Hi. I’ve seen many video reviews of the Phoenix inverters, various models, and there is one very very annoying inconsistency I keep seeing that doesn’t make any sense to me. Some people have VA readings (though not Watts, still annoying) showing in Victron Connect for their Phoenix 375-1200 model of inverter, while some other people have a dumb “Normal” text showing up, and giving no information at all about the power draw of devices attached except the primitive circle “progress bar” thingy. And this does not seem to be related to specific models, it seems completely random to me. It seems like when buying these inverters, I would be buying blind, without a slightest clue what I’ll be getting for that specific functionnality, the proper reading, or just “Normal”.
I have a Phoenix 12/500 230V (A251 model) for a small off grid secondary system, and sure enough, I landed on the wrong side with only “Normal” showing up.
I tried with the Bluetooth VE.Direct dongle, on my Android app, on the PC app with the inverter connected to a Venus OS device, I tried upgrading both the dongle firmware and the inverter firmware (v1.36), no luck. All I get with my unit is the dumb “Normal” text.
Though, when looking in the device list of Venus OS, I get a VA reading! So it looks like my inverter does send proper power data through VE.Direct after all… So why is the app not making use of it, when for other people it does? It’s the same inverter, it’s the same app as far as I know… since everything is up to date. What did I do differently? I looked for a setting everywhere, nothing. Anyone with the VA showing up would know what they did diffrently to get it to show up? Is this a bug? I don’t see people reporting this issue often, yet it seems like this issue has been there for a long time, and it seems like a very very easy fix.
Plus, something else I don’t understand either. For those people with power readings in Victron Connect, it seems to display VA values on the main screen… but Watts in the overview page with all the devices, when expanding the view for the inverter?! Is it a typo, or really two different units shown? Then it would be logical to have a setting to switch between those two values on the main screen, like we switch between °C and °F when showing temperature measurements. Weird. But I’m not there yet, I dont even have any value at all on mine.
Any help or explanation would be so much appreciated. Thanks a lot!