Analog Power Meters Versus Digital Power Meters ?

In India, in very huge amount power theft is done. So, government decided to replace Analog Power meters with Digital Power meters.
However, after the replacement of Digital meters in place Analog meters many users claims that Bill is increased with latest digital meters.

However, my questions are :
How digital meter works ? How analogue meter works ?
Isn't there any other way to stop Power theft other than changing analog power meter to digital meter ?
What is drawback of Analogue meters apart from theft compared to Digital meters ?
There are majority places in India where still analog meters are used, I wonder is it tough to cover entire India with digital Power meters ?
Analogue meters are easily tweakable, Isn't there any way to tweak digital meters ?
I understand that to tweak digital meters you gotta open the seal, which is offensive as per rules, but isn't there any way that digital meters can be cracked ?

PS : I am not power thief, I just want to know that how does it works, like all other components,this product also cant be perfect, I assume there might be some flaw in the digital meters too which we can find out. I am just curious to know about it.

Replies

  • Jeffrey Arulraj
    Jeffrey Arulraj
    Actually flashing a digital component is always easier than analog

    Cause analog components predeterministically use mechanical drives which need time to do some tweaking. Where as in Digital flashing a 0 with a 1 is really simple.

    But in the other end How many thiefs in real wold knows this??☕

    In my opinion it is really a good move by the electricity Board to replace the analog with digital counterparts But complete digitisation is really a humungous task and so we Hope the government can finish it with in the next year at the least
  • Harshad Italiya
    Harshad Italiya
    Now a days Every analog meter is going to be replaced by Digital Meter and that is why each and every Microcontroller and ADC chip manufacturer treating Embedded company who is in such development like King.

    I think now a days It's not that much easy to crack digital meter compare to Analog meter as they are keeping provision to log each and every fishy behaviour of device.
  • Sanyam Khurana
    Sanyam Khurana
    I heard that some special powerful magnets are there and when they are kept with Digital Meters, the measurement is stopped...

    So, whatever steps may be taken, some people would always find a way to cheat... 👎
  • Harshad Italiya
    Harshad Italiya
    Sanyam Khurana
    I heard that some special powerful magnets are there and when they are kept with Digital Meters, the measurement is stopped...

    So, whatever steps may be taken, some people would always find a way to cheat... 👎
    It might be. But I think Digital Meter has powerful firmware which is capable to detect such hack and it will log this in it's memory before it stops reading or any other function.
  • Abhishek Rawal
    Abhishek Rawal
    Harshad Italiya
    It might be. But I think Digital Meter has powerful firmware which is capable to detect such hack and it will log this in it's memory before it stops reading or any other function.
    So technically Digital meters comes out to be most suitable option, as you can't break the seal from it (government's norms) & thus it's basically not possible to flash the custom firmware in the device.

    So, I guess theft in digital meters is only possible while manufacturing the device, right ?

    Is it tough to replace analogue meters to digital meters ? (because Even though loads of power theft cases are seen, I don't really think government is taking major steps for it)
    Or they know that there is a loophole in the digital power meters ?
  • Harshad Italiya
    Harshad Italiya
    Abhishek Rawal
    So technically Digital meters comes out to be most suitable option, as you can't break the seal from it (government's norms) & thus it's basically not possible to flash the custom firmware in the device.

    So, I guess theft in digital meters is only possible while manufacturing the device, right ?

    Is it tough to replace analogue meters to digital meters ? (because Even though loads of power theft cases are seen, I don't really think government is taking major steps for it)
    Or they know that there is a loophole in the digital power meters ?
    There may be some loopholes but there are lot of companies in India working on metering solutions and they are covering most of the possible power theft. So I can see after some years Digital meters will become more secure.
  • arunchary
    arunchary
    yes harshad exactly now one of known company (analogics)are pioneer in doing digital electrical meter ,the launched meter with gsm protection with accuracy where it will be secured with surge currents and other features..
  • Anshul_007saxena
    Anshul_007saxena
    engineers from Mseb claim that if the earthing/ ground is correct it wont increase any bill. But my question is each an every equiptment does not have earthing. & what about the equiptment who have seperate earthing if they are run on digital meter who records pulses more if ground is not provided/ equptiment does not send signal which is recorded by meter. how this situation will b tackled? what if underground fitting have an earthing leakage which cannot be resolved. there is no 100 o/o solution for this situation! some earthing will b not grounded or loosed. will not reach meter earthing to record pulse. it will increase bill.
  • J Biswas
    J Biswas
    We from FORBIX SEMICON manufacture Digital Smart Energy Meters as one of our products.
    We have started supply it to concrete factories recently.
    Our plan is to reach to masses very soon.

    Earlier thread for this product: Smart Energy Meters: FORBIX SEMICO
    Top features listed in there.
    Magnets/high voltage will not tamper operation.
    I am not sure how to attach pictures here.

    Our website is under construction now.
  • J Biswas
    J Biswas
    It took us some time to upload the images in our website.
    Anyway, here it is: #-Link-Snipped-#
  • yeshu005
    yeshu005
    hi guys,
    i want to monitor total power in home,how much it consumes day to day by using small screen.how to complete the circuit what else components are required please help me..thanks in advance

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