Putting a wireless meter underground usually ends badly. Soil, especially wet soil, and radio waves don't mix! The competition's solution of placing a transmitter puck on a valve box is a good start, but why not have more flexibility in where you're able to place the meter and transmitter?

The 1" 1004-EX wired meter can go almost anywhere -- in a valve box, other underground installation, or above ground next to a backflow preventer, for example. It has a display for quick monitoring of water flow. Next, connect it to an STX-100 wireless transmitter. It comes with about 8' of wire, but you can extend it to hundreds of feet if necessary. This allows you to place the STX-100 almost anywhere, to optimize radio range and access to sunlight. Did we mention it's solar powered? No replacing batteries! The STX-100 mounts on a stake you can easily buy at Home Depot. When it's a couple of feet in the air, you're not going to run over it with your lawnmower!

The STX-100 electronics doesn't use much power, so the two AA NiMH batteries should remain well-charged even during a run of cloudy days.

At the controller end, the UMI-200 radio receiver converts the wireless signal back to a wired flow rate for the controller. We recommend Rachio controllers, but it will work with almost any controller. A nice feature is that the UMI-200 has a programmable output. Need to use our meter with a Hunter controller? No problem, just change a setting on the UMI-200 to produce a scaled pulse output (like 1 gallon per pulse, etc.). The display and buttons on the UMI-200 provide access to several pages of options and status screens. Features like "monogamy mode" and "merge mode" provide a lot of flexibility.

This combination costs just a bit more than our dedicated wireless WL-1200 meter, but you get the benefit of a lot more flexibility:

• place the meter underground or above ground
• select an optimal place for the transmitter
• connect to almost any controller

With two displays (one on the meter, one on the UMI-200) plus the controller app, you also have multiple ways of diagnosing any problems.