Skip to content
Focus FirstDigital Lab
Back to work
What we've built before

Tracking water use on construction sites

Water meters were read by hand. With LoRaWAN, GPS, and a dashboard, project managers now see usage live, without walking the site.

Screenshot coming soon
Screenshot coming soon

Context

Construction sites install temporary water meters for billing and usage tracking. Projects run for months, and water consumption fluctuates by phase — so accurate readings are essential for correct billing and budget control.

Problem

Meter readings were taken by hand — error-prone, time-consuming, and a common source of billing disputes. Project managers only saw daily figures, not real-time usage or anomalies.

Approach

We explored what sensor data was already available per meter, how it could be collected automatically with minimal hardware, and how live insight was possible without on-site visits. We chose low-power sensors and cloud storage.

Solution

LoRaWAN sensors (each with built-in GPS) on every meter, connected via existing LoRa gateways, parsed to AWS IoT Core and visualized in a custom React dashboard. Anomaly detection with threshold alerts. Backend: Node.js, PostgreSQL, MapBox for GPS visualization.

Outcome

Beta tested on 3 construction sites over 8 weeks. Within the first month: fewer billing disputes (data is now factual and timestamped), faster invoice processing, and project managers see real-time consumption patterns so they can intervene when something's off.