Since the British Krus invented the balanced tank water meter with real instrument characteristics in 1825, the development of water meters has a history of nearly two hundred years. The use and production of water meters in China started late. In 1879, Li Hongzhang established the first water plant in China in Lushunkou to run the navy. In 1883, British colonialists established a second water plant in Shanghai, and water meters began to enter China. With the successive construction of water plants in some coastal cities, by the 20th century, Shanghai Guanghua Machinery Factory (now the predecessor of Shanghai Guanghua Instrument Factory) and other parts of the country imported some parts from abroad to produce water meters. For quite a long time, water meters from countries such as Britain, France, Japan and Germany have been occupying the Chinese water meter industry. These different types of water meters with complicated specifications, due to different standards and parts are not interchangeable, have brought water meter maintenance to the water company in the future. Very difficult.
After the liberation in 1949, with the development of urban water supply, China's water meter industry also developed accordingly. Since 1955, water companies in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Guangzhou have started to produce water meters. In the early 1980s, the water meter industry was organized by the Shanghai Industrial Automation Instrumentation Institute of the Ministry of Machinery Industry. According to the requirements of the international standard ISO4046 for water meters at that time, a nationally unified water meter with an eight-point pointer and an integral impeller was launched for small-caliber water meters . The unified design and plasticization of water meter parts have created favorable conditions for the organization of specialized production of water meters, greatly promoted the progress and development of China's water meter industry, and met the growing urban and rural water industry development needs. In the 1990s, China's economic construction continued to develop at a high speed, and the water meter industry also developed rapidly. The number of enterprises and total output have more than doubled. At the same time, various smart water meters, water meter reading systems and other products have begun to emerge.