Patent ID: 7245230

Claim:
An apparatus for providing AMR capabilities to a utility meter metering the consumption of a resource, said apparatus comprising: at least two magnetic field sensors associated with a utility meter, wherein the utility meter generates a magnetic field that varies with the rate of resource consumption; a data-unit operatively connected to said at least two magnetic field sensors, wherein said data-unit comprises a processor and a memory; a power source for supplying power to said data-unit; wherein each respective magnetic field sensor is configured to generate a sensor-signal representative of the magnetic field being sensed by the respective magnetic field sensor; wherein at least one magnetic field sensor is configured to have an on-state and an off-state; wherein said processor is further configured to turn on and turn off said at least one magnetic field sensor according to a predefined sensor on-off sequence; wherein said processor is configured to receive the sensor-signal generated by each magnetic field sensor operatively connected to the processor and to generate sensor-data; and wherein said data-unit is operatively connected to a communications-device for transferring the sensor-data from the data-unit to a remote location.