WIMBIB Guide

Installation & Setup

  1. Attach the antenna to the SMA connector and connect power via the USB-C cable on your WIMBIB.
  2. Search for the Wi-Fi SSID called “WIMBIB_<mac>” with your mobile device or laptop. Connect to it.
  3. Open your webbrowser and go to url http://192.168.1.1 or http://wimbib.local (if your device supports mDNS/avahi/bonjour). Note: On older phones it might be needed to disable “mobile data”, due to the phone doesn’t understand where to route the data (over wifi or cellular network)
  4. Go to the settings page, press button “Scan”.
  5. Select your Wi-Fi access point SSID and fill in the password.
  6. Set a login protection password – for your safety!
  7. If you have received a .kem file from your watermeter provider, press the button “Open KEM file”. Select your file and press OK. Note.*
  8. …or if you have received your encryption key in free text instead of a KEM file (should be in hexadecimal format, 0011AAFF…format). Then enter the key in the key field. The serial field is the serial number that is on the label of your watermeter.
  9. Then click the button “Save & Restart”.
  10. Reconnect to your home network/access point on your mobile device/laptop.
  11. Go to your webbrowser, enter url https://wimbib.local or the IP presented on the WIMBIB display.
  12. Now you have to wait for WIMBIB to receive data from your watermeter (read chapter ‘How does it work’ below).
  13. Done!

* The KEM-file can come in different formats. One is a clean .kem file, sometimes its named *.zip.kem and sometimes its a *.zip file.

If its an *.zip.kem file, just rename it to .zip and unzip it. Inside resides two files, where one is the actual .kem file which you load into your WIMBIB.

Home Assistant & MQTT

WIMBIB communicates to other software/services via MQTT. MQTT is a communication protocol for internet of things devices.

  1. Install an MQTT broker of your choice (via HACS, Mosquitto via docker container or as standalone application)
  2. Go to WIMBIB settings -> MQTT. Enable it. Add IP/hostname and possible username/password if authentication is used by your broker.
  3. Click button “Save & Restart”
  4. Verify that MQTT state is “connected”.
  5. Go to home assistant -> Settings -> Devices & services. Click the tab “Devices”. Scroll down until you find WIMBIB. Click on it. NOTE. Wimbib must first receive a wireless m-bus full frame before it can determine which sensors that shall be registered into your home assistant.
  6. If everything works as expected, you should now see all entities available for you in Home Assistant.
  7. Click Home assistant -> Settings -> Dashboards -> Energy.
  8. In the box “Water consumption”. Press button “Add water source”. Select your wimbib volume sensor.
  9. Done!

How does it work?

The watermeter sends data continously (at intervalls) over a radio protocol named Wirelss M-Bus. Normally Kamstrup meters send a chunk (frame) of radio information each 90seconds.

– “By running a WIMBIB, does it draw more battery of my water meter?”. The answer is no. The data is transmitted from your watermeter regardless if your WIMBIB is picking it up. WIMBIB does not transmit any data over Wirelss M-Bus. It only listens and decodes data that is sent in the air.

– “Why does it take so long time until I receive any information after restart?”. The reason is in the way Wireless M-Bus works. The watermeters sends (in the case of watermeters, can be different on other devices) two different types of radio frames. One is called ‘full frame’, the other ‘compact frame’. A full frame contains information on what kind of data type that is transmitted, the format of the data, for instance temperature, volume, alarms data and lots of other metadata. Compact frames only transmit actual values. For the WIMBIB to understand how to process the compact frames, it needs to receive at least one full frame before.

Full frames are only transmitted once normally per eight frames*. But it can differ, and also if its weekend or during different hours of the day. The other frames between full frames are compact frames.

Normally it might take ~10-20 minutes before a full frame is transmitted and WIMBIB receives it. Until then, it will show “waiting” on the OLED display with a CF-counter (compact frame).

After the full frame is received, WIMBIB will decode each radio frame (per 90 seconds) received.

* Can be different on different watermeters. Kamstrup meters normally sends per 8.

Measurement information

The watermeters comes with a range of different measurement points. However, not all are sent by your watermeter. The set of data that is sent over the wireless interface is configurable by the VA-provider. Which means, even if your meter have the ability to send one data point – the VA provider might not have activated it, and thus it is not transmitted.

This table show the sensors that the WIMBIB firmware currently supports.

MeasurementDescriptionHome Assistent Sensor
Leak alarmLeakage detectedwimbib_leak_alarm
Burst alarmPipe is burstingwimbib_burst_alarm
Dry alarmNo water in the meterwimbib_dry_alarm
Reverse alarmWater is flowing in reverse directionwimbib_reverse_alarm
Total water volumeMeter setting volumewimbib_total_volume
Total water volume reverseMeter setting, but reverse volumewimbib_volume_reverse
Consumption last 24hVolume consumed last 24 hourswimbib_consumption_last_24h
Target volume yearWater volume consumed during last yearwimbib_target_volume_year
Target volume monthWater volume consumed during last monthwimbib_target_volume_month
Flow actualCurrent water flowwimbib_flow_actual
Max flow yearHighest water flow measured during last yearwimbib_max_flow_year
Max flow monthHighest water flow measured during last monthwimbib_max_flow_month
Max flow dayHighest water flow measured during last daywimbib_max_flow_day
Min flow monthLowest water flow measured during last monthwimbib_min_flow_month
Min flow dayLowest water flow measured during last daywimbib_min_flow_day
Volume weighted water temp dayVolume weighted water temperature during last daywimbib_vol_weighted_water_temp_day
Time weighted meter temp dayTime weighted meter temperature during last daywimbib_time_weighted_meter_temp_day
Volume weighted water temp monthVolume weighted water temperature during last monthwimbib_vol_weighted_water_temp_month
Min water temp dayLowest measured water temperature during last daywimbib_min_water_temp_day
Min water temp monthLowest measured water temperature during last monthwimbib_min_water_temp_month
Min water temp yearLowest measured water temperature during last yearwimbib_min_water_temp_year
Max water temp dayHighest measured water temperature during last daywimbib_max_water_temp_day
Max water temp monthHighest measured water temperature during last monthwimbib_max_water_temp_month
Max water temp yearHighest measured water temperature during last yearwimbib_max_water_temp_year
Min meter temp dayLowest measured meter temperature during last daywimbib_min_meter_temp_day
Min meter temp monthLowest measured meter temperature during last monthwimbib_min_meter_temp_month
Min meter temp yearLowest measured meter temperature during last yearwimbib_min_meter_temp_year
Max meter temp monthHighest measured meter temperature during last monthwimbib_max_meter_temp_month
Max meter temp yearHighest measured meter temperature during last yearwimbib_max_meter_temp_year
Table of sensors and measurement points

FAQ & Troubleshooting

There is a facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/remnetech.wimbib where you can find help and information about latest firmware upgrades.

LED blinking schema:

BlinkingDescription
5 fast blueWIMBIB is booting
2 slow blueWIFI connected successfully to your access point
2 slow redWIFI failed to connect to your access point
3 slow blueMQTT connection successful
3 slow redMQTT connection failed
1 slow blueRadio frame successfully received and decoded
1 slow redRadio frame decoding failed (CRC)
1 slow yellowCompact frame successfully received, however, still waiting for full frame

Upgrading to latest firmware

(This guide must be followed if your WIMBIB is runing a firmware older than 20240217)

Due to some improvements and changes in the WIMBIB firmware (sensors and wmbus stack) and in the area of how sensors (now dynamically) are created inside wimbib and registered in home assistant, the old wimbib device in HA needs to be removed before upgrading to the newest firmware.

Unfortunately you might loose the old statistics and sensor entities. However, after upgrade you will have sensors that match your meter configuration and measured data and possible a set of new sensors!

Please follow the steps below:

  1. Leave your WIMBIB powered on as is.
  2. Remove the old WIMBIB device in Home Assistant by going to the menu Settings -> Devices & Services -> Devices (tab) -> Scroll down to WIMBIB. Click on it. Press the “…” icon and select “Delete” menu.

2. Go to http://wimbib.local with your webbrowser. Enter the Firmware menu. Install the latest stable firmware.

3. After upgrade, no sensors or a WIMBIB device will be registered in Home Assistant until a full radio frame is received by WIMBIB (see chapter above “How it works” for details). It might take arount 20 minutes until a full frame is sent by your water meter.

During this time you can enter the web user interface or look at the OLED display. The CF counter should increase per ~90 seconds until a full frame is received.

4. When a full frame is received, the wimbib wmbus stack will decode the information and build a list of sensors dynamically that will match your meters configuration. At this step a registration into home assistant (mqtt auto discovery) will be performed.

Depending on your meter model and configuration set by your meter owner some new sensors may exist. Some old sensors might have gotten a new naming/entity name. See the table above for sensor details (chapter Measurement information).