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I am not an expert on interfaces and communication protocols and I am trying to get data from several meters to read it remotely. The meters have an M-Bus interface to a Data-Logger. The Data-Logger has the following interfaces/protocols:

To the meter:
M-Bus

Communication protocols:
Ethernet
RS-232/485

From the above information none of the communication protocols would really help (at least that is what I understand) as I have no option to have a PC onsite - this is why I mentioned accessing the data remotely. The meters are located in the basement. We could get Wi-Fi there though.

The vendor of the Data-Logger told me that, in any case, it could be done via MQTT using a broker. But I do not understand how the data would be sent from the Data-Logger to the Cloud via MQTT using a broker and Wi-Fi (repeater). As I said, I have no option to connect the Data-Logger to a computer in the basement or the building. I would appreciate any guidance please.

SamGibson
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Karen Semmler
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    this site is not a tutorial forum .. it is a Q&A site ... please ask a specific, answerable question – jsotola Oct 29 '21 at 21:23
  • dunno if it's suitable for your setup, but a hobbyist doing this would be likely to involve a Raspberry Pi as a PC – user253751 Nov 01 '21 at 11:25

1 Answers1

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If you have wifi access and internet access via that wifi, you could configure the DataLogger to connect to an MQTT broker that's on the internet and upload data.
If internet connectivity is possible, some options for the broker and a chain of data storage/processing are:

thingsboard.io AWS Microsoft Azure Others such as Google's cloud have IoT options too.

Each of those has various options on what to do with the data. I'm sure there are others too.
Ask the vendor if they can give you some examples of MQTT use with perhaps one of those platforms. Connectivity can take some effort to configure due to security needs, etc.
Also, feel free to share the model number of your data logger along with any specific questions you may have. You may get better/more answers if you do that.

kalyanswaroop
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  • Thank you so much for the valuable feedback. I will contact the vendor for MQTT examples. However, he told me they just sell the hardware and I have to discuss Connectivity and Integration issues directly with the platform providers. That is ofcourse not the ideal case since many companies that sell the devices are also platform providers. Anyway, I am familiar we thingsboard (we do manage that platform). So we the approach you suggest, we do not need raspberry-pi or arduino, right? If, yes, that is what we prefer. – Karen Semmler Nov 01 '21 at 10:16
  • Just one question, do you mean to have access to internet onsite? A DSL line can be installed onsite to be able to connect the data-logger to the router, but I personally have no PC access onsite. All I do for accessing the data should be from outside of the building. – Karen Semmler Nov 01 '21 at 14:11
  • Well, MQTT access from this device has two parts. First part is the connection setup and the second part is the actual messages themselves. Its the first part that is tricky, since each MQTT broker (thingsboard, AWS, etc) supports certain forms of security for connect. The datalogger manual should say something on this. Yes, if the datalogger MQTT does not support any of those security mechanisms, you will have to run a local MQTT broker on perhaps a RaspberryPI and then upload it to the internet from there. That upload may use MQTT (with security) or other options such as files on S3, etc. – kalyanswaroop Nov 01 '21 at 19:29