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klim8skeptic avatar image
klim8skeptic asked

Venus GX, what happened to bluetooth?

Hi Guys,

What ever happened to the inbuilt Bluetooth that the Venus GX has?

The last mention of BT was about 2 years ago in the DQ area. BT has totally dropped of the Venus feature list.

Venus GX - VGXBluetoothVE.Smart Network
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3 Answers
mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

The answer to what happened to the Venus GX built-in bluetooth is that the chip in the Venus GX that said it does bluetooth simply doesn’t work properly. We tried real hard on making it work - and then gave up.

In case you want to add Bluetooth to a Venus GX, you need to insert a USB bluetooth dongle. There is no other way. The main thread that also has info on which dongles are compatible is here:

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/112834/connect-ruuvi-to-ccgx.html



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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·
Ps. Accepted my own answer, hope you don’t mind.
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mrt avatar image
mrt answered ·

Just use WiFi


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Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

@klim8skeptic, I strongly suspect that the answer is simply: the devs have been busy doing other things since then - things that have a higher priority than putting BT into the Venus. It was, after all, only earlier this month that the CCGX (via VenusOS 2.23) gained some degree of BT functionality (with the appropriate BLE USB BT dongle, of course) so we're getting there... just very slowly. For that matter, it may be worth connecting a BLE BT dongle to a Venus (running the current OS of course) just to see if you do get any BT setup options like we get with the CCGX now... it's not documented, but it's worth an exploratory shot!

As Matthijs said, just under a year ago, in answer to a very similar question: "Hi, someday yes." :-P

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/10131/venus-gx-bluetooth-conectivity.html

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klim8skeptic avatar image klim8skeptic ♦ commented ·

Hi Justin,

"For that matter, it may be worth connecting a BLE BT dongle to a Venus"

This does not work, the VE direct Bluetooth smart dongle does not power up.

However a very generic USB dongle does work. The dongle is simply marked CSR V4.0 , and apparently has a CSR8510 chipset in it.

Victron Connect picked it up straight away on an android tablet. Once the pin was entered and changed, access was granted. There is not much to see, however you get access to your VRM and remote console (from within VRM) via the wifi connection.

There is a settings cog, giving full access to the Venus's network settings via BT.

Victron Connect on windows still does not BT pair.

Thanks.

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Justin Cook avatar image Justin Cook ♦♦ klim8skeptic ♦ commented ·

Good to know, thanks - that's what we get on the CCGX with a BLE USB dongle as well, just basic network setup options. Still handy, though, really... short of hooking up a USB keyboard to the CCGX, it's a lot easier to enter a wifi password using the keyboard on a phone than using the clicky clicky buttons on the Color Control.

I'm pretty sure that Windows BT will never pair, something about the Windows bluetooth handshake protocol that just won't allow it. Pity, but I suppose not everything can be perfect!

EDIT: I take it back, it looks like there's been some progress on the Windows/BT connection problem! https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/10456/am-i-correct-that-i-cant-use-the-victron-connect-w.html

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stepir avatar image stepir commented ·

hi


I’m trying to find out if I can add a BT CCGX and your post seems to confirm it - do you have other info or a link? Sorry could not find anything using search


thanks

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stepir avatar image stepir Al commented ·
Thanks!!
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