Updated 7/3/2026
The City of Boynton Beach Utility Department has a Smart Water Meter Opt Out Policy, effective April 16, 2026.
The $55/month fee is excessive. Over 4X what FPL charges ($13/mo) for an Electrical Opt-Out meter read and we wonder why the City Utilities cannot compete with other Utilities. So let us look at the Not So Smart Water Meter to see why you may want to opt-out anyway.
See Page 5 of the above 2010 Manual for the basic components at the time.
We could not find a recent diagram and so we will next show some of more recent components from a teardown video of 2020 below. The battery appears to be larger than the C-cell of the diagram, the glass plate is shown as a more extensive enclosure and the circuit board appears much more complex than shown in the above diagram. The magnetic shield is gone. Other references suggest it is replaced magnetic tampering detection and alarm. Not the best for battery life.
What is of note is that the glass encasement does not allow for an direct electrical contact for the Radio Read Antenna and Battery to connect. So this would employ inductive coupling methods such as are used for wirelessly charging as is described in the video at 13 minutes. Inductive energy and data transfer . . . on the water to our homes that uses the cold water metal plumbing as a grounding electrode. You can’t make this stuff up.
The FCC licenses the Sensus I-Perl through the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) and we have an inquiry about how that is being done. https://www.fcc.gov/general/office-engineering-technology-functions . They manage Equipment Authorization and Experimental Licensing.
Regulation by the Federal Communications Commission:
https://fccid.io/blog/2018/05/06/fcc-wireless-inductive-charging-rules
While the I-Perl is a “smart” device on it’s own it is generally used with a companion SmartPoint (commonly referred to as a radio reader) battery powered 2 watt antenna that is also “smart”. The battery pack of that device is more substantial. You can see that it has been made to be detachable and I would suspect it could charge the battery in the I-Perl, and then be detached to be recharged or recycled. These would be maintenance items nobody is talking about. Notice how the “Command Link” communicates with the SmartPoint in the video at 2 min. I would say that is more inductive coupling. Yea, who knows what could be going on in that utility box?
See how it is installed:
The I-Perl can also be accessed using a device that can be USB connected to your PC. https://fccid.io/SDB100A It appears to be an another device that would connect by inductive coupling:
Find out more about inductive coupling:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/inductive-power-transfer
Here are the related patents
This referenced patent needs some clarification to update to recent technology
Oh! Look now what else can be done with inductive coupling. Now YOU can help power devices like your smart water meter according to the article below that describes how, “harvesting energy from biological sources is appealing as it can be obtained from natural human activity.”
If you choose to exercise your natural human activity and use your water meter touch pad, you may want to get a spectrum analyzer to check yourself for bidirectional communications on the 16 MHz and 27 MHz bands allocated by the FCC for use of your Human Body Communication Band.
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