question

That's a really nice feature! Like it a lot!

Very happy with the new features as well as the VE.Can Integration.

Super improvement! Thanks Victron.

Looking really nice! Great work!

Mathijs,

FYI on a Macbook Pro running Mac OS 12.4, the VC beta v5.70 hangs midway during the required firmware update;

on smart solar 75/15 when going from 2.37 to 2.41. It also happens on the smartshunt. This is repeatable and the only way to get the devices back is to use VC 5.60 to reflash to 2.37

I'm slightly confused, should I be able to see the Multiplus II (firmware v497) in this Victron Connect beta?

The Cerbo is on 2.90 ~10 large.

Do you think that this protocol for broadcasting this data over Bluetooth will ever be ported into an Apple Watch application? I would love to have the ability to see this data on a device other than my phone which I don’t carry with me all the time. Or maybe Victron could develop, over time, a small Bluetooth enabled device with a screen that can be mounted anywhere within Bluetooth range instead of needing a wired display such as the BMV-712.

Seems to work via VRM also ?

The 2 mppts (75-50 bluesolar and 100-50 smart solar) appear to be live. v.159 , ve direct cables.

The BMV values hang / get stuck. v3.11 , usb > ve direct adaptor.

Venus v2.85.

Great work so far. :)

This is a really a nice feature, I have tested it a lot! But for reliability reasons you should display a timestamp for each device! It is very important to know how old are these broadcasted data are. From experiences data should always have a timestamp - always! This should be enhanced at cerbo/venus gui as well.

A nice new feature really. But one thing is not working on my site
- E.g. Mppt 75/15 with Smart Battery Sense
--> I can't see the temparture from the 24V accu system

In the mppt view (Connect Software) she is shown.

Only issue I’m seeing with latest beta is that the SmartShunt doesn’t show “Infinite” when there is more current coming in than going out in time remaining field. It simply shows “- -“ Not a big deal but in the device list, the new BT protocol at least shows the infinity symbol.

Does the BlueSolar MPPT with the separate Bluetooth Interface support broadcasting data? Didn‘t see any firmware updates or options under product info. Or do I need a SmartSolar MPPT?

Also what does this implementation mean for the GATT services implemented in the Smart Shunt? is there still hope that we will get GATT support for other devices?

Hi Matthijs @mvader (Victron Energy) ,

this is a really cool feature! I've been looking for a solution to read out my BMV-712 via Bluetooth for over a year now.

My hope was the new GATT service, but unfortunately it is not yet available for the BMV-712 (but I keep hoping it will come). Now my second hope is the new advertising data. These contain almost all the info I need.

However, the data are encrypted. How can I decrypt the data? I can read the advertising data and see a timestamp. But I am missing more information about encryption and encoding.

I really hope Victron can provide the info so I can finally read my BMV-712 with Bluetooth.

Thank you very much.

Many greetings
Felix

Very nice add on but I have a problem in displaying the readings of my IP43 when in local, as you can see in the picture attached. No problem in VRM.

Ciao!

Hello!

Thanks for the nice feature, this is indeed useful. The Inverter Smart and Bluesolar MPPT will ever be supported?

@Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff)

thank you very much for your answer, cause you taking it serious.

The device is a sun 12/250 230V (Sin 121251100)

20220812_111537.mp4

The video is a bit old so:

hint1: the firmware is now 2.41 (no behavior change).

hint2: i moved the inverter, so all data ist lost (just battery dis/reconnect, no manual data erasure)

hint3: the recording stopped 1-2 seconds too early - after quitting victronconnect it shows for a second all 5 items including [Solarleistung] [Ertrag]. The data preview falls then back to only show 3 items: [Batteriespannung] [AC-Last] [Zustand]. So from that on the 2 data items from the pwm-controller are lost (in nirvana).
hint4: before restarting victronconnect again it shows only 3 items (as standard before starting up)

Seems to be a refresh of the display first having all data, then like a reset, only the inverter-data remains, not polling pwm-data again -> A19E

(Data object to small - Vcc switched off?)

I'll fetch a new endsequence.

20220823_035523.mp4

Just plain recording, no extra interaction. Hope that helps.

Kind regards

Edit: how do i remove the doublettes (files) ?

When will the IP 22 12/30 support this feature ?

@mvader (Victron Energy) I switched on this new feature some weeks ago out of curiosity. Today I wanted to deactivate it again (I'm only using one device so far), but I just can't remember where the "switch" was! Could you please give me a hint? I'm starting to go nuts about it! :(

@mvader (Victron Energy) Any update on making the protocol public. I love the GATT feature for my SmartShunt, but it would be amazing if I could find a way to read out my solar values. Looks like GATT will not be supported on any additional devices and the BLE broadcasting is the way to go.

So please make us happy and share information on how we can read the data.

I would even have no problem if there is a switch that would send the data unencrypted in case you don't want (or can) share you encryption algorithm. I have no problem if someone is reading my data...as long as it's read-only.

Thanks, Carsten

Okay, I spent some time digging deep into files: After creating a backup of my phone with iMazing I was able to access all the files that Victron Connect has created.

Very interesting: In Library/Application Support/Victron Energy/Victron Connect you'll find a file called "Victron Connect.sqlite"

Inside of this database you'll find a table called "advertisementKeys". It lists MAC address of the sensor and the advertising key. So there is a way to extract the encryption key from that database.

My SmartBatterySense here has the following encryption key: '0da694539597f9cf6c613cde60d7bf05'

And I was able to capture some advertisement packages:

https://gist.github.com/ctschach/0f0c727186e2e24480f45d5216f33630

So anybody here in the group with some forensic / cryptographic background?

I hope this info is provided via an official API at some point, but I've been tinkering on my own to be able to consume this data in something like Home Assistant and created https://github.com/keshavdv/victron-ble which is able to parse some elements from these BLE advertisements. It only supports battery monitors as that's the only device I currently have, but it might be useful for others.

@netsrac27, I tried it out with the data you shared and it came up with https://gist.github.com/keshavdv/ff5ae4d40f272310219d1378f07831b8. The state of charge seems a bit weird, but hopefully the other values are accurate?

@keshavdv Thank you for this contribution - it looks most useful.

I'm not a professional programmer and have no prior Python experience, but I've been able to install your victron_ble application and blunder my way to getting it to work (partly) with a Lithium Ion Smart 12.8V / 330Ah battery. The BLE advertisements are being decrypted correctly - the problem is figuring out the data format and parsing it.

Because the battery voltage dithers a bit or so sitting idle, I believe I've identified the field containing that. The battery temperature appears to be contained in the first byte (next to the IV), but the encoding is a bit weird - 27C corresponds to decimal 195, 22C to 190, 18C to 186. (i sat an ice pack on top of the battery to force the temperature reading down - the sensor appears to be on the BMS board at the top of the cells, and responds much faster than the cells themselves could.) The other parameters are a mystery at the moment. I will have to try charging/discharging the battery.

If all the individual cell voltage data, etc. can be extracted from the BLE advertisements, this would be extremely useful, Unlike many other Victron devices, the Li-Ion Smart series has no VE.Direct or other similar wired interface - the *only* access to these internal parameters is via Bluetooth. Otherwise the only information coming out of the battery is the three hardwired protection signals for stop charge, stop discharge, and the low charge warning.

It would be very helpful to those of us who would like to build our own interfaces if Victron would publish the BLE advertisement data formats for the various devices (failing a full API). This I assume is pretty simple and stable information (apart from new product releases), and should not cause the sort of support issues that @mvader (Victron Energy) has mentioned in regard to making the general BLE protocols public.

Hi @mvader (Victron Energy), i use a lot of IP65 6/12Volt on 6Volt modules in a 48Volt setup to ballance the cells. When i see all the chargers in the list and access one, then close the one i am in to get back to the list, i get a glimce of the instant read out of the charger before it is gone. Is this feature coming soon to the IP65 6/12V ? Thanks for all the fine work Victron is doing with expanding the features of these great products :-)

@mvader (Victron Energy)

@keshavdv

This is looking good, but how about integration with Venus OS, is that on the road map so Raspberry PI running Venus OS can read these values over BLE with no VE Direct cables required?

If not what are the options to make a dashboard on Raspberry PI - signalk?

While I await Venus OS support for BLE in future, I have been playing with Signalk / Grafana and Victron BLE ...

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/197110/victron-ble-dashboard-using-pisignalkgrafana.html">https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/197110/victron-ble-dashboard-using-pisignalkgrafana.html

Hi. I really appreciate this feature but my older BlueSolar MPPT 75/15 with BT dongle does not show instant readout except for a quick flash as I exit the device window for back to the list again. I have other devices including a BMV702 with dongle that do show the instant readout.

It seems the Bluesolar might work yet not quite. The Victron Connect manual does not include the BlueSolar 75/15 on it's list last I looked.

Should mine be working with version 5.91 of connect?

This feature is so convenient that I am considering upgrading if it's not going to work with the BlueSolar 75/15. But it would be ideal if it does.

So I wonder if mine is having a problem or simply doesn't get this feature?

thanks

how can I get the advertisement key? for Home Assistant