Does anyone know what happened to the Two Way Communication toggle in the VRM Settings for the Cerbo GX? FW 3.60 76 and the toggle doesn’t show up. Very important feature for minimizing data volume.
Hi @KarlReu
The documentation might be lagging on this.
The feature was renamed, to “Full” and “Read Only” modes, set in the top level of the VRM menu on the GX device settings.
If the specific reason to change this isn’t for the ability to control remotely changing settings, but instead to minimise the data consumption, then it’s best to use a different setting, disabling “Realtime Updates” in the General settings in VRM website itself (not the on the GX) for the specific site.
I will make sure the documentation for this is more clearly documented, and then report back.
Docs will tend to lag beta releases, especially as the layouts also can change between beta releases. Always best to poke around on the dedicated beta software section.
Hi @guystewart
Disabling VRM two way communications on Cerbo, at least on older versions, also disables realtime updates on Dashboard…
Meaning, the values on the dashboard are updated on a minute-by-minute basis, instead of realtime, two seconds basis.
So it’s similar with disabling “Realtime Updates” in the General settings in VRM website itself, but from Cerbo’s side.
Probably this is why OP wanted a smaller data volume.
Hi @alexpescaru
The two settings are related, and affect each other but are also different.
What was previously “Two way communication” was a precondition requirement to enable “Realtime” data mode. It wasn’t possible to use realtime mode without having two way comms enabled.
It was still possible to disable realtime mode on VRM so you wouldn’t see extra data consumption or fast updating dashboard, and then Two Way comms would still allow other features like remote firmware updates, and remote ve.bus configuration changes.
What is different now is that in Read Only mode, you can now have realtime mode, but without enabling the remote firmware update features.
It provides more granular flexibility and control. But I don’t think this is properly documented yet.
It’s also a bit confounded because there are multiple different user interfaces now, but I’ll work it out.
If the intention is to reduce data consumption, then the place to do it is in the VRM settings, not on the GX device. There is no way to disable realtime on the GX, without having other unintended consequences on other features.
Thanks for explaining. It seems logical.
Edit: fixed the name
Indeed, the new setup is more logical, and gives better control depending on what the desired feature set is.
But it’s also a change, and needs to be made clearer.
Thanks for these details, Guy. Would DESS still work with “read only” or would it block the DESS target SOC setting from the cloud for my Cerbo?
Motivation: Maximum (Cyber)Security robustness in terms of system settings changes or firmware modifications with bad intention from outside (Stuxnet) . But still allowing DESS to communicate the target SOC.
I raised that questions weeks ago in another post, also with no answer
Is it that obvious, that just I don’t get it? Or is it something only few people know exactly? Coming from IT, “least privilege” is never a bad principle. And if I do not need to change modes or settings via VRM, why not keeping it read-only.
Remaining question for me: Would DESS target SOC still work in read-only?
No, it won’t. It will slowly run out of schedules and then stop.
This is a good point though and there probably should be an extra confirmation box or so if you are running DESS and switching from full to read-only or off.
Thanks for the clarification, @dfaber .
This would be a great option in terms of overall CyberSec in DESS mode.