“An ultrasonic water meter does not listen for water moving loudly. It listens for time itself, measuring tiny differences in sound travel so a utility can see the quiet flows, the hidden leaks, and the true value of every litre.” – MJ Martin
A New Way to Measure Water
An ultrasonic water meter measures water without the small gears, chambers, discs, pistons, or turbines found inside older mechanical meters. That is the essential difference. A traditional positive displacement meter is a little like a mechanical wristwatch sitting in the water line. Water must physically move internal parts, and those parts gradually wear, slow down, collect debris, or lose sensitivity at very low flow. An ultrasonic meter is more like a digital stopwatch and listening device. It measures how fast water is moving by using sound.
Badger Meter’s E-Series G2 ultrasonic water meters use solid-state technology for residential and light commercial smart water applications. The meters are compact, encapsulated, weatherproof, UV-resistant, and include a nine-digit LCD display. Badger Meter’s display can show consumption, flow rate, reverse flow, alarms, and other diagnostic information.
The Measuring Principle
Ultrasonic meters work by sending sound signals through the water. In a transit-time meter, one signal travels with the direction of flow and another travels against it. The signal travelling with the water arrives slightly faster than the signal travelling upstream. That tiny time difference is proportional to the velocity of the water. Once the meter knows the pipe size and the water velocity, it calculates flow rate and total consumption. Badger Meter describes ultrasonic flow meters as inferential meters that measure the velocity of an acoustically conductive liquid, commonly using transit-time or Doppler technology.
An easy analogy is two people walking on an airport moving sidewalk. One walks with the sidewalk and one walks against it. The difference in travel time tells you how fast the sidewalk is moving. In an ultrasonic meter, the sidewalk is the water.
Accuracy, Stability, and Low Flow
The most important advantage for utilities is sustained accuracy. Mechanical meters often perform well when new, but their low-flow performance can degrade as internal parts wear. That matters because low flows are where leaks, toilet flappers, dripping taps, and small continuous usage often hide. Badger Meter’s E-Series meters have no moving parts and provide greater extended low-flow accuracy compared with mechanical meters.
For the E-Series G2 residential ultrasonic meters, Badger lists long-term sustained accuracy of ±1.5% over the normal flow range and ±3.0% from the extended low-flow range to the minimum flow value. The published residential flow ranges extend as low as 0.0001 cubic metres per minute for 5/8 inch, 5/8 x 3/4 inch, and 3/4 inch meters, with upper ranges up to 0.3784 cubic metres per minute for 1-1/2 inch meters.
At high flow, ultrasonic meters also avoid the mechanical drag and wear associated with moving measuring elements. They are not immune to poor installation conditions, air, debris, or hydraulic disturbances, but they are inherently more stable because the measuring system is electronic rather than mechanical.
Battery Life and Communications
Badger Meter uses a 3.6-volt lithium thionyl chloride battery with a 20-year battery life for the E-Series G2 residential ultrasonic meters. That long battery life is significant for Canadian utilities because meter programs are usually judged over decades, not months. A meter that can remain in service through a full lifecycle reduces truck rolls, customer disruption, and lifecycle cost.
The E-Series platform can also be paired with Badger’s ORION Cellular endpoints and BEACON SaaS software for advanced data visibility, including pressure and temperature data where supported.
Threads, Installation, and Field Practice
On the question of threads, Badger does not make a specific claim about cross-thread resistance. In practical field terms, cross-threading is usually an installation workmanship issue, not a normal operating characteristic of a properly manufactured meter. Good threads should start cleanly by hand, align squarely with the coupling, and tighten without force. If an installer has to “fight” the connection, something is wrong: misalignment, damaged threads, wrong coupling, debris, or poor meter spacing.
Compared with older bronze mechanical meters, engineered polymer or modern ultrasonic bodies can make installers more conscious of alignment and torque. That is not a weakness. It is a reminder that proper lay length, gaskets, couplings, support, and installation discipline matter. Badger offers stainless steel and bronze alloy pipework too.
What Canadian Utility Operators Should Know
The real story is not just that ultrasonic meters are electronic. The story is that they change water metering from a mechanical counting process into a data-producing measurement platform. They can improve low-flow capture, reduce maintenance, support alarms, identify reverse flow, and help utilities understand consumption patterns more clearly.
For Canadian municipalities, that means better revenue protection, better leak awareness, fewer estimated reads, and a stronger foundation for AMI. The old meter was a cash register. The ultrasonic meter is a cash register, diagnostic instrument, and network sensor in one package.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin in a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.