Smart water meter leak alerts that reach the customer the next morning, with the likely leak and what it costs a day
The customer hears about a leak the next morning, with its cost a day, not on the bill.
See one case, screen by screen ↓A water smart meter already knows when a home's water never stops. From midnight to 5 am a healthy home uses nothing for hours; a home with a running cistern or a stuck float valve never reaches zero. Most utilities hold those interval reads and the meter's own continuous-flow flag, and still let the customer find out from the bill. On a monthly cycle a leak that starts early runs 20 to 30 days before anyone sees it. A toilet cistern losing 1,100 litres a day for 22 days is 24.2 m³ — about AED 616 at the top residential slab.
Then the leak becomes work. The bill becomes a high-bill call, an investigation, a complaint when the customer feels blamed, and a leak adjustment request with the proof gathered by hand. The pipework after the meter belongs to the customer, so the utility can only tell them — and a continuous-flow flag is noise until it is ranked, explained, sent in the customer's own language and followed up until the meter shows the flow has stopped.
Estimated split for one customer-side leak on a monthly bill, in calendar days, by the bill and with the morning alert. The first two rows add up to the median the working solution shows on its sample data: 31 days by the bill, 3.4 days by the morning alert.
Six specialist agents read every meter's night, name the leak, price it and alert the customer; a person decides the held cases and every credit.
Lumina Utilities reads 412,600 water meters every 15 minutes. On the night of Mon 12 – Tue 13 Oct 2026, the toilet cistern at Villa 14, Street 7, Al Rimal 3 has been running since Saturday afternoon, and Farah Nasser has no idea. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
The night flow reader reads 412,600 meters — 8.25M reads from 00:00 to 05:00. By 05:14, 9,840 homes never reached zero, and 1,582 meters with gaps are sent back to meter operations to be re-read instead of flagged. By 05:15, 1,286 have stayed above zero for three nights in a row, 214 of them new this morning. The leak type reader finishes at 05:18 and the cost calculator at 05:19.
Cost at each slab: “≈ AED 46,800 a day” across this morning's continuous-flow homes.
Noura opens the night-flow wall for Al Rimal 3: 38,200 water meters, 118 homes with continuous flow, 21 new this morning. Each small line is one home from midnight to 5 am, on the same scale, with the zero line dashed under it. She turns on “Only never-zero homes” and four lines are left lit: Villa 2 at 940 L a day, Villa 4 at 520, Villa 27 at 1,320 and Villa 14 at 1,100. Villa 16, at about 120 L a day, sits under the 150 L alert line and is watched, not alerted.
Villa 14: “1,100 L/day · never 0 · low 0.74”
When quiet hours end at 07:00, 201 alerts go out by app and SMS, and 4 customers with no mobile number get a letter and an app message. Nine are held for Noura: five burst-sized flows and two customers on the medical register are called first, and two have a leak type under the 85 % needed to name it automatically. The largest, Villa 12 in Al Waha 2, is 9,400 L a day — the call note for the water desk is already drafted.
Call note: “…if the meter still turns, a valve is stuck open. In this case, please close the main stop valve until a plumber has looked at it…”
Farah Nasser's line has not stopped since Sat 10 Oct 14:20. Lowest flow 0.74 L/min at 03:15, 0 minutes at zero in three nights, about 1,100 litres a day, flat night over night. The leak type reader ranks toilet cistern at 81 %, roof tank float valve at 12 % and underground supply pipe at 5 %, and gives its reasons: steady 0.74–0.80 L/min with no pauses, unchanged night over night, and a start two minutes after a 9-litre flush.
“Held for you: Leak type 81 %: under the 85 % needed to name it automatically. Keep the leak type in the wording, edit it, or send without it.”
Farah's last bills put her on Slab 3, above 40 m³ a month, at AED 25.45 per 1,000 litres. So far the leak has cost about 2,970 litres and AED 75.59; if it runs to the 1 Nov read it will be about 24.2 m³ and AED 615.89 on the bill. Beside it are her contact preferences: the Lumina app then SMS, Arabic first with English below, quiet hours 21:00–07:00, not on the priority services register, no leak adjustment in 12 months.
Run log: “1,100 L a day × AED 25.45 / 1,000 L = about 28 AED a day”
Noura reads the reasons, keeps “most often a toilet cistern” in the wording and presses Send alert. Farah gets it in Arabic first and English below, with the litres, the cost a day and one check she can do herself. The follow-up watcher will check the next two nights; if the line still never reaches zero by Fri 16 Oct 07:00, the water desk gets a call task.
“Your water has not stopped since Saturday: about 1,100 litres a day, about 28 AED a day. Most often a toilet cistern: put a few drops of food colouring in the cistern; colour in the bowl within 15 minutes means a leak. Reply FIXED when repaired, or HELP for a free water check.”
Over the last seven days more than 1,400 alerts went out: 99 % delivered, 87 % read, 44 % answered by the customer, and 53 % of homes with the flow stopped within 72 hours. Every row names the home, the possible leak, the litres and the cost a day. TH 47 in Bayview has already replied “FIXED — flapper replaced”; alerts not read yet can be resent by email.
“Every alert names the home, the litres, the cost a day and one thing to check.”
Khalid's list holds the leaks still running 72 hours after the alert: 381 open, 38 calls due today, with Villa 7 in Old Harbour — on the medical register — at the top. Villa 33 in Sahil Heights read the alert on Fri 9 Oct and did not reply; 5,040 litres and AED 128.27 have gone since. At Villa 45 the customer replied FIXED, but the meter disagrees, so the case stays open.
Call note drafted by the follow-up watcher: “If it is the cistern, a flush valve seal costs about AED 40 at any hardware store.”
Hassan Jaber at Villa 8, Old Harbour, was alerted on Fri 2 Oct about a supply pipe leak; it was replaced on Tue 6 Oct, with plumber invoice 7731 as proof and zero nights on 7/8 and 8/9 Oct. The adjustment checker runs leak adjustment policy LP-04: customer-side leak, repaired within 30 days of the first alert, proof of repair, two zero nights, no adjustment in 12 months, excess over 3 m³. The 52.4 m³ excess is re-rated from AED 25.45 to 15.40.
Credit drafted: AED 526.62 · “Over AED 500: a supervisor (Rashid Kamal) co-signs after you.”
Aisha approves the credit of AED 526.62 on account 4100-6102-554 with her password, and the meaning of her signature is recorded with it. Because it is over AED 500, it goes to Rashid Kamal, the billing supervisor, to co-sign. No agent applies a credit or changes a bill.
“Meaning of signature: I have checked the policy checks and the evidence.”
The same leak, seen by the people who own it at Lumina — and by the customer — what it looked like before, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents read every meter's night, name the leak, price it and alert the customer; a person decides the held cases and every credit.
Reads every water meter's 15-minute reads from midnight to 5 am each morning at 05:10, finds each home's lowest night flow and flags homes that never reached zero for 3 nights in a row above 150 litres a day.
Reads the shape of the night flow — level, steadiness, growth night over night, when it started, whether it pauses — and ranks the likely leak types with a confidence and the reasons, each tied to the reads.
Finds the customer's slab from their last 3 bills, turns litres a day into dirhams a day at that slab and projects the cost to the next meter read.
Writes the leak alert in the customer's preferred language and channel — where, since when, litres a day, AED a day, the most likely leak, one check and how to reply — and sends it at 07:00.
Watches the nights after each alert, closes the case when the meter shows 2 nights with zero flow, and at 72 hours opens a call task for the water desk with a drafted call note, medical register first.
Checks each leak adjustment request against policy LP-04, computes the excess and the credit by re-rating it at the first slab, with outdoor leaks at 50 %, and drafts the decision and the customer reply with every check cited.
Release held alerts; sign every credit. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any home, alert, follow-up or adjustment — or say what to change. Every answer points to the reads, the tariff or the policy behind it.
Why do we think Villa 14 in Al Rimal 3 is a toilet cistern?
Its night line is flat at 0.74–0.80 L/min and never reaches zero. That is small and steady, unchanged night over night, and it began on Saturday at 14:20, two minutes after a normal flush — the toilet cistern pattern, which customers confirm in 84 % of replies. The meter raised its own continuous-flow flag on Sunday. Confidence is 81 %, under the 85 % for an automatic alert, so it is waiting for you.
Which continuous-flow homes are costing customers the most?
At each customer's own slab, the three largest this morning are Villa 12, Al Waha 2 — irrigation valve, 9,400 L a day, about 239 AED a day; Villa 22, Palm Crescent — supply pipe, 7,900 L a day, about 201 AED a day, rising 18 % a night; and TH 3, Bayview — supply pipe, 6,200 L a day, about 158 AED a day. All three are burst-sized and held for a call.
Always call medical-register customers before any message, and anyone over 75 living alone
Done. This morning that held Villa 18 and Villa 36 in Old Harbour. New rule: “Call first: medical register and customers over 75 living alone” — no message goes out until the water desk has called. It applies from tomorrow's 05:10 scan; you can change it in Settings.
Is Villa 8 in Old Harbour eligible for a leak adjustment?
Yes — a credit of AED 526.62. The supply pipe was replaced on 6 Oct, 4 days after the first alert, and the meter was at zero on the next two nights. The September bill carried 52.4 m³ above the 6-month average, re-rated from AED 25.45 to 15.40. It is over AED 500, so a supervisor co-signs after the billing adjuster.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
What counts as a leak, when an alert goes out on its own, and how a credit is checked are settings, chosen by the utility.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Night window | 00:00–05:00 | Set by the utility, with a separate Ramadan window (10:00–14:00) |
| Nights in a row never reaching zero before a home counts | 3 | 2 · 3 · 4 |
| Counts as zero below / alert from | 0.05 L/min · 150 litres a day | Set by the utility — below the alert line a home is watched, not alerted |
| Burst size | 5,000 litres a day | Set by the utility — above it the customer is called first and asked to close the stop valve |
| Name the leak type automatically | 85 % confidence | Set by the utility — below it a person checks the wording |
| Quiet hours · channels · languages | 21:00–07:00 · app, SMS, email, letter · Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi | The customer's own channel and preferred language always come first |
| Call first for the medical register and burst-sized flows | On | On · Off |
| Leak adjustment policy LP-04 | Repaired within 30 days · 2 zero nights · once in 12 months · excess over 3 m³ | Each set by the utility; re-rated at Slab 1, AED 15.40 per 1,000 L, with outdoor leaks credited at 50 % |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on Lumina's sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate (the days split; its first two rows follow the solution's demo median of 31 days by the bill and 3.4 days by the morning alert) · “typical” = published figures (EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week — nearly 10,000 gallons a year lost to leaks in an average home, up to 10 % of a water bill; Water Online, Homing in on leaks: rethinking AMI's role in water conservation, 2025 — 2.7 % less household water use, 93 % of it from leaks found and fixed). Context: CCW names billing and charging as the top complaint driver in UK water. Lumina Utilities and the people, homes, districts, plumbers, accounts and records named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that reads a water utility's smart meter data, finds homes where water never stops flowing, and tells the customer before the leak reaches the bill. Smart Water Meter Leak Alerts adds six agents that read each meter's night flow, name the likely leak, price it at the customer's own tariff, send the alert, follow it up and check the leak adjustment — people decide the held alerts and sign every credit.
Every morning at 05:10 the night flow reader reads each meter's 15-minute reads from midnight to 5 am. A home counts as continuous flow when no interval falls below 0.05 L/min for 3 nights in a row and the flow is above 150 litres a day. Meters with more than 2 missing intervals are re-read instead of flagged, and registered night use, such as irrigation schedules, is skipped.
The leak type reader reads the shape of the night flow — its level, how steady it is, whether it grows night over night, when it started and whether it pauses — and compares it with a library of leak types such as toilet cistern, roof tank float valve, irrigation valve, underground supply pipe and pool auto-fill. It gives a confidence and its reasons, and never states a type as certain.
The alert writer writes it in the customer's preferred language and channel — app, SMS, email or letter — after quiet hours end at 07:00. It says where, since when, about how many litres and dirhams a day, the most likely leak and one check the customer can do, and asks them to reply FIXED or HELP. It never sends on an opted-out channel.
That is the point: the target is 30 % fewer leak-driven high-bill complaints, because the customer hears about the leak the next morning, not on the bill. On the working solution's sample data, leak high-bill complaints were 288 in September against 412 a year earlier. The figure is measured in the live solution.
The adjustment checker tests each request against your leak adjustment policy — in the sample, a customer-side leak repaired within 30 days of the first alert, proof of repair, two zero nights on the meter, no adjustment in 12 months and an excess over 3 m³ — and works out the credit. A billing adjuster signs it, and a supervisor co-signs above AED 500.
Yes. Alerts go out on their own only inside the rules your conservation lead sets; burst-sized flows and the medical register are called first, and low-confidence leak types are held for a person. The agents have read-only access to meter data, never close a case on a customer's word alone and never apply a credit or change a bill.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your interval read feed, tariff, leak adjustment policy and alert wording — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on a sample of your own night reads first.
Every held bill released inside its cycle, each estimate with its method and source.
1-min demoEnergy Theft DetectionAn estimated $8.4M a year recovered, with 3 in 5 site visits finding theft.
1-min demoMeter Event Management18,214 alarms become 23 actions, and every safety alarm reaches a person in 5 minutes.
1-min demoWe'll run Smart Water Meter Leak Alerts on a sample of your own water interval reads.