VRM release notes 25-09-2025

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

We have just rolled out some pretty big changes to VRM, and I’d love to tell you all about them:

• A new and improved navigation

This one is the most visible to everyone logging in right away. Over the years, many pages and features got added to VRM, and taking a step back, we realized that the navigation in VRM was not logical considering all these features.

We now split the navbar in a primary one and a secondary one. This prevents clicking back and forth trying to navigation from an installation to let’s say your profile settings or teams settings.

On top of that, we have added a bottom navbar on mobile device. With phones getting bigger and bigger, while our hands don’t grow, this new navbar prevents your from straining your hand reaching to the menu icon in the top left.

• In that new navbar, you will now get notifications from requests to join a team, installation or installation group, alongside the release notes from VRM

  

• You can now easily add multiple users that you have installations in common with to a team

• We simplified the Dynamic ESS set up screen a lot, splitting advanced settings to hidden parts, auto-filling them with default values. These values are good enough to get started with Dynamic ESS, and it makes setting up Dynamic ESS a lot less intimidating

• In the calendar next to the Dynamic ESS graphs, we show an indication of the days that had, or are expected to have, battery balancing happening. This makes it easier to spot when battery balancing has been happening

So a lot to try out and get used to. I hope you are as excited about these changes as I am

On behalf of the VRM team,

Barbara

[guystewart (Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager))]

Hi All,

Thanks for the responses, even those who don’t like the new changes. It is expected that when we make a change to something that people are comfortable and familiar with that there will be some moment of where things immediately feel a lot worse.

I had the same feeling too, as using VRM feels like driving a car to me, and then suddenly the steering wheel has been moved overnight.

So I would like to first explain that we aren’t making these changes just for the sake of it. I agree that for existing users VRM was just fine, working great and the navigation probably didn’t need to be changed right now.

But the situation when looking at the site from the perspective of a new user was that the old navigation style was not intuitive. Its foundations were built when there was far less features on VRM, and nearly all users were on desktop computers.

Now we have many new features, with more still to come, and most users are on mobile.
So we needed to rethink how the site should feel, and be sure that a new user is able to find what they are looking for without being frustrated.

I hear the complaint from @Joe9911 - but now think of it from a new user who has just bought their Victron system and they cannot find the settings at all. This is also feedback we got when thinking about the redesign.

I think the good news is that even though the initial change is very jarring for an experienced user (and I have been using VRM myself for 10 years), after just a few days I was completely adjusted and happy again with the new navigation.

We ran tests for over a month now, and I know that doesn’t include all of you, but that experience was shared by most.

So please give it a bit of time to get used to the new, and then if you still feel strongly, come back with the more precise feedback about exactly what you don’t like and we can either explain why we made it like this, or fix it.

[pukeko_ranch (Jeff)]

In general, love the work Victron has done, I have been using VRM daily for 6 months for my own offgrid setup, so I can see my use case is not the same as larger installers.

But as a single installation users, I am not a fan of the extra navbar on the side for desktop view, or the bottom navbar for mobile view.
Again In my use case, it was not a problem on mobile to open the sidebar and switch to advanced to view those charts when needed.

The Double sidebar on desktop is crazy pants, in my use case none of the first layers tools are relevant so to have them always available is redundant ( except notifications, I like reading about the updates you guys have made).

Any chance of a display setting for single install people such as myself to go back to a single sidebar?

Otherwise you guys do great work, the features are overall fantastic and the gui-v2 console is awesome, your mppts, inverters and cerbo have been working flawlessly.

[guystewart (Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager))]

Thanks @pukeko_ranch

I agree with you and think there is a small adjustment we can make to improve this for your case.

When you click to collapse the sidebar on desktop, those rarely used site wide menu items could be hidden as well.

[ChiefSolar]

I guess that the layout is fine for folks using a phone, but for everyone working in landscape mode. Notebooks and tablets. The new bottom navbar is annoying. Like popups. Eating up valuable screen real-estate. Constantly. Like we have enough vertical space. Which is exactly the opposite. Therefore the old menu at the left side is still preferred. Please give us the option to use what we need. As in. I for one want my screen space back. I certainly don’t need a huge navigation bar with rather large icons. This is something we’ve been avoiding in tab bars. Less is more. Kill the clutter. Thank you.

Just look at that huge chunk of space…

[alexpescaru]

A small cosmetic issue…

The highlight of the section is not function properly.

For example, click on Home and then click on installations. Both remain highlighted.

[guystewart (Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager))]

@alexpescaru

Home and then click on installations. Both remain highlighted.

Hi Alex,

Believe it or not, this is feature, not a bug.

The reason both remain highlighted is because both are open simultaneously.

The installations screen is visible as the sidebar, and the home is visible as the rest of the window.

There are several combinations where this is possible. We considered alternatives, like only showing the most recently clicked, but in the end decided that the most accurate is to show that both are currently open.

[Kladz]

Hello the team Victron,

The thumbnails are no longer clearly distinguishable, as the background is the same across the entire page. Could you change the shade of grey used for the thumbnails? Thank you in advance

[guystewart (Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager))]

Hi all again,

I have just had a read through of all the comments so far, and removed some of the earlier ones and those already quickly resolved.

If you have more specific constructive feedback on this release, then please feel free to post it here.

If the feedback is more general, then it is best to create a new different topic.

There are some really good suggestions, specifically tablet views. This will be improved next.

[kaarliskr]

One issue with the new layout – and specific to mobile devices.

I have an EV charger, which then takes up so much vertical space (5 separate pieces of info), that combined with the bottom navbar, I don’t see the solar charger power… even on a large screen phone. This is when “Show details” is on. For me personally, it would be great if I could just collapse the EV charger info separately, it sits disconnected 99% of the time (or if it would disappear from the page completely when unpowered).

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

Hi @kaarliskr , thank you for that feedback.

I’ll discuss with the team to make the EVCS tile collapsible, indeed most of the time your EV is not charging.

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

@kaarliskr could I have your Installation ID (the numerical code in the url of your installation on desktop)? So the team can optimize it for your installation setup?

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

Hi @UpCycleElectric ,

Big changes like this will always come as a surprise. And what happens afterwards, is that people pay close attention to the platform after, leading to them discovering bugs that aren’t caused by the change.

I’ll send an update on the bugs known to us as a result of the recent release on Monday.

Known bugs:

• Control panel cutting off on specific screen sizes
• Date range cutting off on specific screen sizes
• Tablet UX improvements
• Mobile in landscape - bottom navbar taking up too much space

Known feature requests (these won’t be solved urgently, but reviewed within the team first):

• Allow for both navbars to be collapsed to save screen space
• Allow for the bottom navigation to be collapsed without scroll down
• Allow for the EVCS tile to be collapsed to save screen space

[grua]

@pukeko_ranch

But as a single installation users, I am not a fan of the extra navbar on the side for desktop view, or the bottom navbar for mobile view.
Again In my use case, it was not a problem on mobile to open the sidebar and switch to advanced to view those charts when needed.

Also single installation user, but I love the new bottom bar at moblie view, great work Victron!

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

Hi @kevind1 , clicking the installation name > always brings you back to the dashboard of that installation. This helps when you are on advanced or user settings.

We can hide it when you are on the dashboard already, as it then indeed doesn’t have a function. We kept it this way to standardize across pages, preventing alternate UIs in the top of your screen.

[Barbara (Barbara Jansink (Victron Energy))]

Hi all,

This morning, we deployed fixes for:

• Control panel cutting off
• The datepicker cutting off
• The preferences page not opening on the correct submenu
• The preferences page blanking out the display preferences
• The error users got for changing the screensaver settings in preferences

What is still in development:

• Making the tablet UI the same as on desktop
• Making the navbar look like it does on desktop when in landscape mode on mobile

Thank you all for your valuable feedback.

[ron_h]

Dear Barbara,

In VRM I do see strange things happening when switching from “Grid metering” “inverter/charger” mode to “External meter” Mode, see screenshots.
Is this a bug if an EM540 (serial grid meter) is used?
inverter/charger setting

And External meter mode

[guystewart (Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager))]

Hi All,

Thanks again for your feedback and responses.

To help us keep track, I have been through the thread and removed all the replies that have been resolved or were just general comments.

I’ve left the comments with outstanding issues until we can clear them.