1. Introduction
Smart water meters — meters that can automatically collect detailed usage data — are growing in popularity as
a way to manage aging infrastructure and encourage conservation. Smart meters are a new source of information
about water systems, providing consumption data in greater spatial and temporal detail than ever before. In order
for consumers and utilities to take advantage of smart meter technology, the iWIDGET project (www.i-widget.eu) is
developing a suite of applications including usage evaluation, demand forecasting, pump scheduling, water balance
estimation and many others. Collectively, these applications aim to develop novel, robust, practical and cost-effective
methodologies and tools to manage urban water demand by reducing wastage, by improving the utilities’ understanding
of end-user demand, and by reducing customer water and energy costs [1].
Supporting the desired suite of applications for consumers, utilities and other stakeholders requires consistency in
information access, interoperability between applications, and flexibility in implementation. To satisfy these requirements,
iWIDGET is a distributed architecture [2]. In summary, the system is composed of an iWIDGET server and
database, with remote client systems for data acquisition, analysis (Fig. 1) and visualization. Data acquisition from
meters in the field is performed by a water utility. A data acquisition service is used to input smart meter readings into
the iWIDGET system on a regular schedule. Analytic functions are delegated to separate, remote analytic servers.