question

tomas-maly avatar image
tomas-maly asked

BMV Battery Monitor customization

Is there any way to see a historical (ie hourly/daily) power consumption on the battery monitor? I'm a bit disappointed so far that I see only a "deepest discharge", which doesn't help me understand what by power usage was the evening before.

I woke up this morning at 4am with my 48V lithium batteries dead and I have no idea why. A graph of hourly power usage would have been able to explain things. The Trends tab unfortunately only shows info based on when I most recently opened the app (ie usually no more than a few minutes prior), rather than for the hours before.

Is there a way to interface with raw data on the device so I can write my own software to monitor things? I have a raspberry pi with bluetooth and would love being able to collect data from the monitor, which I can then customize.

For example, it would be helpful for me to get notified that the power is getting low (and could be dead before morning), so I can unplug items before I go to sleep. It would be helpful to customize this notification, ie based upon if there's a genuine risk to the batteries being dead.

People have suggested getting the battery disconnect but I honestly need to have fair warning before it's too late. So I know to unplug my computer, TV, etc (less essential items) so my fridge can keep running.

If there was some programmable interface I can gather data, that would be really useful and I'd consider keeping the device. Otherwise, I'm just going to return it and look elsewhere, because it's definitely not worth the $200 when there's no historical logging (unlike their charge controllers).

Also, now the battery monitor says "100%" even though it's nowhere near that, so it's a bit useless at this point. I had to shut off my batteries so the monitor turned on via my panels, which might explain the issue.


VRMBMV Battery Monitor
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2 Answers
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

Hi @Tomas Maly,

For now, detailed historical data requires connecting your SmartShunt to a GX device running Venus. You will get all the data you are looking for from that when combined with an internet connection on the VRM.

Regarding your options for customised alternatives to the GX device, this is a good place to start reading.

Regarding the 100% issue, the SmartShunt uses a negligible amount of power and is intended to be connected in such a way that it doesn't lose power when isolating the rest of the system (loads). It will reset SOC to 100% when power cycled, and then will recalibrate once the batteries are fully charged again.

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Vance Mitchell avatar image
Vance Mitchell answered ·

I would start by exploring some of the open source information Here especially the ve.direct section.

From that you could easily use an Arduino or openlog device to keep history for you.

I would think that if you have programming knowledge and a raspberry pi you could either log the data with your own software or set up the Pi with Venus and use the VRM as your logging and visualisation platform. The only extra component you would need is a Ve.direct to USB cable.(genuine Victron or DIY, This works well if you have multiple Ve.direct devices)

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