Listening to Your Pipes with a MEMS Microphone and Raspberry Pi

A new type of water meter produced by Water Wise Controls (WaWiCo) introduces a novel method for water metering: non-invasive acoustic analysis. Their USB water metering kit allows users to listen to their pipes without the need for plumbing work. In this tutorial, the acoustic profile of a piping system will be explored using a Raspberry Pi computer, the Python programming language, and a WaWiCo USB water meter kit. The resulting analysis will allow users to identify the acoustic profile of their piping system and determine when water is flowing. This is the first of a series of entries into non-invasive water metering from WaWiCo, where open-source technologies will be used to characterize a piping system based on the acoustic profile of a user's home or apartment.