Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio (2024)

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ComputerGuru ◴[16 Sep 25 16:17 UTC] No.45264279[source]▶

I was informed maybe 7 or 8 years back that my electric company would be replacing my analog meter with a smart one and always intended to try and glean more information about my electric consumption habits from it. It took me a lot longer than I intended, but last year I finally bought an RTL-SDR in the hopes of being able to get realtime info from the meter. Unfortunately, it seems that it's not one of the ones that emits consumption info over ISM bands for consumption by household appliances (so far as I can tell) and I ended up only capturing info from TPMS sensors off of passing cars (which was cool, but not really what I was looking for).

Do note that if you purchase an RTL-SDR these days, you'll probably get a v4 which, at least as of last year, does not play out-of-the-box at all with the software available on the Ubuntu apt repos and the RTL-SDR drivers that ship with 24.04 out-of-the-box — there were some hardware protocol/interface changes between v3 and v4 that make the old drivers incompatible and you'll get a litany of misleading or non-specific errors if you try without downloading and installing the latest drivers from GitHub (or somewhere).

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1. vel0city ◴[16 Sep 25 16:27 UTC] No.45264405[source]▶

>>45264279 #

A number of smart meters communicate over the mains wires, especially when they're in very sparse areas. There was even a thought for a bit to offer internet services over the power distribution cables, but I don't think they ever really got effective data rates high enough to be competitive.

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2. ComputerGuru ◴[16 Sep 25 16:29 UTC] No.45264440[source]▶

>>45264405 (TP) #

Yes, that seems to be what mine is doing as my ecobee thermostat is able to read info about peak usage times from the mains. I didn't know about the latter part though, I never imagined electric companies were making a play for the internet (though it seems like an obvious thought in retrospect).

replies(1): >>45266592 #

3. mdaniel ◴[16 Sep 25 18:42 UTC] No.45266146[source]▶

>>45264405 (TP) #

And its "last mile" friend of using the in-wall cable as Ethernet drops, too, e.g. https://www.tp-link.com/us/powerline/ (but I don't think it holds a candle to actually pulling cat 5 or 6, for clarity)

4. esseph ◴[16 Sep 25 19:14 UTC] No.45266592[source]▶

>>45264440 #

A lot of electric companies in the US are also ISPs. They already have most of the equipment to run fiber, and many also do wireless links between substations.

5. extraduder_ire ◴[17 Sep 25 05:35 UTC] No.45272117[source]▶

>>45264405 (TP) #

If it's low enough bitrate, wouldn't you be able to read that by putting an antenna or loop of wire near the mains? I assume they use a documented standard.

6. dpb001 ◴[17 Sep 25 13:44 UTC] No.45275774[source]▶

>>45264405 (TP) #

In the early 2000’s there were efforts to provide broadband over power lines (BPL). I think one of the biggest obstacles was the radio frequency interference it generated.

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7. vel0city ◴[17 Sep 25 14:00 UTC] No.45275950[source]▶

>>45275774 #

Re-reading some of the history of it that does sound like RF interference was more of a concern than data rates. Some places even attempted roll-outs but were stymied by regulators wanting more studies about potential impacts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_over_power_lines

Thanks for correcting me on that.

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