Skip to content

Introducing Smart Alerts 

Screenshot 2024-09-30 at 11.49.02 AM

What are meter.me Smart Alerts?

The new meter.me Smart Alerts notify you when your component's behavior is unusual in a way that may indicate a leak or other unexpected water loss events, helping you take action to save water.

Our Smart Alert system looks at your components' behavior over time and learns what’s normal for your component. It can then actively identify unusual behavior as it happens and notify you with an alert. The smart alert system continues to learn and adapt to changes in your use over time (for example, seasonal variations).

While still in beta, Smart Alerts have already saved many of our customers thousands of gallons of our most precious resource, water.

Smart alerts are smart, but they can be even smarter. We need your help! When you receive a Smart Alert, you’ll have the chance to respond and help train our beta system by telling us if the alert was helpful and a little bit about what caused it. With your feedback, we can make Smart Alerts more useful, eliminate false alarms and more accurately detect issues.

Types of Smart Alerts

Today, Smart Alerts generate alerts for two types of unusual behavior that can happen in water tanks: unusual frequency and unusual amplitude of water level changes (drops).

1. Unusual frequency in water level changes

This alert is useful for detecting leaks or water loss events in systems that incorporate some form of automated tank pumping. With automated filling based on some condition in the tank water level, these water losses won’t lead to obvious, large drains of water in the tank, but will cause your pump to work overtime and appear as a sudden increase in how often the tank is getting filled.

smart_alerts_plots.001 1
2. Unusual amplitude of water level changes

This alert is used to detect leaks or water loss events that cause an uncharacteristic drop in the tank level as compared to past tank data. This is different and more powerful than our sudden drop alert, where you can ask to be alerted when your tank level drops a pre-defined amount in a specific amount of time. Instead, Smart Alerts automatically learns your normal tank behavior over time and then uses that to identify an unusual drop in tank level, regardless if that drop is slow or sudden.

smart_alerts_plots.002 1

Want to learn more about why Smart Alerts is a valuable tool for fire hardening, saving water, power, and more? Check out the white paper on anomaly detection (Smart Alerts). 

Smart Alerts - FAQs
Are Smart Alerts right for my components?

Smart Alerts function best for components that have a regular, consistent use pattern, such as those that are controlled by some form of automation. Smart Alerts are designed to learn these patterns and rely on them when trying to evaluate if any current behavior is unusual. 

Seasonal variations are O.K., as Smart Alerts continually re-learn and update their understanding of your component, but systems with very irregular use present challenges. That is not to say that Smart Alerts won’t work on those components! As Smart Alerts are designed to make sure that real issues don’t fall through the cracks, they may end up generating more alerts on some components than others in an effort to play it safe.

How can I enable Smart Alerts?

You can enable smart alerts from within the app. To do so:

  1. Login to your app

  2. Go to the “actions” section in your water system

  3. You’ll see “smart alerts” under you system alert section. Tap the toggle to the green side to enable smart alerts.

Smart Alerts are still beta, so you may not yet have access to it.  If you don’t see this option in the app but you’re interested in smart alerts, reach out to us at support@meter.me.

What types of components can I enable smart alerts for?

Smart alerts are currently available for water tanks only, but we’re working to add support for more components soon, such as pumps and wells.

Should I keep my other tank alerts if I have smart alerts enabled?

We still offer the same minimum level, maximum level, and sudden drop alerts for tanks as before. These alerts can still be very useful to notify you about specific conditions of your tank (e.g. when my tank level is getting low or when my tank level drops too quickly).

We recommend that you use these alerts along with Smart Alerts to optimize water loss detection and help you manage your water system. Just note that having multiple tank alerts enabled at once can result in redundant alerts when conditions overlap.

Are Smart Alerts enabled immediately once I turn them on for a component?

Smart Alerts have a training period for a given component. While Smart Alerts begin tracking your component immediately after it is enabled, it will not be able to send an alert until it has sufficient data from the component.

Currently, Smart Alerts require at least two weeks of data and four observed “events” on the component. For tanks, an “event” is any drop in water level.

I’m getting too many alerts / Smart Alerts keep flagging things that are normal.

While Smart Alerts work well for a majority of systems, we are continually improving and adapting Smart Alerts to work well for all systems. In some cases, Smart Alerts may be overly sensitive.

We are simultaneously working on improving Smart Alerts' overall accuracy and adding the ability for users to customize sensitivity to help eliminate false positives.