Weftec 2024—The View from Booth 1556

I have a love-hate relationship with large trade shows. 

On the one hand they are physically exhausting. I find it easier to run a marathon then to stand in a booth for 8 hours. They are also expensive, both in terms of cost and time. On the other hand, they are the most concentrated concoction of face-to-face meetings ever invented by the human race. 

WEFTEC is the wastewater industry’s largest North American trade show and swaps between New Orleans and Chicago. This was the year for the Big Easy, with more than 21,000 attendees and 900 exhibitors. 

I like to reflect on the big takeaways from the show. Last year it was digital—smart sensors, big data, machine learning, digital twins, AI, whatever-acronym-you-can-think-of. I could throw a stone and hit four booths of software companies offering to connect your sensor to their cloud. No doubt about it: If you make water quality instrumentation and you didn’t have a smart sensor at Weftec 2023 you might as well be selling Underwood typewriters. 

This year I saw few of the software vendors that, in 2023, had sprouted like mushrooms after a rainstorm. From our 10×15’ booth in Exhibit Hall B we had a surprisingly strong current of attendees and fellow exhibitors stop by. Not one started a conversation by asking if we had a smart sensor. 

Instead, the question-de-show was “Can you solve my problem?” It came in several forms, such as “Can you measure conductivity in a corrosive environment?” Who knew? People still want tools that work! 

Does this mean that no one cares about smart sensors? 

Heck, no. Every large manufacturer now boasts its own cloud platform into which its sensors, pumps, valves, etc. integrate. Digital tools are here to stay.  This was the first show where we boasted that every sensor that we make is now available in a smart version, i.e., it outputs a finished analog or digital signal. A smart sensor has no need for a transmitter so it’s not just a great selling point—for some it’s a necessary one. 

In fact, AquaMetrix smart sensors are growing at a rate that is about eight times faster than our “dumb” probes that require a transmitter or controller. This was also the first show where we pulled out our new AM-2400 controller from behind the curtain to show to a smattering of booth visitors. The AM-2400 is our fifth generation and most ambitious controller to date. This modular and expandable analyzer will serve as the foundation for a SCADA-like process control system at a fraction of the cost and complexity of a PLC-SCADA system. Look for the first version in early 2025. It will feature input cards for analog (4-20 mA) sensors. Future input cards will accept “raw,” digital, and wireless probes. 

But smart sensors are not THE point! The point is whether the sensor does what you want it to do. 

• Does it last more than a year 

• Does it need to be calibrated more than once a month? 

• Is it easy to set up? 

After all, this is the wastewater industry, where everyday probes go to die. 

Like most instrumentation manufacturers, we work mostly with distributors, OEM’s and systems integrators. To talk with end-users, we have to make the effort. At a trade show like Weftec that effort is close to zero. 

We talked up our smart sensors and totally cool, new controllers but, again and again, I found that the end-user just wants to measure “stuff.” The most prevalent question was “Do you have a sensor that measures X? “X” included the everyday parameters, like pH and turbidity as well as the inscrutable, like Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen and Silica. Not one end-user said something like “I need a turbidity sensor, and it has to have direct output.” If the user has a PLC and we can give them a probe that does what she wants then everything else is secondary. It was the distributors, OEM’s and integrators who asked questions like “What’s new?” or “Do you have a sensor that output both analog and digital?” 

As I reflected on the pre-eminence of sensors that work in nasty environments, I was reminded of the curious history of our P60C8—the differential pH (or ORP) probe that AquaMetrix started selling 25 years ago when AquaMetrix was actually Lisle-Metrix based in downtown Toronto. 

It is the ONLY original product that remains in the AquaMetrix product line. In fact, it still outsells every other product in our catalog. And it’s dumb—it connects to one of our AM-2250 line of controllers. We just can’t kill it. Six years ago, we came up with a slimmed down version, the P60R5. This year we rolled out the smart PT-X. And still the P60R8 merrily rolls along. It is virtually indestructible and bears witness to our tag line “the probe that works when everything else fails.” 

Digital is cool. Digital is the future. Smart is, well, smart. But sensors and controllers that work, day in and day out, will always rule the day. I have to go. The coffee in my French press is ready.