The program receives and decodes C1,T1 or S1 telegrams (using the wireless mbus protocol) to acquire utility meter readings. The readings can then be published using MQTT, curled to a REST api, inserted into a database or stored in a log file.
The program runs on GNU/Linux, MacOSX, FreeBSD, and Raspberry Pi.
| OS | Status |
|---|---|
| GNU/Linux & MacOSX |  |
| Docker build status |  |
| Static Scan | Status |
|---|---|
| Linux G++ |  |
wmbusmeters package is available on Fedora (version 31 or newer) and can be simply installed by using:
# dnf install wmbusmeters
Availability of wmbusmeters for other Linux distributions can be checked on release-monitoring project page.
Remove the wmbus dongle (im871a,amb8465,rfmrx2,cul,d1tc) or the generic rtlsdr dongle (RTL2838) from your computer.
make; sudo make install will install wmbusmeters as a daemon that starts
automatically when an appropriate wmbus usb dongle is inserted in the computer.
(Note! make install only works for GNU/Linux. For MacOSX try to start
wmbusmetersd /tmp/thepidfile from a script instead. Here you can also override the device:
wmbusmetersd --device=/dev/ttyXXY --listento=t1 /tmp/thepidfile)
Check the config file /etc/wmbusmeters.conf and edit the device to point to your dongle.
loglevel=normal
device=/dev/ttyUSB0:im871a
logtelegrams=false
format=json
meterfiles=/var/log/wmbusmeters/meter_readings
meterfilesaction=overwrite
meterfilesnaming=name
meterfilestimestamp=day
logfile=/var/log/wmbusmeters/wmbusmeters.log
shell=/usr/bin/mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t wmbusmeters/$METER_ID -m "$METER_JSON"
alarmshell=/usr/bin/mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t wmbusmeters_alarm -m "$ALARM_TYPE $ALARM_MESSAGE"
alarmtimeout=1h
alarmexpectedactivity=mon-sun(00-23)
Then add a meter file in /etc/wmbusmeters.d/MyTapWater
name=MyTapWater
type=multical21
id=12345678
key=00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
Now plugin your wmbus dongle. Wmbusmeters should start automatically,
check with tail -f /var/log/syslog and tail -f /var/log/wmbusmeters/wmbusmeters.log
(If you are using an rtlsdr dongle, then make sure the binaries /usr/bin/rtl_sdr and
/usr/bin/rtl_wmbus exists and are executable. If not you will see the
error message (rtlwmbus) error: when starting as daemon, wmbusmeters expects /usr/bin/rtl_sdr to exist!
and the daemon will refuse to start.)
The latest reading of the meter can also be found here: /var/log/wmbusmeters/meter_readings/MyTapWater
You can use several ids using id=1111111,2222222,3333333 or you can listen to all
meters of a certain type id=* or you can suffix with star id=8765* to match
all meters with a given prefix. If you supply at least one positive match rule, then you
can add negative match rules as well. For example id=*,!2222*
which will match all meter ids, except those that begin with 2222.
You can add the static json data "address":"RoadenRd 456","city":"Stockholm" to every json message with the wmbusmeters.conf setting:
json_address=RoadenRd 456
json_city=Stockholm
If you add json_floor=5 to the meter file MyTapWater, then you can have the meter tailored
static json "floor":"5" added to telegrams handled by that particular meter.
If you are running on a Raspberry PI with flash storage and you relay the data to
another computer using a shell command (mosquitto_pub or curl or similar) then you might want to remove
meterfiles and meterfilesaction to minimize the writes to the local flash file system.
If you specify --metefilesaction=append --meterfilestimestamp=day then wmbusmeters will append all todays received telegrams in for example the file Water_2019-12-11, the day after the telegrams will be recorded in Water_2019-12-12. You can change the resolution to day,hour,minute and micros. Micros means that every telegram gets their own file.
If you cannot install as a daemon, then you can also start wmbusmeters in your terminal using the config files in /etc/wmbusmeters.
wmbusmeters --useconfig=/
Or you can start wmbusmeters with your own config files:
wmbusmeters --useconfig=/home/me/.config/wmbusmeters
You can add --device and --listento to override the settings in the config. Like this:
wmbusmeters --useconfig=/home/me/.config/wmbusmeters --device=/dev/ttyXXY --listento=t1`
The files/dir should then be located here:
/home/me/.config/wmbusmeters/etc/wmbusmeters.conf and
/home/me/.config/wmbusmeters/etc/wmbusmeters.d
When running using config files then you can trigger a reload of the config files
using sudo killall -HUP wmbusmetersd or killall -HUP wmbusmeters
depending on if you are running as a daemon or not.
wmbusmeters version: 0.9.15
Usage: wmbusmeters {options} <device>{:suffix} ( [meter_name] [meter_type]{:<modes>} [meter_id] [meter_key] )*
As <options> you can use:
--addconversions=<unit>+ add conversion to these units to json and meter env variables (GJ)
--debug for a lot of information
--exitafter=<time> exit program after time, eg 20h, 10m 5s
--format=<hr/json/fields> for human readable, json or semicolon separated fields
--json_xxx=yyy always add "xxx"="yyy" to the json output and add shell env METER_xxx=yyy
--listento=<mode> tell the wmbus dongle to listen to this single link mode where mode can be
c1,t1,s1,s1m,n1a,n1b,n1c,n1d,n1e,n1f
--listento=c1,t1,s1 tell the wmbus dongle to listen to these link modes
different dongles support different combinations of modes
--c1 --t1 --s1 --s1m ... another way to set the link mode for the dongle
--listenvs list the env variables available for the meter
--listfields list the fields selectable for the meter
--logfile=<file> use this file instead of stdout
--logtelegrams log the contents of the telegrams for easy replay
--meterfiles=<dir> store meter readings in dir
--meterfilesaction=(overwrite|append) overwrite or append to the meter readings file
--meterfilesnaming=(name|id|name-id) the meter file is the meter's: name, id or name-id
--meterfilestimestamp=(never|day|hour|minute|micros) the meter file is suffixed with a
timestamp (localtime) with the given resolution.
--oneshot wait for an update from each meter, then quit
--reopenafter=<time> close/reopen dongle connection repeatedly every <time> seconds, eg 60s, 60m, 24h
--selectfields=id,timestamp,total_m3 select fields to be printed
--separator=<c> change field separator to c
--shell=<cmdline> invokes cmdline with env variables containing the latest reading
--useconfig=<dir> load config files from dir/etc
--usestderr write debug/verbose and logging output to stderr
--verbose for more information
As <device> you can use:
auto, to have wmbusmeters look for the links /dev/im871a, /dev/amb8465, /dev/rfmrx2 and /dev/rtlsdr
(the links are automatically generated by udev if you have run the install scripts)
/dev/ttyUSB0:amb8465, if you have an amb8465 dongle assigned to ttyUSB0. Other suffixes are im871a,rfmrx2,d1tc,cul.
/dev/ttyUSB0, to have wmbusmeters auto-detect amb8465, im871a or CUL device.
(The rfmrx2 and the d1tc device cannot be autodetected right now, you have to specify it as a suffix on the device.)
/dev/ttyUSB0:38400, to have wmbusmeters set the baud rate to 38400 and listen for raw wmbus telegrams.
These telegrams are expected to have the data link layer crc bytes removed already!
rtlwmbus, to spawn the background process: "rtl_sdr -f 868.95M -s 1600000 - 2>/dev/null | rtl_wmbus"
rtlwmbus:868.9M, to tune to this fq instead.
rtlwmbus:<commandline>, to specify the entire background process command line.
stdin, to read raw binary telegrams from stdin.
These telegrams are expected to have the data link layer crc bytes removed already!
telegrams.bin, to read raw wmbus telegrams from this file.
These telegrams are expected to have the data link layer crc bytes removed already!
stdin:rtlwmbus, to read telegrams formatted using the rtlwmbus format from stdin.
telegrams.msg:rtlwmbus, to read rtlwmbus formatted telegrams from this file.
simulation_abc.txt, to read telegrams from the file (which has a name beginning with simulation_)
expecting the same format that is the output from --logtelegrams. This format also supports replay with timing.
As meter quadruples you specify:
<meter_name> a mnemonic for this particular meter
<meter_type> one of the supported meters
(can be suffixed with :<mode> to specify which mode you expect the meter to use when transmitting)
<meter_id> an 8 digit mbus id, usually printed on the meter
<meter_key> an encryption key unique for the meter
if the meter uses no encryption, then supply NOKEY
Supported wmbus dongles:
IMST 871a (im871a)
Amber 8465 (amb8465)
BMeters RFM-RX2 (rfmrx2)
rtl_sdr|rtl_wmbus (rtlwmbus)
CUL family (cul)
Supported water meters:
Kamstrup Multical 21 (multical21)
Kamstrup flowIQ 3100 (flowiq3100)
Sontex Supercom 587 (supercom587)
Sensus iPERL (iperl)
Apator at-wmbus-08 (apator08) (non-standard protocol)
Apator at-wmbus-16-2 (apator162) (non-standard protocol)
Techem MK Radio 3 (mkradio3) (non-standard protocol)
Diehl/Sappel IZAR RC 868 I R4 PL (izar) (non-standard protocol)
Diehl HYDRUS (hydrus)
Bmeters Hydrodigit (hydrodigit) (partly non-standard protocol)
Honeywell Q400 (q400)
Waterstar M (waterstarm)
Supported heat cost allocators:
Qundis Q caloric (qcaloric)
Innotas EurisII (eurisii)
Techem FHKV data II/III (fhkvdataiii)
Supported heat meter:
Heat meter Techem Vario 4 (vario451) (non-standard protocol)
Heat meter Kamstrup Multical 302 (multical302) (in C1 mode, please open issue for T1 mode)
Supported room sensors:
Lansen Thermometer/Hygrometer (lansenth)
Bmeters RFM-AMB Thermometer/Hygrometer (rfmamb)
Elvaco CMa12w Thermometer (cma12w)
Supported smoke detectors:
Lansen Smoke Detector (lansensm)
Supported door/window detectors:
Lansen Door/Window Detector (lansendw)
Supported pulse counter:
Lansen Pulse Counter (lansenpu)
Supported electricity meters:
Tauron Amiplus (amiplus) (includes vendor apator and echelon)
EMH Metering (ehzp)
Easy Meter ESYS-WM20 (esyswm)
eBZ wMB-E01 (ebzwmbe)
The wmbus dongles imst871a can listen to one type of wmbus telegrams at a time, ie either C1 or T1 telegrams. Thus you can listen to multiple meters as long as they all require the same radio mode C1 or T1.
However if you use amb8465 or rtlwmbus, then you can listen to both C1 and T1 telegrams at the same time.
wmbusmeters --listento=t1 /dev/ttyUSB1:amb8465
Simply runs a scan with mode T1 to search for meters and print the IDs
wmbusmeters /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a MyTapWater multical21:c1 12345678 00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
(The :c1 can be left out, since multical21 only transmits c1 telegrams. The suffix with the expected link mode might be necessary for other meters, like apator162 for example. The Multical21 uses compressed telegrams, which means that you might have to wait up to 8 telegrams (8*16 seconds) until you receive a full length telegram which gives all the information needed to decode the compressed telegrams.)
Example output:
MyTapWater 12345678 6.388 m3 6.377 m3 0.000 m3/h 8°C 23°C DRY(dry 22-31 days) 2018-03-05 12:02.50
(Here the multical21 itself, is configured to send target volume, therefore the max flow is 0.000 m3/h.)
Example format json output:
wmbusmeters --format=json /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a MyTapWater multical21 12345678 00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF MyHeater multical302 22222222 00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
{"media":"cold water","meter":"multical21","name":"MyTapWater","id":"12345678","total_m3":6.388,"target_m3":6.377,"max_flow_m3h":0.000,"flow_temperature":8,"external_temperature":23,"current_status":"DRY","time_dry":"22-31 days","time_reversed":"","time_leaking":"","time_bursting":"","timestamp":"2018-02-08T09:07:22Z"}
{"media":"heat","meter":"multical302","name":"MyHeater","id":"22222222","total_kwh":0.000,"total_volume_m3":0.000,"current_kw":"0.000","timestamp":"2018-02-08T09:07:22Z"}
Example format fields output and use rtlsdr dongle with rtlwmbus tuned to 868.9MHz instead of the default 868.95MHz.
wmbusmeters --format=fields rtlwmbus:868.9M GreenhouseWater multical21 33333333 NOKEY
GreenhouseTapWater;33333333;9999.099;77.712;0.000;11;31;;2018-03-05 12:10.24
You can select a subset of all available fields:
wmbusmeters --format=fields --selectfields=id,total_m3 /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a GreenhouseWater multical21 33333333 NOKEY
33333333;9999.099
You can list all available fields for the meter by adding --listfields to the command line.
Eaxmple of using the shell command to publish to MQTT:
wmbusmeters --shell='HOME=/home/you mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t water -m "$METER_JSON"' /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a GreenhouseWater multical21 33333333 NOKEY
Eaxmple of using the shell command to inject data into postgresql database:
wmbusmeters --shell="psql waterreadings -c \"insert into readings values ('\$METER_ID',\$METER_TOTAL_M3,'\$METER_TIMESTAMP') \" " /dev/ttyUSB0:amb8465 MyColdWater multical21 12345678 NOKEY
You can have multiple shell commands and they will be executed in the order you gave them on the commandline.
Note that to single quotes around the command is necessary to pass the env variable names into wmbusmeters.
To list the shell env variables available for your meter, add --listenvs to the commandline:
wmbusmeters --listenvs /dev/ttyUSB1:cul Water iperl 12345678 NOKEY
which outputs:
Environment variables provided to shell for meter iperl:
METER_JSON
METER_TYPE
METER_ID
METER_TOTAL_M3
METER_MAX_FLOW_M3H
METER_TIMESTAMP
(If you have supplied --json_floor=5 then you will also see METER_floor in the list)
Note that the METER_TIMESTAMP and the timestamp in the json output, is in UTC format, this is not your localtime. However the hr and fields output will print your localtime.
You can add shell=commandline to a meter file stored in wmbusmeters.d, then this meter will use
this shell command instead of the command stored in wmbusmeters.conf.
You can use --debug to get both verbose output and the actual data bytes sent back and forth with the wmbus usb dongle.
If the meter does not use encryption of its meter data, then enter NOKEY on the command line.
wmbusmeters --format=json --meterfiles /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a MyTapWater multical21 12345678 NOKEY
If you have a Kamstrup meters and you have received a KEM file and its password from your supplier, then you can use utils/kem-import.py utility to extract meter information from that file (including the AES key) and to create corresponding meter files in wmbusmetrs' config directory.
You can run wmbusmeters with --logtelegrams to get log output that can be placed in a simulation.txt file. You can then run wmbusmeter and instead of an usb device, you provide the simulationt.xt file as argument. See test.sh for more info.
If you do not specify any meters on the command line, then wmbusmeters will listen and print the header information of any telegram it hears. You must specify the listening mode.
With an rtlwmbus or amb8465 dongle: wmbusmeters --listento=c1,t1 /dev/ttyUSB0:amb8465
With an imst871a dongle: wmbusmeters --listento=c1 /dev/ttyUSB0:im871a
make && make test
Binary generated: ./build/wmbusmeters
make HOST=arm to cross compile from GNU/Linux to Raspberry PI.
Binary generated: ./build_arm/wmbusmeters
make DEBUG=true
Binary generated: ./build_debug/wmbusmeters
Debug builds only work on FreeBSD if the compiler is LLVM. If your system default compiler is gcc, set CXX=clang++ to the build environment to force LLVM to be used.
make DEBUG=true HOST=arm
Binary generated: ./build_arm_debug/wmbusmeters
make HOST=arm dist
(Work in progress...)
Binary generated: ./wmbusmeters_0.8_armhf.deb
make install installs the files:
/etc/wmbusmeters.conf
/usr/bin/wmbusmeters
/usr/sbin/wmbusmetersd
/etc/systemd/system/wmbusmeters.service
/etc/udev/rules.d/99-wmbus-usb-serial.rules
/etc/logrotate.d/wmbusmeters
creates these directories:
/etc/wmbusmeters.d
/var/log/wmbusmeters/meter_readings
and adds the user wmbusmeters with no login account.
This means that when a im871a/amb8465 dongle is inserted, then the appropriate /dev/im871a or /dev/amb8465 link is created. Also the wmbusmeters daemon will be automatically started/stopped whenever the im871a/amb8465 dongle is inserted/removed, and the daemon starts when the computer boots, if the dongle is already inserted.
You can start/stop the daemon with sudo systemctl stop wmbusmeters@-dev-im871a_0.service
or sudo systemctl stop wmbusmeters@-dev-amb8465_1.service etc.
You can trigger a reload of the config files with sudo killall -HUP wmbusmetersd
If you add more dongles, then more daemons gets started, each with a unique name/nr.
To start the daemon without the udev rules. Then do:
make install EXTRA_INSTALL_OPTIONS='--no-udev-rules'
then no udev rules will be added.
(If you have already installed once before you might have to remove /dev/udev/rules.d/99-wmbus-usb-serial.rules)
You can now start/stop the daemon with sudo systemctl stop wmbusmeters
the device must of course be correct in the /etc/wmbusmeters.conf file.
To have wmbusmeters start automatically when the computer boots do:
sudo systemctl enable wmbusmeters
If the daemon has started then the wmbus device will be taken and you cannot start wmbusmeters manually.
To run manually, first make sure the daemon is stopped sudo stop wmbusmeters@-dev-im871a_0.server
if this hangs, then do sudo killall -9 wmbusmetersd and/or sudo killall -9 wmbusmeters.
If you are using rtl_sdr/rtl_wmbus and you want to stop the daemon, do
sudo stop wmbusmeters@-dev-rtlsdr_3.server followed by sudo killall -9 rtl_sdr.
I only have personal experience of the im871a,amb8465 and an rtlsdr compatible dongle. The commercial dongles (im871a,amb8464) receive well despite having tiny antennas inside the dongle. However the reception range is limited by walls and you must definitely get quite close to the meter if it is mounted underground in a concrete tube.
The rtlsdr/rtl-wmbus solution seems to work for a lot of users, but it does use more cpu-power since it decodes the radio traffic in software. Range seems to be similar to the other dongles, despite the antenna being much larger.
At least one professional collector use the same commercial dongles, but the versions with an external antenna connector, into which they attach a radio amplifier for the proper frequency, and then a larger antennna. This makes it possible to receive telegrams from meters underground and over larger distances.
Wmbusmeters expects the serial baud rate for the AMB8465 USB stick to be 9600 8n1.
If you have used another tool and changed the baud rate to something else
you need to restore the baud rate to 9600 8n1. You can do that with that other tool,
or you can try wmbusmeters-admin and select Reset wmbus receives
this command try all potential baud rates and send the factory reset command.
Then you have to unplug and reinsert the dongle.
If you like to send the bytes manually, the correct bytes are:
- Factory reset of the settings:
0xFF1100EE - Reset the stick to apply the factory defaults:
0xFF0500FAthis is not necessary if you unplug and reinsert the dongle.
These dongles do not seem to work with Linux, perhaps problems with the usb2serial pl2303 driver?
Experimental docker containers are available here: https://hub.docker.com/r/weetmuts/wmbusmeters
The source code is modular and it should be relatively straightforward to add more receivers and meters.
Read for example the text file: HowToAddaNewMeter.txt
If you do not get proper readings from the meters with non-standard protocols. apator162, mkradio3, vario451 then you have to open an issue here and help out by logging a lot of messages and reverse engineer them even more..... :-/
There is also a lot of wmbus protocol implementation details that are missing. They will be added to the program as we figure out how the meters send their data.