using a cheap RTL-SDR, it didn’t take long for [k-roy] to tap into this transmission and stumbled across the power readings for his entire neighborhood using a simple command" https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...
cromka 6y ago
As was pointed out, you still have to figure out which signal comes from which meter, so unless you find a way to tag them all, they’re anonymous.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Sometimes they are. I gave up on playing with my water meters because of it; my RTL-SDR can pick them, alright, but I checked the manufacturer docs, and the meters encrypt the datastream.