[LINK] Smart electricity meter and Mastercard - 3 new RF systems in one day!

[Robin Whittle]

Further to my message of 30 October:

  "Smart" electricity meters use Zigbee and 915-928 MHz mesh
  http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2009-October/085426.html

the new meter was installed today.  It is an "i-Credit 500", which is
a pretty obscure name at present.

It looks similar to the lower photo in:

  http://silverspringnetworks.com/pdfs/SSN-DS-PRI_Meter.pdf

but is light blue.  It does not look like:

  http://www.pri.co.uk/i-Credit-300.aspx

It looks similar to this 3 phase model:

http://92.52.97.47/adminnew/Uploads/PRI-UK/products/thz_Sprint%20200.jpg
http://www.pri.co.uk/Premier-200.aspx

except there is no sign of backlighting in the LCD.

The little metal thing on the top right has two optical devices.  I
guess this is a two-way infra-red port.

The config button on our meter is physically incapacitated with a
crimped seal.

The LCD display scrolls through various modes, and there is a button
to manually control which mode it is in.  It separately meters
consumption and generation.  There is a blinking LED which I think
indicates real-time power consumption.  It is labelled "3200 imp/unit".

The resolution of the power used figure is 0.1 kWh.  The maximum
current is 100 amps.

On one of the LCD modes it reports LAN status.  On another, HAN
status - Home Area Network.  A HAN thing on the LCD is flashing while
the LAN one is visible all the time.

My guess is that the meter is trying to establish contact with
devices in the home, bleating forlornly with ZigBee transmissions on
the 2.4 GHz band, and therefore cluttering up this band somewhat at
the possible expense of WiFi communications.


Less than an hour after this was installed, I got my new Mastercard.
 It has PayPass - an RFID payment system which the Commonwealth Bank
says is limited to $35.  It involves placing the card near a suitable
reader - with no need to use the magnetic strip or the electrical
contacts, and no need for PIN or signature.

  http://www.paypass.com

TI states that the range is 4cm:

  http://www.ti.com/rfid/shtml/apps-contactless-paypass.shtml

This press release indicates that TI chips are used with PayPass, at
13.6MHz:

  http://www.usingrfid.com/briefs/archive.asp?action=read&bid=396

I can't tell whether this is a separate chip for the RFID module:

  http://www.ti.com/rfid/shtml/apps-contactless.shtml

or whether they use the smartcard chip which has the metal contacts.
 The TI doco indicates the card itself has a loop antenna of several
turns built into it.  Without X-raying the card, I can't tell if
there is a separate chip.  There's no sign of a bulge in the card
anywhere, but the TI system is apparently very thin and buried in an
internal layer, so it would not necessarily be visible from the outside.

I assume the system somehow prevents these cards from being read by a
hacker carrying a scanner in a public place.


So in one day, an RFID credit card and an electricity meter which is
trying to do ZigBee to home appliances while using some proprietary
system for mesh networking to other meters!

  - Robin