Indian company Oakter has launched a smart meter to make energy management more efficient.

Called Oakmeter, it meets quality standards such as BIS, CE, RoHS, CBIP 325 for tamper protection, CMMI level three and ISO.

Unlike traditional meters, it uses technologies such as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), real-time data analytics and IoT capabilities. This enables two-way communication with the utility’s server via internet connectivity, facilitating seamless detection of tampering, real-time data transmission at intervals as frequent as every 15 or 30 minutes, outage identification, and visibility of energy consumption on mobile devices. These features result in reduced manual intervention, increased operational efficiency, fewer errors and cost savings for consumers and utilities.

“Sustainable energy is a primary need for our planet in current times,” said Shishir Gupta, CEO of Oakter. “While India’s current capacity to produce more electricity than total demand is a positive development, coupled with the increasing deployment of renewable energy, there is still progress to be made. The big issue right now is losses in distribution, which can be attributed to power thefts, corruption and inefficient infrastructure. Smart meters are the solutions to this problem by providing real-time visibility of distribution and consumption across the country. Hence the Indian government has launched the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) to replace all energy meters with smart energy meters.”

He said Oakter’s competence in developing and manufacturing smart IoT devices was perfectly suited to manufacturing high-quality smart energy meters in large quantities.

“Therefore, we have set up a manufacturing unit to produce ten lac smart energy meters per month,” he said. “We have made these investments and built these capacities to support the government initiative and mandate given to private industry.”

Oakter’s smart meters (oakter.com/smart-meter) have undergone rigorous testing in the company’s NABL certified lab to ensure peak functionality, surpassing the accuracy of traditional class-one meters. Designed to meet the specifications of all utilities across the country, these meters leverage Oakter’s expertise in deploying over two crore IoT devices in the market.

With 4G connectivity, low latency and optimised communication protocols, Oakter says it has set a standard in smart meter technology.

Oakmeter is a business-to-business product supplied directly to utilities, with Oakter providing a ten-year warranty on all products. The typical contract for smart meters includes installation, support and finance based on the DBFOOT (design-build finance-own-operate-transfer) model, with contracts awarded at INR8k to 10k per meter.

Established in 2015, Oakter (oakter.com) is the brainchild of Riot Labz, offering consumer electronics tailored for the Indian market. Notable milestones include being the first Indian IoT brand to collaborate with tech giants such as Alexa and Google, and introducing a smart wifi universal remote controller, which quickly reached sales of over ten lakh units within two years. In addition, Oakter manufactures smart IoT wifi plugs with voice control capabilities, initially launched as part of a smart home automation kit and later integrated into Sony TVs Bravia.