The Wireless M-Bus Range Extender is a compact and cost-effective device that collects wireless M-Bus messages from utility meters and forwards them to a LoRaWAN® network.
This product extends significantly the range of systems and allows filtering those messages by Manufacturer ID (M-field) and Sender Address (A-field) to select specific groups of measuring instruments.
This bridge between wireless technologies allows a flexible configuration of calendar events for WM-Bus reception intervals and status messages as well as device filtering by Manufacturer ID and Device ID (whitelist). The configuration can be managed Over-The-Air via LoRa® messages or via wired serial interface.
Beside the Wireless M-Bus functionality the firmware supports a LoRaWAN® compliant protocol stack as well as a proprietary LoRa® stack for wireless Point- to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint communication.
The Wireless M-Bus standard (EN 13757-4) is used in many wireless sensor and smart meter applications. These meters and sensors are communicating according to defined radio operation modes based on a standard FSK modulation with more or less range to the corresponding receiving unit.
The LoRa® modulation is a perfect mean to increase the range of wireless communication systems. The new WM-Bus Range Extender combines the two existing modulation technics and required communication protocol stacks in one single device.
A typical usecase for this bridge is the forwarding of Wireless M-Bus messages of a configurable group of sensor / meter devices. The bridge offers a flexible way to define hourly, daily, weekly or monthly reception windows for sampling of WM-Bus messages and a large data memory for temporary buffering. Even large WM-Bus messages with maximum payload size can be forwarded with small LoRaWAN® radio packets by means of an integrated segmentation and reassembly protocol.
Besides LoRaWAN® a proprietary Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint protocol (LR Base) can be selected for local configuration and message forwarding.*