What I love about this monitor – The unit provides the battery voltage and a percentage charge indication.
TUMBLR BATTERY METER BLUETOOTH
If bluetooth is turned off on the phone it prompts you to turn it on with a single tap and the connection was very quick and easy on my phone.
TUMBLR BATTERY METER INSTALL
Using the monitor is very simple, just install across the battery terminals, download the app – there are links to it below) and then stand within 10m of the battery and run the app. I bought mine from Jaycar (they sell them under the PowerTech brand) but I paid more than I should have, they can be bought from Chinese eBay sellers but no cheaper then Australian ones. You will find that these are sold under different names (and prices), including PowerTech, QuickLynks, IDrive and others but they all do the same thing and use the same smartphone app. This is the one I settled on – the BM2 BLE Bluetooth battery monitor. There are others that don’t have a remote facility but do provide a lot of information but I considered around $190 too much to pay. I did some searching and there are some great models out there but most are expensive – anything much over $60 I considered too expensive and in one case, the remote battery monitor I looked at didn’t provide much more than the voltage level and cost almost $80. I wanted a battery monitor that I could use with a smartphone app and more importantly, warn me if the battery state of charge was getting too low. I have been pleasantly surprised with the number of people who have downloaded the guide and I have recently updated it with more recent information on Lithium batteries. So, of course being a bit of a senior geek I found just the thing or as my wife calls it ‘What? Another gadget?’ By the way, If you are looking for a guide to RV / caravan electrics – check out my eBook I wrote to assist others with this sometimes confusing topic. I fitted one but found the information provided, just the battery voltage wasn’t sufficient to really understand what was happening as far as solar charging and the real battery capacity remaining. They can be wired in and put somewhere in the van or motorhome. There are many simple meters that do this to a limited extent, most just provide the voltage reading and (usually just a very approximate) battery capacity. Of more use would be a monitor that is always connected to the battery or batteries to give you information. This makes it easy to check the battery voltage but only when plugged in – and you don’t really need to know this do you? Some modern battery chargers, like the Victron Blue series which I fitted to charge the caravan battery from the mains, have a bluetooth monitor included.
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