What does HackerNews think of rtlamr?

An rtl-sdr receiver for Itron ERT compatible smart meters operating in the 900MHz ISM band.

Language: Go

#58 in Go
Circadian lighting with Home Assistant: Like f.lux, but for your house | Nov 2022
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Not OP, but in my jurisdiction the smart power meters broadcast consumption as SCM at 900MHz. rtlamr

https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr

does a good job of receiving and decoding those broadcasts using a cheap SDR. My local water utility also broadcasts consumption as SCM+, also 900MHz. I'm able to grab both with the single SDR.
Hacker reveals smart meters are spilling secrets about the Texas snowstorm | Jun 2021
using this: https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr, I could read the meters of about 30 of my neighbors... and I was not living in apartments... Yards in that neighborhood were about 150ftx75ft. And I would get meter reading updates about every other minute. I used the stock rtl-sdr antenna and didn't even place it outside my home.
Hacker reveals smart meters are spilling secrets about the Texas snowstorm | Jun 2021
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I do this with a cheap (~$20) USB RTL-SDR – no Arduino or custom electronics necessary. Of course, I only use it to monitor my own energy usage (electricity and gas) using rtlamr[1] and a script that periodically sends the data to InfluxDB, then displayed using Grafana.

The result is a smart home energy monitor that doesn't require any clamps near the electrical panel, and it exactly matches the usage for which I'll be billed.

[1] https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr
IoTaWatt Open Source WiFi Electric Power Monitor | Feb 2021
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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

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.
Nuclear industry bribed politicians to kill app electric utility customers love | Sep 2020
I was impacted by this, and ended up building my own replacement with a Raspberry Pi 4 running Home Assistant, a Honeywell T6 Z-wave thermostat, and rtlamr (https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr) to read the smart meter signal.