We believe our method of receiving transmissions from Itron ERT-equipped smart meters represents a new market-shifting invention by enabling reception of ERT signals at significantly lower cost than is possible with the FPGA solution available from Itron. That’s why we have filed a patent application covering the technology with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The AMRUSB-1, the first product to employ this technology, consists of little more than a single-channel, frequency-agile integrated receiver and a PIC microcontroller with USB interface. This simple design allows us to keep parts cost down and ultimately produce a product capable of receiving ERT signals at a price point significantly lower than anything previously available.

Licenses for our patent-pending “Method For Reception Of Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum Radio Transmissions When Hopping Frequencies Are Not Known” are available to hardware manufacturers and system integrators, as are our firmware source code and hardware designs. Please contact us for more information.

Update: Patent was granted as U.S. Patent 8,842,712 on 2014-09-23.