WEPTECH is specialized in wireless technologies and provides E²MS services for the development and production of radio assemblies and systems (E²MS – Electronics Engineering & Manufacturing Services). The company was founded in 1994 and has been based in Landau in the Rhineland-Palatinate since 1998. With more than 200 highly motivated employees, they achieve an annual turnover of more than 30 million Euros.
The electronic components and products manufactured by WEPTECH are used in the following industries sectors: Smart Metering, Medical technology, Building technology, Image processing, Process automation, Industrial electronics and avionic.
Interview with Wolfgang Esch, Head of Sales and Marketing at WEPTECH elektronik GmbH.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Wolfgang Esch: WEPTECH elektronik leads the way in the development and production of innovative technologies and systems for wireless communication, with antenna design, antenna measurement and radio system certification. WEPTECH offers hardware and software solutions for wireless M-Bus / OMS, M-Bus, mioty® and Thread technologies, as well as complex cellular solutions from 2G via 4G to Narrowband IoT.
The production of sophisticated products is one of our core competences. We own modern, fully automated assembly lines on a production area of 3,500 square meters.
We are Full-Member of the mioty® alliance, OMS®-Board member and work strictly according to the IPC guidelines (Fachverband Elektronik-Design e.V. (FED)).
Since 1994, WEPTECH has been developing, manufacturing and testing high-quality electronics and offering customers a holistic range of services. With decades of experience in electronics manufacturing and continuous technical enhancements of production methods, WEPTECH has extensive know-how in the fields of SMD and THT assembly, special soldering techniques (eg vacuum vapor-phase soldering), test development and assembly.
Our products, solutions and services are used for
- remote reading of consumption meters via radio (e.g. electricity, gas, water, district heating)
- building monitoring via short- and long-range radio (heating cost distribution / temperature / humidity measurement)
- IoT Solutions – Networking of industrial plants via radio> Industry 4.0 (remote diagnosis and predictive maintenance)
- Smart City / Smart Grid wireless solutions (NB IoT gateways, w-MBus communication adapters for meters)
- Contract manufacturing of electronic devices
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
W.E: Multi-radio protocol module STARLING
WEPTECH offers a cost-effective radio module that supports three radio protocols
STARLING is based on the STM 32 WL 55 SoC and is a radio module for the sub-GHz range with an output power of up to +16 dBm. The module impresses with its compact design and very low power consumption. It is ideally suited for battery-powered applications.
STARLING enables the use of three different radio protocols:
- mioty®, LoRaWAN and wireless M-Bus.
For this purpose, WEPTECH offers an OMS application layer for each radio protocol, with which OMS over mioty®, OMS over LoRaWAN and OMS over wireless M-Bus can be used.
STARLING is pin-compatible with the MAIA and PHOENIX radio modules.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
W.E: Our core competences are:
- Hardware and Software Engineering:
- Customized radio design
- Wireless Smart Meter adapters and gateways
- Antenna simulation & design
- Certification
- Manufacturing & Assembly
- SMT & THT assembly
- LGA, BGA, Fine Pitch technology and mixed assembly
- Voidfree LGA soldering
- Nano coating & Potting
- X-Ray analysis
- Test & Mounting
- Traceability
- Technology development for a wide range of wireless solutions
- Wireless M-Bus / OMS
- Thread
- NB IoT
- mioty®
- LoRaWAN
Product development & manufacturing
- Radio modules – for wM-Bus /OMS, Thread and mioty® applications
- Sensors – monitoring energy efficency and climate conditions with our temperature and humidity sensors (wM-Bus/OMS, mioty®)
- Repeater – increasing the range of wM-Bus devices – 868 Mhz. frequency
- Gateways – wireless connectivity
- SWAN2 gateway- collecting wireless M-Bus meter data and forwarding via NB IoT
- AVA mioty® gateway- visualisation of mioty® sensors and forwarding via MQTT
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
W.E: In regard of the EU Energy Efficiency Directives (2012/27/EU) and their implementation into German law (e.g. digitalisation of the energy transition, amendment of heating cost billing, Renewable Energies Act), we expect huge growth potential in the metering and submetering market.
Thus, with our diversified and high-quality product portfolio, WEPTECH offers a wide range of powerful and economical connectivity solutions for almost all types of heat, water, gas and electricity meters to make them “smart” as well the suitable gateways.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
W.E: Due to global political events, especially the Ukraine crisis and its effects on security of supply and the price increase for all types of energy, the topics of energy efficiency, energy consumption and energy monitoring have once again become significantly more important.
Thus, on the one hand, the pressure for digitalization is increasing on the supplier side, while at the same time, on the consumer side, the acceptance and desire for online monitoring of one’s own energy consumption has grown.
This means that investments in the metering/submetering sector are being increased and the installation of remotely readable consumption meters is being intensified once again. This market situation is of course optimal for our product portfolio and growth potential.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
W.E: SWAN2 NB Iot gateway is one of our leading and most innovative product.
In the area of metering / submetering, the SWAN2 NB IoT Gateway is the central, connecting element between consumption meters and the cloud.
Manual collection of water, gas or electricity data will soon be a thing of the past. Metering data is transferred automatically at the end of the month for the digital and transparent service charge statement.
Everything becomes “smart”: water, gas, electricity meters, buildings, or machines. The Internet of Things enables the collection, evaluation and connection of various data.
Narrowband IoT, also NB-IoT, is a LPWAN radio standard that is designed to connect devices to the Internet of Things. It enables narrowband data transmission and offers high quality network coverage by using the existing mobile network. The difference to other existing LPWAN technologies such as Sigfox or LoRa is the standardization of the frequency bands. These are based on the 3GPP industry standard which leads to long-term and reliable availability and optimal coverage.
E.E: What estimations do you have for the rest of 2022?
W.E: The pandemic has faded a little bit into the background, current events are dominated by the energy shortage and critical supply chains.
Despite of unstable market factors (allocation, increasing material prices, supply-chain-problem), we are very confident to grow in profit and market share.