Utilify: Electric Meter Reader

Utilify is a live electric, gas, and water meter reader for your home. It turns a $30 RTL-SDR USB dongle into a real-time readout of the smart meters your utility already installed. Your meters are constantly broadcasting on the ISM radio band; Utilify just listens and decodes the packets (ERT, SCM, and IDM) into real numbers on your phone, tablet, or PC. No utility-company login. No cloud account. No subscription required to start.

A utility meter reader in your pocket: utility meter reading made simple, with electric meter reading, gas meter reading, and water meter reading from one app — no manual logging, no photographing the dial. Readings update as the meter reports them instead of once a month on a bill.

WHAT YOU GET

• Live kWh, therms, and gallons as your meter reports them — no waiting for next month's bill.

• Per-day usage, cost, and temperature charts with a peak-hour heatmap so you can see exactly when your spend happens.

• A photo-scan bill importer that reads usage and rate off any utility bill and updates your per-kWh / per-therm cost automatically.

• Multi-address support: track your home, a rental, or a parent's place, each with its own electric, gas, and water meters.

• Everything stored locally on the listener device — readings never leave your network unless you turn on Pro remote viewing.

A METER READER FOR EVERY UTILITY

• Electric meter reader — live kWh and power usage from your electricity meter.

• Gas meter reader — live therms and cubic feet from your gas meter.

• Water meter reader — live gallons from your water meter.

Whether you want electric meter reading, gas meter reading, or water meter reading, Utilify decodes them all into one dashboard.

WHAT YOU NEED

A small USB radio called an RTL-SDR. The "RTL-SDR Blog V4" model works great and runs about $30 on Amazon. Plug it into a phone (Android, with a USB-OTG cable), tablet, Linux PC, Windows PC, or Mac and start listening.

iPhone and iPad work as remote viewers but cannot listen directly — iOS does not allow third-party USB SDR access. Run the listener on any of the above and pair the iPhone as a viewer with a single QR scan.

WORKS BEST IN US & CANADA

Utilify decodes the ERT, SCM, and IDM packet formats used by Itron and similar smart meters across North America. Meters in Europe and most of Asia use different (often encrypted) protocols and won't decode — please confirm your local meter type before subscribing to Pro.

ALREADY USE rtl_433 OR HOME ASSISTANT?

Utilify covers the same packet decoding in a single phone / tablet / TV app — no MQTT broker, no YAML, no Pi to maintain. Pair viewer and listener devices with one QR scan and you're done.

PRO

• Unlimited history (free tier shows 30 days).

• End-to-end encrypted FRP tunnel so a viewer device away from your home Wi-Fi can still see live readings.

• One-time lifetime option available — no subscription required.

PRIVACY

Readings live in a SQLite file on the listener device. We never upload them to a server. The Pro tunnel uses encryption between your devices only — no third-party intermediary stores your data.