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dbainbridge avatar image
dbainbridge asked

Victron awesome software updates and openness

This is not precisely a question but I wanted to make sure Victron management is aware of this. I am in USA and specifically purchasing a Victron solar charge controller(s) and Inverter (Quattro) along with Cerbo GX and other tidbits precisely because I see Victron continually updating their software (even macOS!) and making their monitoring and communications "open" for others to fully customize. It was really a breath of fresh air to see this and should be more openly marketed since I find this to be a huge advantage compared to other companies on the market that have fully closed systems and/or haven't updated their software in years.

So my question could be, can Victron make sure they take advantage of advertising these features (openness and continual software updates)?


software
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2 Answers
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

Hi @dbainbridge,

First, thanks for the kind words. I will pass them along to @mvader (Victron Energy) for the R&D team.

Probably also good to mention, there is no 'Victron management' as you might normally think of it. There is Matthijs, and his father Reinout (who founded Victron 45 years ago) and their teams.

All Victron employees talk directly to Matthijs and Reinout, they are both engineers themselves, and they are both also still involved in all the details of the products, the designs, and integration from top to bottom.

Openness (where possible) and continuous improvement are some of those values at Victron that transcends the business case, so it is really nice to hear that it does also help some customers ultimately choose to purchase BECAUSE of them.

Actively marketing these values is a bit more nuanced. Generally Victron is prioritising engineering over marketing. So we depend on the enthusiastic word-of-mouth from those people (distributors, installers and end customers) who take the time to understand and appreciate the unique blend of software, services and hardware that Victron offers.

I hope that you have found the Modifications Space?

And in there lies a clue, while we love the open and active development community that has formed around Victron, and always looking to improve the accessibly of Victron's APIs and hardware interfaces, the market needs to know that this is fundamentally a robust and reliable solution that works out-of-the-box in a huge range of conditions.

While you can push Victron equipment in all sorts of directions to do all sorts of things, you also can install, commission and operate it using intuitive tools that don't require a deep knowledge of computers, code and complexity. At least that is also the goal we are working toward.

That said, thanks again, and there might be some higher profile promotion of some of the deeper workings like ModbusTCP coming up in the blog (and YouTube channel).

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misullivan avatar image misullivan commented ·

Well I have persuaded 2 people to make the switch to Victron here in Aus, ... because of the updates and openness.. so +1 from me!

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daryl avatar image
daryl answered ·

The open availability of all the design & operational documentation, software etc is 100% the reason why I bought a Victron based 3-phase ESS system.

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