| news4all 1 | 2023 | March 28, 2023 |
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Dear Readers,
The OMS-Group continues to grow. In this newsletter we will introduce both a new OMS-Group member as well as four new OMS-certified devices with OMS Generation 4. Technically there are also new developments, in last year’s General Meeting a new version of the OMS Specification was released by the OMS-Group members. With the introduction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora, being elected by our members at the General Meeting 2021, this OMS Newsletter will conclude the presentation of the OMS Executive Board. Enjoy reading this newsletter and feel free to send us any comments or suggestions. Best regards, Jörg Fischer Head of the OMS Working Group Marketing |
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Rise to 68 OMS-Certified Devices in Product Listing
The number of OMS-certified devices has grown by four devices supporting OMS Generation 4 since December 2022: Techem contributes the "Radio module FM radio 4", a radio interface for water meter. This was followed by a new device from E. Wehrle, "WECOUNT-S", an electronic water meter. The latest submissions are two devices from B METERS: The "HYDROCAL-M4", a compact thermal energy meter, and the "HYDRODIGIT-S1", a digital single jet smart water meter. In addition, some certificates and datasheets for existing devices were extended or renewed. 
OMS certification ensures compatibility with the OMS Specification and opens a broad market for manufacturers of interoperable smart meters. Currently, 68 devices are listed on the OMS website. |
Product Listing on OMS Website
OMS Specification: New Release
At last year’s OMS General Meeting the new release, 2022-12 of the OMS Specification which was issued by the OMS working groups for primary communications (AG1) and wired M-Bus (AG4) was confirmed. This is the last release of the OMS Generation 4 Specification and consists of revisions of Volume 1 (General Part, version 2.3.1) including its  Annex A (Release E) and Volume 2 (Primary Communication, version 4.5.1) including its Annexes A (Release E), B (Release F), F (Release B), M (Release B), O (Release B) and P (Release B).
The newest revision of Volume 2 introduces the new term “OMS end-device”, which covers meters, sensors, and actuators, introduces harmonised content index values, harmonises the message application, introduces a new Security profile D, applies a new concept for command action codes in Annex B, creates new use cases in Annex M and provides a correction in Annex P. This new release 2022-12 can be downloaded from the OMS Specification website. |
OMS-Group Welcomes with Pleasure its 72nd Member: Siterwell Electronics Co., Ltd. from China
Siterwell focuses upon creating various types of sensor alarm, IOT industry application security solutions and smart home solutions. It's an enterprise which has firstly obtained the products' certifications of European standards, American and Australian standards in China, and one of the most influential enterprises in Chinese alarm security fields. Siterwell products are exported to roughly 66 countries, its products mainly include: various types of sensor alarm (e.g.: smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, gas alarms, heat alarms, water/water level alarms); fog machine (stop stealing networking products); IOT intelligent security; smart home networking products etc.
Why did Siterwell Electronics Co., Ltd. become an OMS-Group member? Siterwell Electronics Co., Ltd. is a professional factory in developing a new item for mainly the German market and they wanted to use the OMS protocol. |
Introduction of the Current OMS Executive Board Member: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora
Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora, Professor at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany, was re-elected to the OMS-Group Executive Board at the General Meeting 2021. He joined the OMS-Group's Executive Board in 2018.
After various positions in the telecommunications and semiconductor industry, he became a professor at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach in 1999. In 2011, he joined Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, where he founded the Institute of Reliable Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics (ivESK), now a leading R&D institute around efficient, secure, and real-time industrial communication systems. Since 2016, he is also deputy member of the board to Hahn-Schickard Association of Applied Research, a government-funded research institute in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where he developed a new engineering division on "Software Solutions". Since 2019, he is also affiliated with the Technical Faculty of Freiburg University. Axel Sikora is author, co-author, editor and co-editor of several textbooks and more than 250 peer-reviewed papers in the field of embedded design and wireless & wired networking. Amongst many other duties, he serves as Chairman of the annual Embedded World Conference, the world's largest event on the topic, and the Wireless Congress. Axel Sikora holds a master (Dipl.-Ing., corresponding to M.Sc.) of Electrical Engineering and a master (Dipl. Wirt-Ing., corresponding to M.B.A.) of Business Administration, both from Aachen Technical University, Germany. He has done a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering at the Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronics Circuits and Systems, Duisburg, with a thesis on high-temperature SOI-technologies. He is also a founder, shareholder or board member of several start-ups, amongst others, STACKFORCE GmbH, a very successful spin-off engineering company around wireless and LPWAN-based IoT connectivity solutions for smart metering and smart city applications. STACKFORCE is a strong supporter of OMS-Group with engineering support in the AG1, AG1 task force, AG3, and the joint work groups with LoRa and with MIOTY alliance. © Photo: Hahn-Schickard
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News from the OMS-Group’s Executive Board
The OMS Executive Board held its 1st meeting of 2023 in the beginning of February in Berlin. During this very productive meeting, the tasks for 2023 were named and addressed, so that we can continue our aim to keep the OMS-Group on a successful path towards interoperable data communication for metering services across all media.
I specifically write “metering services” and not, “meters”. With the demand of the market to have metering related use cases covered by the OMS Specification, we continue to integrate the communication with actors and sensors into the already specified communication with meters. Thus, hopefully sensors, like smoke detectors, will be certifiable as an OMS end-device in the near future.
What continues to grow is the number of OMS-certified meters, especially meters for cold potable water. A sustainable handling of our natural water resources becomes more and more crucial as climate change continues with a rapidly increasing number of extreme weather conditions such as drought or flooding throughout all parts of the world. Several European nations have announced a national water strategy and the UN 2023 Water Conference that just ended in New York, defined better water management as one of their vision statements. Part of the water management “from well to tap” is an accurate measurement of the water produced, processed, and distributed. Therefore, it seems a bit of a surprise that the remote reading of cold-water meters is not required as mandatory in European legislation in opposition to having every energy meter remotely read, including meters for warm potable water. We strongly believe that a mandatory deployment of remotely readable meters for cold water will contribute significantly to reducing the so-called “non-revenue water”, which is any water produced by a water utility, but not billed to a customer. Water meters with OMS communication could form an integral oversight of a water utility’s distribution network, providing the information necessary to detect leaks or fraud, thereby, reducing non-revenue water. Making authorities aware of this missing statutory basis regarding remotely readable cold-water meters and the promotion of closing this gap will be an action in this year’s work of the OMS Executive Board. © Photos: OMS-Group
Andreas BolderSpokesperson of the Executive Board |
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Events 2023
Meet the OMS experts! Here are some of the dates to mark in your calendar: 
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