I am seeing a significant difference in the range of the Bluetooth signal from different products. My Smart Battery Sense and ip 65 charger appear to be significantly longer range than my IP22 chargers. Is there a reason for this
That’s the nature of bluetooth really - it’s incredibly fickle. “More than a kilometer, less than a meter”, because it is so wildly dependent on so many other factors.
If interested in learning about bluetooth: Understanding Bluetooth Range | Bluetooth® Technology Website
Not sure if you work for Victron, but that’s a bit of an apologists answer. Yes Bluetooth is a bit fickle but its limitations are well documented and Victron would be aware of them. They would also be aware of the environment they were being used in. They could have made a better product but chose not to. They would probably use power usage and price as reasons for not doing so. If your battery bank can’t handle the additional mW of power, you have bigger problems than bluetooth range. And the price they sell their products for could certainly absorb the small increase in production costs. This is sloppy design and penny pinching. Not fickle Bluetooth.
I do not work for Victron no, just happen to understand the problems of Bluetooth - and happily provided the platform’s own explanation of the fragility of BT connections - I encourage you to read it!
I’ll add: the environment Victron products are used in is… all of them.
The size battery banks Victron products are used on is… all of them. It is neither for you nor I to judge others for their battery banks’ capabilities.
The price of Victron components is… substantially less than any other reputable manufacturer on the market, while at the same time retaining much higher configurability than any other reputable manufacturer on the market, and also at the same time equal if not higher overall reliability than the same.
Victron has done an admirable job of a necessary balancing act to meet the needs within their market. Their components may not be the perfect match for everyone on the planet and that’s fine; so long as one understands the limitation of the components and the technologies used within them, one can make an educated decision about whether to purchase them or to use a different manufacturer, which of course one is always free to do.
If you find some other manufacturer that is equally reliable, equally configurable, equally inexpensive, and has better bluetooth capabilities, please by all means do tell the world!
I have a phone, it’s Bluetooth has a worse range than my boys phone of the same make.
Should I write to manufacturer to complain ?
Nah, I have what I have and if I need the bit better range I know a phone that would suit or I use a different connection format.
Everyone needs for range differs, personally I don’t use Bluetooth much as I can’t see system data anywhere in the world with it.
Only Bluetooth I do use is jkbms for BMS settings, but that’s the only way I can connect and yes I need to be within 10ft to connect, but it is what it is.
Thank you very much for the responses so far. I certainly didn’t want to start any heated discussions.
When I originally posted this question I had already placed the devices close together and used the same iPhone to connect to them simultaneously. I believe this ruled out most of the variables mentioned in the discussion earlier regarding the idiosyncrasies of Bluetooth.
I was wondering if the metal case makes a difference to the Bluetooth range of the IP22 Chargers.
There are no other connection format options for the IP22 Charger listed in the manual. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
I must say Im very impressed with Victron products at this time.
Can’t give much help on charger, as I do not have one.
Only option is Bluetooth and ve smart networking I believe.
It may be but i have quite a few Victron Bluetooth devices on the same mounting board next to each other except for the Easysolar that is 1 meters further. The below screenshot was taken 4 meters away with a double brick wall between my smartphone and the Victron Bluetooth devices. Take note of the diffrent signal strengths between the devices. From the top the first 3 mppt’s will not connect, the 4th mppt does connect without a problem so does the Smartshunt and the 250/70 mppt belonging to the Easysolar.
It’s not officially supported but I believe the latest revision of the ip22s has a ve.direct header internally: