Wonitor water usage in Home Assistant

In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to set up the ultimate Water Meter Dashboard in Home Assistant using the Smart Gateways Water Meter Gateway. We’re talking real-time flow rates, hourly and monthly consumption charts, AI-powered leak detection, cost tracking, and a stunning dark-blue dashboard that makes your water data look like mission control. Let’s make your old analog water meter genuinely smart.

What is the Smart Gateways Water Meter Gateway?

Here’s the thing — most homes still have a perfectly functional analog water meter quietly spinning in a utility room, basement, or garage. It does its job, but it gives you absolutely zero insight into what’s happening with your water consumption. You get a bill at the end of the quarter and that’s it. No details. No patterns. No warnings when something is leaking at 3am.

That’s exactly the problem the Smart Gateways Water Meter Gateway was designed to solve. This compact little device attaches to your existing analog water meter, reads it optically or magnetically, and transmits live data over WiFi to your home automation system. No plumber required. No replacing your meter. Just clip it on, connect it to WiFi, and suddenly your old dumb meter is feeding real-time data straight into Home Assistant.

Smart Gateways was actually one of the first companies in the world to offer an off-the-shelf consumer solution for making analog water meters smart. Today, the Water Meter Gateway is being used all over the globe — from the Netherlands and Belgium to the UK and Australia — to bring water intelligence into smart homes.

The gateway supports MQTT with TLS encryption and REST API, has a built-in web server for configuration and diagnostics, supports automatic firmware updates, and even has AI-powered leak detection built right in. It works with Home Assistant, Domoticz, Homey, Grafana, Node-RED, InfluxDB, and more. Or if you don’t have home automation software at all, you can use the optional online cloud dashboard.

💡 Want to see it live? Check out the LIVE DEMO of the dashboard here. Username: demo — Password: smartgateways

Why You Should Monitor Your Water Consumption

You might be thinking: “It’s just water, how bad can it be?” And honestly, that’s exactly what most people think — until they start monitoring. Then things get interesting fast.

Once you have a live dashboard, you start noticing things. That garden sprinkler that you left running a bit too long. The shower that “only took five minutes” but used 80 liters. The subtle background flow at 2am that turns out to be a slowly dripping toilet valve — costing you thousands of liters a year. These are the things water monitoring reveals, and they’re genuinely surprising.

• 📊 See consumption per minute, hour, day, week, month, and year
• 💧 Detect leaks automatically with AI — even when you’re asleep or away
• 💰 Track water costs in real money, not just cubic meters
• 🌱 Reduce waste and contribute to environmental sustainability
• 🏠 Integrate with the Home Assistant Energy Dashboard alongside electricity and gas
• 📱 Monitor from any device — phone, tablet, PC, Mac

Water is something we often take for granted, but monitoring it is one of the most satisfying things you can do in a smart home setup. The data is immediate, tangible, and actionable. And the dashboard you’re about to build looks absolutely stunning.

Two Versions: Which One Do You Need?

The Water Meter Gateway comes in two versions, each designed for a different type of water meter. It’s important to choose the right one before ordering.

• 
  Version A — Inductive Sensor
  
  This version is for water meters that have a metal plate or NFC chip on a rotating wheel. The inductive sensor detects the movement of the metal element as water flows. Version A comes with a mounting bracket with adhesive strip and 60cm of velcro, making it easy to attach to virtually any meter housing. This is the most common version for meters used in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and many other countries.
  
• 
  Version B — Magnetic Reed Sensor
  
  This version is for water meters that have a dedicated slot for a magnetic reed sensor. These are commonly found in Belgium (Kent V100 / Elster V100 “Garnet” meters), Great Britain, and Australia. No bracket or velcro needed — the reed sensor simply clicks into the meter’s sensor slot.
  

Not sure which version you need? No problem — just use the contact form on the Smart Gateways Contact page and the team will help you figure it out. They’re genuinely helpful.

The sensor cable on both versions can be extended up to 15 meters using thin speaker wire (0.5mm² / 20AWG). Version A uses 3-core cable, Version B uses 2-core cable. So even if your gateway can’t be placed right next to the meter, that’s not a problem.

Compatible Water Meters

The Water Meter Gateway is compatible with all water meters that produce an inductive or magnetic pulse per liter consumed. The list of confirmed compatible brands is long and covers the vast majority of meters installed in homes across Europe and beyond:

• ✅ Itron / Actaris / Schlumberger
• ✅ Elster & Kent V100
• ✅ Zenner MNK
• ✅ DH Metering
• ✅ Sensus
• ✅ Diehl Metering
• ✅ Maddalena MVM
• ✅ Honeywell
• ✅ Hidroconta
• ✅ Any meter with an inductive or magnetic pulse at 1-liter resolution

One important note: the Kamstrup Multical 21 and FlowIQ digital water meters (used by Water-Link in Belgium) are not compatible with this gateway — they require the dedicated Kamst-IR Gateway instead.

Dashboard Preview — What You’re Building

Before we dive into the setup steps, let’s take a moment to appreciate what you’re actually going to end up with. Because it’s genuinely impressive.

The dashboard includes:

• 🔵 Diagnostical data panel — IP address, MAC address, WiFi signal strength (gauge), firmware status, startup time, and a direct link to the gateway’s internal web interface
• 💧 Water counters — total usage in liters, live flow rate (L/min) with real-time gauge, pulse count, and AI leak detection status
• 📈 ApexCharts graphs — live flow rate (last 24h), usage per minute (last hour), usage per day (last 7 days), usage per hour (last 24h), and usage per month (last 12 months)
• 🎨 Beautiful dark blue design with glowing card borders and smooth hover animations

And on top of that, you can also use the built-in Home Assistant Energy Dashboard — the Water Meter Gateway integrates directly into it, so your water consumption sits right next to electricity and gas usage in one complete energy overview.

What You Need Before You Start

Good news: you don’t need to be a developer or a networking wizard to get this working. But there are a few things you’ll want to have in place before diving into the dashboard setup. Make sure you have the following:

• ✅ A Smart Gateways Water Meter Gateway (Version A or B — see above). Order here
• ✅ Home Assistant installed and running (any installation method works)
• ✅ WiFi coverage at the location of your water meter (2.4 GHz, WPA/WPA2/WPA3). If you do not have wifi coverage nearby the water meter, it’s possible to extend the sensor cable to 15 meters
• ✅ A USB-C power source near the gateway (the gateway draws only ~40mA nominal — very efficient)
• ✅ Basic familiarity with Home Assistant settings and add-ons — no coding required

Setting up the dashboard can be done in a few easy steps. Complete each step one by one and verify that each step is fully complete before moving on to the next.

Step 1 — Install the Mosquitto MQTT Broker

The Water Meter Gateway communicates with Home Assistant using MQTT — a lightweight, fast, and reliable messaging protocol that’s the backbone of most IoT integrations. Before the gateway can send any data, you need an MQTT broker running inside Home Assistant to receive those messages. The standard choice is Mosquitto, and it installs as a Home Assistant add-on in just a few minutes.

Follow this manual to install and configure Mosquitto: Setup MQTT & Mosquitto Broker on Home Assistant

Once Mosquitto is up and running, note down your MQTT username and password — you’ll need those in Step 3.

Step 2 — Connect the Water Meter Gateway

Now it’s time to physically install the gateway on your water meter. This is easier than it sounds — the mounting bracket is designed to work with virtually all meter types, and the velcro makes attachment clean and tool-free.

• Version A users: Use the mounting bracket and velcro to position the inductive sensor directly over the metal plate or NFC chip on the meter’s rotating wheel.
• Version B users: Insert the magnetic reed sensor into the dedicated sensor slot on your meter.

The full step-by-step installation manual is available on the Smart Gateways Support page. There you’ll also find photos and videos showing installation on specific meter models.

Once physically installed, power the gateway via Micro USB and connect it to your WiFi network using the gateway’s internal web interface (accessible via the IP address it receives from your router, or through the initial setup AP mode).

Step 3 — Enter MQTT Settings on the Gateway

With the gateway connected to WiFi, open its internal web interface in your browser by navigating to the gateway’s IP address on port 82. You’ll find a clean diagnostics and configuration page where you can:

• Set or adjust the current meter reading so your total usage counter starts at the correct value
• Enter your MQTT broker IP address (the IP address of your Home Assistant instance)
• Enter your MQTT port (default: 1883)
• Enter your MQTT username and password

Save the settings and the gateway will immediately start publishing data to your MQTT broker. From this point on, Home Assistant will start receiving real-time water consumption data.

Once the gateway successfully connects to the Mosquitto MQTT broker, it will automatically appear as a new device under the MQTT Integration in Home Assistant — no manual configuration required. You can find it by navigating to Settings → Devices & Services → MQTT, where the Water Meter Gateway will be listed as a discovered device along with all its sensors and entities, ready to use.

(See the image below for reference.)

Step 4 — Add the Water Meter Gateway to the Home Assistant Energy Dashboard

With the gateway publishing data to Home Assistant, you can now add your water meter as a source in the built-in Energy Dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click Settings in the bottom left of the sidebar
2. Click Dashboards
3. Locate Energy under Built-in dashboards and click it to open it
4. Click the pencil icon (✏️) in the top right corner to open the Energy Dashboard settings
5. Click Water in the top navigation bar
6. Click Add water source
7. Search for and select Usage Total — Smart Gateways Watermeter xxxxxx (where xxxxxx represents the last digits of your gateway’s MAC address)
8. Under Flow Rate, search for and select Water Flow — Smart Gateways Watermeter xxxxxx (same MAC digits)
9. Optionally fill in any additional details such as a cost per liter
10. Click Save

Done! Your water meter is now connected to the Home Assistant Energy Dashboard and will start tracking your water consumption over time.

⏳ Please note: It can take 1 to 2 hours before water consumption data becomes visible in the Energy Dashboard. This is normal behavior — Home Assistant needs time to collect and process the first data points before it can display usage statistics.

Step 5 — Install HACS (Home Assistant Community Store)

The advanced dashboard uses a few custom frontend components that aren’t part of the default Home Assistant installation. To install those, you first need HACS — the Home Assistant Community Store. Think of it as the App Store for Home Assistant custom integrations and frontend cards.

Follow this installation guide to set it up: Install HACS on Home Assistant

HACS installs as a custom integration and adds a new menu item to your Home Assistant sidebar once activated.

Step 5a — Install the ApexCharts Card Plugin

The dashboard uses ApexCharts Card by RomRider. This powerful custom card creates interactive, responsive charts and graphs. In the Water Meter Dashboard, ApexCharts Card is used to display all water consumption graphs — including usage per minute, hour, day, week, and month.

Without ApexCharts Card installed, all consumption graphs will fail to render — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type apexcharts-card in the search box
5. Select the apexcharts-card repository by RomRider from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! ApexCharts Card is now available as a card type in your dashboards.

Step 5b — Install the Button Card Plugin

The dashboard uses Button Card by RomRider. This powerful and flexible custom card lets you create fully customized, template-driven buttons with dynamic icons, labels, styles, and tap actions. In the Water Meter Dashboard, Button Card is used to create the “Visit Gateway” button that dynamically constructs the link to your gateway’s internal web interface based on its live IP address.

Without Button Card installed, the gateway link button will fail to render — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type button-card in the search box
5. Select the button-card repository by RomRider from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! Button Card is now available as a card type in your dashboards.

Step 5c — Install the Mushroom Plugin

The dashboard uses Mushroom by piitaya. This modern and lightweight card collection provides clean, elegant template-driven cards with support for dynamic icons, colors, labels, and tap actions. In the Water Meter Dashboard, Mushroom cards are used throughout to display device status, IP address, MAC address, firmware versions, water flow, leak detection, and more.

Without Mushroom installed, the majority of the dashboard cards will fail to render — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type mushroom in the search box
5. Select the Mushroom repository by piitaya from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! Mushroom is now available as a card type in your dashboards.

Step 5d — Install the Gauge Card Pro Plugin

The dashboard uses Gauge Card Pro by benjamin-dcs. This advanced custom card renders highly customizable gauge visuals with gradient color segments, needle indicators, and dynamic value displays. In the Water Meter Dashboard, Gauge Card Pro is used to visualize the WiFi signal strength and the live water flow rate.

Without Gauge Card Pro installed, both gauge cards will fail to render — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type gauge-card-pro in the search box
5. Select the Gauge Card Pro repository by benjamin-dcs from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! Gauge Card Pro is now available as a card type in your dashboards.

Step 5e — Install the Vertical Stack In Card Plugin

The dashboard uses Vertical Stack In Card by ofekashery. This utility card allows multiple cards to be stacked vertically inside a single seamless card container, removing the default spacing and borders between them. In the Water Meter Dashboard, Vertical Stack In Card is used to group the active and available firmware version cards into one cohesive block.

Without Vertical Stack In Card installed, the firmware section will fail to render correctly — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type vertical-stack-in-card in the search box
5. Select the Vertical Stack In Card repository by ofekashery from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! Vertical Stack In Card is now available as a card type in your dashboards.

Step 5f — Install the Card-mod Plugin

The dashboard uses Card-mod by thomasloven. This essential styling plugin allows custom CSS to be injected directly into any Home Assistant card, enabling full control over colors, borders, shadows, animations, and layout. In the Water Meter Dashboard, Card-mod is used on virtually every card to apply the deep blue gradient theme, glowing borders, and smooth hover animations.

Without Card-mod installed, all custom styling will be absent and the dashboard will look completely unstyled — so make sure to install it before loading the dashboard. Here’s how:

1. Click HACS in the sidebar of Home Assistant
2. Click Frontend
3. Click EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD REPOSITORIES in the lower right corner
4. Type card-mod in the search box
5. Select the card-mod repository by thomasloven from the results
6. Click DOWNLOAD in the lower right corner
7. Select the latest version and click DOWNLOAD
8. RELOAD your browser to activate the plugin

Done! Card-mod is now available in your dashboards and all custom styling will be applied correctly.

Step 6 — Generate Your Dashboard Configuration Code

Each Water Meter Gateway has a unique ID based on the last 6 characters of its MAC address. This ID is used throughout all entity names in the dashboard YAML. Instead of manually replacing every entity name, you can use the generator below to automatically create your complete, personalized dashboard configuration — ready to paste directly into the Home Assistant raw configuration editor.

👉 Find your gateway’s ID on the label on the back of the device, or look it up in the gateway’s internal web interface under the MAC address field. Take the last 6 characters (e.g. b01198). It is also visible under the MQTT integration:

Enter the 6 digits in the window below and click Generate Dashboard YAML:

Step 7 — Add the Water Meter Gateway Dashboard to Home Assistant

With all plugins installed, it’s time to add the dashboard to Home Assistant. Here’s how:

1. Navigate to any existing dashboard in Home Assistant
2. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top right corner of the screen
3. Click + to create a new dashboard tab
4. Once the new tab is created, click the three-dot menu (⋮) again inside the new tab
5. Select Edit in YAML from the dropdown menu
6. Select and delete all existing code in the YAML editor
7. Paste the full dashboard code you generated earlier into the empty editor
8. Click Save

Done! The Water Meter Gateway dashboard is now created and fully active. You should immediately see all cards, gauges, and graphs populated with live data from your gateway.

Tip: If any cards show an error or appear unstyled, make sure all six HACS plugins from Steps 5a–5f are correctly installed and that your browser has been reloaded after each installation.

Your new Advanced Smart Water Meter Dashboard will be live and fully populated with data from your gateway.

Technical Specifications

For the technically minded, here’s a full overview of what the Water Meter Gateway packs under the hood:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I use the gateway without Home Assistant or any home automation software?
Yes! Smart Gateways offers an optional Online Energy Dashboard subscription for €19.95/year. This gives you access to a cloud-hosted dashboard you can access from any phone, tablet, or computer — no home automation required.

Can I extend the sensor cable?
Yes, up to 15 meters. Use thin speaker wire of 0.5mm² / 20AWG. Version A requires 3-core cable; Version B uses 2-core cable. The sensor connects via removable screw terminals on the gateway.

Does the gateway work without an internet connection?
Yes. The gateway communicates entirely over your local WiFi network via MQTT. No cloud connection is needed for Home Assistant integration. Your data stays local.

What if I don’t have WiFi coverage at my water meter?
Place a cheap WiFi extender or repeater near the meter location to bring coverage there. The gateway only needs a 2.4 GHz signal — even a weak signal is usually sufficient given its low bandwidth requirements.

Can I connect the gateway to multiple home automation systems simultaneously?
Yes! Since the gateway uses standard MQTT, it can publish to a single broker that multiple systems subscribe to. You can run Home Assistant, Domoticz, and Node-RED all reading from the same gateway at the same time.

Can I track water usage over longer periods?
Yes. With the ApexCharts dashboard you can see usage per minute, hour, day, week, month, and up to 12 months back. For even longer historical data, consider adding InfluxDB + Grafana to your setup for unlimited retention.

Is the sensor waterproof?
The sensor is rated IP20, which means it’s not waterproof. It should not be submerged or exposed to direct water spray. However, the typical utility room or basement installation environment is perfectly fine.

I have a Kamstrup Multical 21 or FlowIQ digital water meter — does this work?
No, digital water meters from Kamstrup use infrared optical communication and are not compatible with this gateway. You need the dedicated Kamst-IR Gateway for those meters.

After updating Home Assistant to version 2025.12.0, errors appeared in my dashboard. What do I do?
Just download the YAML file again and replace it in the packages directory. That’s all it takes.

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, you now have a fully functional, beautiful, real-time water consumption monitoring setup inside Home Assistant. Your old analog water meter has been transformed into a smart device that gives you live flow rates, usage history, cost tracking, AI-powered leak detection, and a dashboard that genuinely looks impressive.

The Smart Gateways Water Meter Gateway is one of those rare products that delivers exactly what it promises — easy to install, solid MQTT integration, automatic firmware updates, and a level of data granularity that surprises most people. It’s especially satisfying when you start noticing patterns in your usage: the morning shower spike, the garden watering session, the subtle baseline flow that shouldn’t be there.

Water is a resource worth paying attention to. And now you have the tools to do exactly that — with style.

🛒 Ready to get started? Order the Smart Water Meter Gateway here — currently €54,95 and ships within one business day.

Also interested in monitoring electricity and gas?

The Smart Gateways product family also includes the Smart Meter Gateway (for P1 electricity/gas meters), the Gas Meter Gateway, the Kamst-IR Gateway for Kamstrup meters, and more. Build a complete energy monitoring setup and get your full household picture in Home Assistant — electricity, gas, and water all in one dashboard.