Monitoring domestic water consumption: a comparative study of model-based and data-driven end-use disaggregation methods

Monitoring the water usage of different appliances and informing consumers about it has been shown to have an impact on their behavior toward drinking water conservation. The most practical and cost-effective way to accomplish this is through a non-intrusive approach, that locally analyzes data received from a flow sensor at the main water supply pipe of a household. In this work, we present two different methods addressing the challenges of disaggregating end-use consumption and classifying consumption events. The first method is model-based (MB) and uses a combination of dynamic time wrapping and statistical bounds to analyze four water end-use characteristics. The second, learning-based (LB) method is data-driven and formulates the problem as a time-series classification problem without relying on a priori identification of events. We perform an extensive computational study that includes a comparison between an MB and an LB method, as well as an experimental study to demonstrate the application of the LB method on an edge computing device. Both methods achieve similar F1 scores (LB: 71.73%, MB: 71.04%) with the LB being more precise. The embedded LB method achieves a slightly higher score (72.01%) while enhancing on-site real-time processing, improving security, and privacy and enabling cost savings.