Supporting naturally the Meter-Bus (M-Bus)-protocol

1

Hello,
I am completely new in HA and in the forum. I don’t have a HA-installation yet and I want to start with an Intel NUC soon. But I am still thinking about whether I actually use HA because HA is not supporting the Meter-Bus (M-Bus)-protocol. I have only read that HA, among other things, supports the Modbus protocol.
I would like to realize the following first steps.
1.) Integration of 4 heat meters that are connected to a gateway via RS485-Modbus/RTU, which then converts the protocol to Modbus/TCP. This thing HA should realize out of the box.
2.) Integration of 10 water and electricity meters that are available above wired Meter-Bus. So far I have not found a solution here.

a.) A solution would be to convert M-Bus to Modbus/TCP via a corresponding rail-mount-device. But this solution is very expensive (here: https://www.seneca.it/de/linee-di-prodotto/comunicazione- industrial-e-elecontrollo/gateway-router-modem/gateway-m-bus -Bus/)
b.) Another solution would be to use a level converter that implements the M-Bus in USB or TCP. But then HA would have to work as a M-Bus master.

My question is. Will Home Assistant naturally support the M-Bus protocol in the future?
What other solutions there would be for M-Bus integration. What I don’t want is a craft solution with Hacks. It should work out of the box and be supported by HA.

Ciao
Thomas

2

HA does not directly support the MBUS because their is not standard interface for MBUS to a protocol that HA understand directly.
There are several interfaces to MBUS implementations that convert to MQTT and HA is pretty well integrated with MQTT, so look for a way to get your MBUS data over to MQTT, then everything will suddenly work out.

3

Thanks Wally,
i Looked already to such gateways which convert the m-Bus-protocol to MQTT. But this devices are also very expensive → 200 € (https://www.stv-electronic.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/095077_095078_095079_BEDIENUNGSANLEITUNG_MPW16_Serie_V10.2111.04.pdf ). I’m afraid, that I don’t get the solution cheaper.
Thomas

4

Ready-made solutions are probably expensive.
Try to look for DIY solutions instead.
Like Hacky integration for M-Bus

5

Unfortunately I can’t understand the hacky-DIY-solution given. I don’t know what hardware I have to use for input the meter-bus…
Because, a meter-bus needs 24-38 Volt for connecting the meters. This have to bring the hardware.