2 Product overview and operating principle
Product overview:
Pipit 500 is an easy to use in-home display (IHD) unit with touch-sensitive LCD screen. It is a component of
Secure Meter’s smart metering solution and is fitted with a ZigBee
®
module that aids communication with the
installed advanced electricity meter to provide near real-time energy usage and other useful information.
Communication takes place wirelessly over the home area network (HAN) via the AMI (Advance Metering
Infrastructure) communication module which is fitted inside the meter. Pipit 500 collects information on electricity
consumption and generation from the smart meter (e.g. i-Credit 500 or Sprint 200) and displays data
numerically as well as graphically on its display screen. Information on net electricity generation is available for
consumers having generation capacity, such as solar panel. The display is monochrome and has a backlight
which can be configured to remain switched on or to switch off after one minute without user interaction and
turned on by lightly tapping the screen. The unit aids consumers to set up alerts for their power usage and
electricity consumption level, as well as on receipt of supplier messages.
The unit has two LEDs at the top. The one on the left-hand side is a tri-colour LED that can be configured to
indicate the power usage level. The LED on the right-hand side can be configured to notify receipt of supplier
messages. The unit mainly operates on mains power via the supplied DC power adapter. In the absence of
mains power the display will work for short periods using a pair of non-rechargeable AAA batteries. A battery
strength indicator will appear in the status bar at the top of the display to alert consumers to replace the
batteries when the remaining charge is low.
Operating principle:
Pipit 500 should be connected to mains power, using the adapter provided, and must then be connected
(paired) wirelessly to the consumer’s Smart Meter using a home area network (HAN) which is built into both the
Smart Meter and the Pipit 500. The network connection status is indicated on the display by a HAN status
indicator icon. Once powered and paired, the unit will communicate periodically with the Smart Meter to update
its display with near real-time energy usage and cost information. The following diagram outlines the
communication paths between the installed HAN devices (smart electricity meter and Pipit 500) and the head-
end system (HES):
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