I want to monitor my boats battery voltage when I am away. The boat is connected to the marina wifi but is NOT plugged into shore power. I have a MPPT controller that connects to my phone via BT while I am on the boat. I have read multiple ways of doing this, with a Pi, Home Assistant, ESPY32, VenusOS, etc.
One was to run HA on the Pi, then have an ESPY32 connect via BT and some YAML code to the MPPT wirelessly to the Pi. That seems like lots more work than I need, the person who wrote that was creating a whole remote boat monitoring system to monitor all sensors, I just need to use my phone remotely to see battery V.
Then I have come across possibly just using VenusOS. Is it really as simple as flashing to a Pi, then just running the Pi on the boat reading batt V and me seeing it remotely on my phone? Do I need to connect the Pi directly to the MPPT (it currently connects via BT to my phone). If so, this is great, one issue I might have is that as long as things are going well with the solar panel charging the batteries, the Pi will not be draining the battery. However, if the panel somehow stops working, the Pi will drain my battery in about 60 days.
Regarding last sentence above, is there a lower power method, can an ESP32 connect directly and run HA that I can see on my phone, or with an ESPY32 do I still need a Pi?
I have an RPi connected to a MPPT controller and a smart shunt it does need internet access which is provided by a TP link M7350 and a cheap SIM £1.50 for 3gb a month.
The whole lots consumes 6watts so not much battery drain. I can switch it all off using a Sonoff remote switch consumption is then just 1.5watts.
Thanks for the quick reply. A few detailed questions:
Are you using VenusOS on the Pi?
Do I need a cable to connect the MPPT to the Pi, or can it connect wirelessly (I have a Pi 4 with BT)
I haven’t used VenusOS, once I am away how do I see what the Pi is getting? I know there is a Victron remote portal, but what app on my phone do I use to connect to see that data?
6W is .5A at 12V, that is 12Ah a day, my batteries are 250AH, so if something is wrong, it drains my batteries in 20 days! Can you give me more info on this Sonoff remote switch? Thanks!
Take a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with Venus OS , register a VRM Account, 12V /USB DC/DC converter for power supply, connect the mppt with a VE.direct cable.
Online connection with build in wlan to marina and/ or cheap LTE modem with sim card.
Alarm rule at VRM to get a email if battery has become undervoltage
Yes I’m running Venus OS on an RPi 3B+. Only got 105Ah LFP batter here and so far it’s not been a problem. I turn the Pi off in the winter to save battery only turning it on when I need to check the system.
Cable connections from the Victron kit to the usb on the RPi, I started with cheap copy cables but kept getting drop out so bought the Victron ones instead.
So I can’t use BT over wifi to the Pi? I need a victron VE to USB cable (not the VE to VE cable)? My mppt has BT wireless, which is how I connect to my phone.
You can use BT only for VE.Smart Network or your smartphone
GX devices for remote management are working only with a cable (VE.direkt for your mppt, Ve.bus, Ve.can, ..)
GX and VE.Smart Network are two complete different worlds.
For a raspi you need this
For a Cerbo you can use this too or a Ve.direct to Ve.direct cable (same plug on both sides).
I used to run a system before I went RPi Venus OS that used BT
It was an old 4G Android Tablet that connected as normal to the Victron kit over BT.
However it also had TeamViewer installed and my machine at home had the same. It meant I could remote access the Tablet from home. Took me a while to convince TeamViewer it wasn’t commercial use but I did in the end.
Wasn’t nearly as reliable as the RPi and Venus but it did work.
Thanks. So you have a 2w with the USB Victron cable going to mppt, what is the white device to the right of the rasp, and I guess from the 12V you goto a switch that then feeds a LCD screen? (can’t see it well). The ‘braided’ black white coming from the pi is video for lcd?
If I hit the VRM portal on the bottom, I get a screen asking to setup a device, and I am not sure what to pick. VenusGX? Not sure since the picture looks like a Victron device, not a general computer. BTW, the Pi is NOT connected to any Victron device yet, I am trying to set this up first at home, my boat currently has no internet connection.
I solved this problem by connecting a GLi.Net GL-X2000 Spitz Plus device to my Cerbo GX using an ethernet cable (I have other ethernet devices connected as well).
The Spitz can be set up to use the marina’s WiFI as primary connection and falls back to an LTE connection for when we are away from the marina.
I have connected the Spritz to a Tailscale VPN network (free for private users) and then installed the Tailscale app on my mobile, tablet, pcs etc.
Through this I can connect to the Cerbo GX and any other networked device onboard. I use this (with Node Red) to monitor the Ruuvi devices in each cabin to check temperature and humidity levels, I also can check the two starter batteries and my LiFePo4 bank and using the analogue inputs on the Cerbo GX the water and Diesel tanks.
This allows me to access the GUI from anywhere so I can control the Quattro and MPPT controllers etc.
Having a WiFi/LTE connection also means the Cerbo is also connected to the VRM.
Looked for mifi devices since marina wifi where they put my boat in the yard is terrible. That TP Link mifi in the states $150. That and a data plan will cost me $250, I can re up my sentinel plan for that, which I really didn’t want to do just to monitor batt voltage 1x a month!
