I run a MultiPlus 3000, Cerbo GX, and SmartShunt in my travel trailer. This week I needed to make one configuration change: enabling AES so the inverter’s idle draw stops running down my 300Ah bank between trips.
The remote workflow succeeded at every step except the last one. VRM Portal access is set to Full. Remote VEConfigure read the system and produced the .rvsc file. I had it downloaded in under a minute from an iPad at a campsite. Then the process dead-ends, because editing that file requires VEConfigure 3, which only runs on Windows. VictronConnect on macOS and iOS connects to the installation and shows the MultiPlus, but VE.Bus settings are disabled by design, as the VictronConnect-Remote documentation confirms.
So a single checkbox now waits on me finding or virtualizing a Windows machine. The MK3-USB fallback doesn’t help either, since iOS devices can’t use it at all.
What makes this stand out is that everything else in the ecosystem is already cross-platform. VRM is a web app. Remote Console runs in any browser. VictronConnect ships for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. Victron’s own platform choices show where users are: at the boat or trailer with a phone or tablet in hand. VE.Bus configuration is the one workflow that still assumes a Windows desktop, and it fails at the finish line of an otherwise excellent remote experience.
Either of these would solve it:
Bring VE.Bus settings into VictronConnect and VictronConnect-Remote, at least the common ones: AES, charge profiles, input current limit. VictronConnect already handles these locally over MK3, so the settings UI exists.
A cross-platform way to edit .rvsc files, ideally a web-based editor inside VRM itself. The download and upload plumbing is already there; only the editing step is platform-locked.
I work in UX professionally and would be glad to share more detail on where the flow breaks down if that’s useful. Curious how many others have hit this. If you have, chime in so the team can see the demand.
VictronConnect is supposed to be replacing VE.Configure. Functions get added to VC over time, albeit slowly. Until then, use Bottles, Wine or Proton to run VE.Configure and the other tools on Mac and Linux. No need to virtualize a machine, the compatibility layers work just fine
Personally I have faced the problem as I run some Windows devices. But I very much like your suggestion of a (hopefully browser or VRM based) web editor.
Please make this work on IOS - the current situation is clunky and not what I have come to expect of the awesome and elegant Victron world. Were I away sailing and theoretically needed to modify the settings on the Multiplus I really would not want to have to find a windows machine. This is coming from someone who worked for MSFT for 11 years…
chrigu, Bottles, Wine and Proton don’t run on iPadOS, so they don’t reach the case I’m describing. They also assume I’m sitting at a desktop, and if I were at a desktop I’d just use Windows. The whole point of the remote workflow is that I’m at the trailer with an iPad and the system is reachable over VRM.
Nick, agreed that Apple blocks the MK3 on mobile devices, and that’s on Apple. The path I’m asking about never touches an MK3. Remote VEConfigure already reads the system over VRM and hands back an .rvsc file, and VRM already accepts the edited file for upload. Both of those steps work in Safari on an iPad today. The only step that requires Windows is editing the file in between.
On VictronConnect handling most settings: that’s true locally over MK3. VE.Bus settings are disabled in VictronConnect-Remote by design, which the docs confirm, so the remote case still dead-ends regardless of which desktop OS you have.
So the ask stands as a remote one: either enable VE.Bus settings in VictronConnect-Remote, or put an .rvsc editor in VRM. Either would let me flip one checkbox from the device I actually have with me. No dongle, no Windows, no compatibility layer.
A lot of us would like to see a config editor embedded into the remote veconfigure process so that the entire cycle can be executed on a single device , ideally within the same browser.
The newer generation products don’t require veconfigure but it’s unlikely the vast install base and use of the traditional systems is going away anytime soon.