I'm also using BATNON from more than a year and it's almost perfect. 99% uptime in 24/7 monitoring. I'm using it in remote mode via mqtt. Batteries are in one city, home assistant in another and everything is fine.
I've been using batmon for quite a while. I have several batteries as well. I found that each Bluetooth adapter can only handle 2 or 3 devices, before it get's overloaded. I added multiple bluetooth adaptors, and kept the count to 2 or 3 per device. This resolved it for me.
I am currently using BatMon with three JBD BMS units. Initially, I experienced connection problems due to a poor-quality USB Bluetooth adapter. However, after switching to a high-quality adapter, it worked beautifully. I've never encountered major problems, with monitoring intervals ranging from 3 to 13 seconds. The key factor is ensuring the Bluetooth adapter is very close to the BMS units. Mine is positioned about 1 to 1.3 meters away. The further the distance, the more issues you are likely to face. Despite the convenience of Bluetooth, nothing compares to cable communication. For stable and reliable performance, I would definitely choose Peter's boards. Considering my investment of thousands of dollars, spending a few hundred dollars on upgrading is well worth it, as the results can lead to significant savings. In my experience, I always prefer wired over wireless communication. It is more reliable and hassle-free. Thank you for the video, i like to see more videos with home assistant integration.
I thibk the problem is with the jk bmses, not jbd. Maybe a better bluetooth device like you say may help, but my rpi 3b+ is just a meter away and doesnt work so well. Works mostly ok with only one bank though, but cant handle two banks. Not sure how good the bluetooth is in a rpi 3b+ is
Thank you Elie! I also tried with an external TP-Link USB BT dongle and a 1m USB extension cable but had not much luck either. I'll try a couple of different settings found here in the comments to see if the situation improves. At the moment, I just want this to monitor my 12V batteries and as explained, I would not recommend using such a wireless integration to control a power system.
Bluetooth is the signal with the lowest range and usually needs line of sight. WiFi and ZigBee are in the same frequency range and could interfere with Bluetooth. I would totally agree with you that wired connection is the better choice for fixed batteries.
I use this add-on myself and have for over a year with minimal issues. Yes, like anything DIY, some tinkering is needed. My current configuration has the batmon sample_period set to 2, publish_period set to 5 and expire_values_after set to 300. I also have the bt_power_cycle enabled and install_newer_bleak disabled. I have concurrent_sampling disabled, invert_current enabled, and keep_alive enabled. This one in particular made the biggest change. Keep alive keeps the Bluetooth connection active and doesn't log in and out like you were experiencing. This ends the repeated beeps and improves reliability in the connection. With these settings, I've had reliable connections to my JK BMSs. I assume these setting exist so people can adjust to make it work best for each unique situation. It has not been trouble free but recent updates have made it much more reliable. I agree with other comments about having the BT dongle as close to the batteries as possible. Mine is about 1m away and I did have to use a USB extension with a separate dongle to get it close enough. My batteries are also in a steel cabinet which reduces the signal. With regard for data delay, the integration does not post an update to MQTT with the same value as the previous poll which is why some data shows a more recent update over another.
@@leblancexplores My drops were terrible/constant. More dropped data than retrieved. I still get them but for a minute or two and days apart now. I wouldn't use home assisatn for anything critical but the BMS still functions normally so even if the dropped data happens in an emergency, the BMS is ultimately responsible for dealing with it in real time, which is how it always should be anyways. If the frequency of the data you receive is good enough, you may just change the expire_value setting. Basically, this tricks it into keeping it from going unavailable even if the data is a little older.
Thanks a lot for sharing your settings. Many critics here but not much help. I will try your settings and see how they go. I have tested several combinations of them in the last few weeks with not much difference. keep_alive, bt_power_cycle,... all tested... I also had a 1m USB extension cable to bring a BT USB dongle closer to the batteries and also out of the steel box. No improvements for my. Maybe it's the garage with its metal walls bouncing signals all over the place...🤷♂️
I wonder if it would work better just using the mqtt data produced without going through home assistant ? I use Pylon to MQTT from github ( classic diy page ) and it uses esp32 directly into console port of my jakiper bms . Then the esp32 makes and sends the mqtt data via wifi to raspberry pi which is running mosquitto broker, telegraf, influxdb, and grafana. I view the data on graphs I made in grafana and never any problems. But I get that this software is for gathering bluetooth - just wondering if there is any hold up in the home assistant part of it ?
I tried to tell you this a couple years ago, and you told me "I don't have any confidence in Home Assistant". Me and 3 of my local friends all have been using HA to run our systems VERY RELIABLY for several years. Much better than the Victron solution. Some of us use BATMON, and I also developed an ESP based board (the Dave Board) that performs the same as the Peter Board, and costs us USD4 per board. We are all very happy with the vendor-neutral HA system, especially since none of us have Victron brand inverters.
Yes, you told me that several times. Great it works for you. Hence, I'm sharing my' not so great' experience here. And no, it has nothing to do with the reception between HA and the BMS as explained in the video.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I know you constantly tell everyone not to send emails, but perhaps that would be a better way to explain how to reliably run HA with Battery monitoring options. I have ben running HA for several years with near-real-time monitoring (certainly better than Victron) with virtually 100% uptime. If you want to do a fair (informed) test, drop me an email.
You don't need to move your homeassistant device. Homeassistant can communicate with remote bluetooth devices with cheap ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy devices.
Hi Andy, at 9:10 you say that batmon maybe work with the jk inverter BMS but for that case it's not needed. The jk inverter bms has can cable to comunicate with cerbo.... and if the cerbo it is on the same network of home assistant via modbus protocol you can read and control everything of the victron system without any additional hardware. Since it's a cabled lan network it's more relaiable than bluetooth or WiFi
When I once said that Bluetooth in BMSs are a wide open gate to all curious, "pranksters" and openly malicious people - I was laughed at... Some even accused me of some kind of obsession because I suggested turning off or electrically disabling Bluetooth. And what now? Am I a prophet? :))) Thousands of people around the world have just learned how to stick their nose into other people's affairs... I have no grudge against Andy, on the contrary, it's very good that he revealed it. People should be aware of the risks.
I've used Batmon running on a RPi4 and Home Assistant with MQTT for a couple months now. I set it up to serve as a Bluetooth bridge to Wifi as I'm also too far for Bluetooth reach into my home. I monitor numerous Victron devices and a single JBD bms, along with all 9 Bluetooth temp/humidity sensors I have installed in my van (these actually do reach into the house). I've had zero issues with signal or data dropouts and the RPi is right on the ragged signal edge where my phone will no longer connect to any of the devices. It just works. I also don't have the sticky problem with the charge/discharge relay control through HA, that too works fine. I also use BT keepalive which 'secures' access to bms as it only allows one connection at a time. This isn't much a practical problem for my use though...one would have to be 5' from the vehicle. The config settings don't have any negative impact on connection for me. Maybe your NUC Bluetooth adapter is at fault. Try a RPi, super quick to load HA, batmon and mqtt.
I'm running a RPi3B+ with MQTT and the batmon standalone version in my shed and the Home Assistant RPi itself "lives" in my house. they communicate through MQTT, is this the same setup you have?
I had exactly the same random stability Bluetooth problems when I made an esp32 to HA (rpi4) running under ESPHome. At the time I thought it was a bad esp32 board, so gave up and went TTL to esp (very similar to the Peter board), and that’s rock solid. There must be something wrong with the entire Bluetooth code in HA if totally different hardware gives the same issues.
The project has something to it. Not exactly for monitoring the battery of the solar system, but for the batteries in e-bikes and motorcycles, for example. They can then at least be monitored when charging at home.
Interesting project. I installed it on my HA computer and unfortunately it does not see my batteries. They have JBD BMS but are not found by Batmon. The installation is working correctly as if I enable dummy in the config it works. I even added an external BT dongle. Bummer as it seemed like an interesting idea.
Hello Andy, BSC is also able to connect to the JKBMS via Bluetooth. You only need to have a ESP32 close to the JKs. The HA server can sit anywhere in the network. BSC updates data every second.
I had a look at BSC a while back and this is over my top as I explained in the video. Hardware, software, scripting... not an easy solution and out of reach for most.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hhhmmmm.... Hardware: ESP32 developer Board is enough for monitoring. It is easy to buy online for a few bugs. Software: Firmware bin file easy to download and upload on the ESP. No scripting needed. BSC sends mqtt messages. Only need to configure IP, user and passwort of your brooker on HA. Come on Andy - try harder 😉 Even a "BWL Student" would be able to manage this 🐸🐸
We are spending a lot on cables, inverters, cells… I will check out the BSC at liligo as soon as they offer it. Better to use a wired connection… I just want to monitor my cells and I don’t understand why we have to put this additionally to the inverter BMS as they (JK) could easily just do the exact same thing with their firmware. How hard could it be to transfer all cell values for all packs? Or at least display lowest and highest cell in victron Venus OS over all packs and not only the master. I guess their main goal is to protect the cells and all that nerdy monitoring stuff just costs them too much time. It is maybe a too German expectation that someone tries to improve a product again and again. 😅 Anyway the options in BSC are far more than I was looking for and why not use it as an additional instance to verify bms values are making sense + triggering an emergency shut down or something else.
@@andreasw5925 Monitoring or tracking? To monitor there are displays available for JKs. To track there is additional hardware needed. The JK itself has no storage for the tracking data. For only catching data, i think Bluetooth will do the job and you don't need the BSC board with all the interfaces. A simple ESP32 devKit will be enough. I suggest to give it a try. For shure, If BMS manufactors would start to implement Wifi or Ethernet into their board, it would be a great success.
I am very happy with BSC. The official hardware still not available from Lilygo, but in the latest beta there is support for Lilygo TCAN485 which I use. The big selling point for me is combining different vendor BMSes into one battery bank for inverter to consume. Biggest downside is that most documentation and the UI is in German
One more reason to have a function implemented in their BMS to switch off the bluetooth connectivity when you're not using it yourself (and don't want anyone else to connect/control your battery e.g. with batmon). Pointing fingers at JK!👈🏻 edit: I paused the Video to write this, then noticed you said the same later on... ;-) Was I the first one to request that function?🤔
Thanks, quite a few people requested that already. I think JK is afraid people could lock themselves out once BT is disabled and they end up with a lot of support requests.
The bipping every time that the BLE comm is stablished drive me nuts, so i turned it to a physical connection with the RS232 to a ESP32 for the JK, is very straight forward connection with 3 wires... ESPHome in HA, a copy and paste lines into the ESP and thats is... using the syssi lib
Hi, Andy, I read that the password in the JK BMS is only processed internally in the app. If you have access to the BT communication, you can send and receive all commands and parameters directly without a PW.
I picked up on that too and which means it is a security issue with the BMS and not BATMON. Hopefully this is clarified and JK has the finger pointed at them instead.
Andy, in my batmon the charge, discharge and balance switches work in real time, I use it frequently and I also use the pin. What you refer are not Batmon fault but poor signal, first thing put the bluetooth dongle outside the case, you must have an usb extension to use the bluetooth. Also lower your publish_period to 40. The only thing I miss is be able to use mobile JK app and Batmon at the same time. I also use batmon with my Victron smartshunt to give me a global batteries value.
I agree 100%. The "not sticking" that Andy experienced is mostly due to his poor choices of configuration parameters. To connect with the bluetooth app, you only need to go to Settings/Addons and turn off Batmon. I really prefer the ESPHome implementation for JK BMSs, with the Dave Board.
As I explained I tried all that and had the HA closer to the batteries and also used a USB extension cable. I will try the 40s publishing time but played around with these numbers as recommended on fl4ps Github site. @DavidPrue not sure what poor choices of configuration you are referring to..
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I use batmon close to 2 years, is not perfect but is getting more stable. Try to use a different dongle, I use one sonoff and didn't even bother to update firmware has recommended and it works. Those are my parameters. devices: - address: F4:13:D2:6C:xx:xx type: victron - address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx type: jk - address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx type: jk - address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx type: jk concurrent_sampling: false keep_alive: true verbose_log: false sample_period: 30 publish_period: 40 invert_current: true watchdog: true expire_values_after: 50 install_newer_bleak: true bt_power_cycle: true mqtt_user: mqtt44 mqtt_password: mqtt.xxxx mqtt_broker: core-mosquitto pin: "xxxxxx" mqtt_port: 1883
Let’s get some things straight… The discharge/charge switch is “immediate”, not on next poll or whatever is hinted here. The toggle to switch both is a part of the HA widget and is buggy because it’s sending two commands simultaneously (had this same problem with the ESP flavor of this). ALSO… Any of these JK/JBD BMS have the same security issue. If Batmon is connected you won’t be able to see these Bluetooth devices anymore as they’re already connected to HA so it’s actually more secure IMHO. The beep should ONLY happen once when initially paired.
I also kindly disagree with your circuit breaker analogy Andy. If I wanted a BMS that only did protection things I wouldn’t buy one with Bluetooth connectivity. This solution is really elegant because it’s wireless, especially for my application. p.s. hopefully my prior comment is not too harsh, you’re awesome Andy keep up the good work!
Only if you set keep connection alive, it beeps just once and blocks the connection. I tried that as well and had not much luck either. Plus the inconvenience of not been able to connect with the app without stopping Batmon. Yeah, a BT BMS has advantages but from a safety perspective, maybe not so great. That's why the manufacturer could give the user a choice. Like Seplos does, where BT can be disabled in the Function Switch settings.
Have you checked the expansion/bloating of cells inside your Battery Shelf? Mine bloated by 2mm on both sides. I will be redoing my battery shelf soon to add some compression to prevent it from further expansion.
I've used batmon for HA for a year or so. Unfortunately for me it will only connect to one jk bms at a time and regularly drops connection. If it rarely connects to both my banks, it drops connection to both banks. Great when it works, like I think it does for most people, just not me 🙄. The guy that wrote the software can't seem to find the bug for me.
Try these settings. They work well for me with two JK BMSs. My current configuration has the batmon sample_period set to 2, publish_period set to 5 and expire_values_after set to 300. I also have the bt_power_cycle enabled and install_newer_bleak disabled. I have concurrent_sampling disabled, invert_current enabled, and keep_alive enabled. P.S. I am using a separate BT dongle and a USB extension to get the dongle about 3ft/1M close to the BMSs
Andy, didn't see that in the video but did you check the keep_alive option in the batmon addon? It may help with your issues as it prevents the disconnect/reconnect sequence from happening, saving some time and adding stability to the connection. And no more bipbip either 😄 I also checked concurrent_sampling + bt_power_cycle + install_newer_bleak in my settings. With those settings I'm getting instantaneous response from switching on/off charge/discharge/balance switches. 5 sec sampling + 10s publish. All working great but I only have 1 JK to monitor 😉
i installed the home assistant OS (direct to the to be boot disk, connected by usb to sata, on another PC with balena etcher). On the home assistant PC, used the batMON link to add it, and installed MQTT which just needs a button pressed to configure it. Checked batMON logs to find its bluez output showing the MAC address, and edited the batMON config with the type JK and its MAC. Then dashboard showed all the settings. I have 2x 2A bal 200 Amp JK 4S-8S. The 12v one never worked with the JK RS485 dongle. The 24v one yesterday stopped working with its RS485 dongle, so no data to raspberrypi venus OS. That BMS must have blown a mosfet, as it does not switch off discharge anymore, and has led to under voltage of the weakest cell. A previous Ant BMS also blew a few mosfets. Have tried my SNADI inverter direct connect to battery negative before, but the SOC etc is wildly inaccurate. The SNADI is capable of remote off, and at present a SCC turns it off when an overall battery voltage gets low-ish. (recently increased that voltage!) Also i have remote emergency stop switches for the charging, load and inverter, as i once had a cell off-gas. Will buy a 2A bal 200 Amp JK Inverter BMS, and use one of the relays to switch off the inverter at cell low voltage of 3.1. so leaving some power for home assistant, the pi's and 2x 35Watt PC's. Maybe home assistant needs grafana to do the dials shown on batMON github site.
super, the RS485 interface of one of my JK BMS is for whatever reason not working thus monitoring in the Cerbo GX did not work for that battery. But with the BT option I at least have now a proper monitoring which seems to work. When I installed it I had first issues to read out the JK BMS even though the log showed that the JK BMS was recognized. After some frustration I shortened the distance between the BT USB dongle and the JK BMS which turned out the solution for the issue. Just in case someone else has the same issue. ;-)
Thanks Andy 👍👍 Away again out West in the van at the moment and almost no internet, so I’ve been missing your videos unfortunately. 😢 (I can watch this .. but only at minimum resolution.) Maybe it’s time for Starlink. As always, love your work, cheers. 👍👍
Simplest is to use the victron driver for serial battery with bluetooth connection from Louis van der walt , then you can use the data from the battery on the Venus OS. With node red on Venus OS, you can mqtt that information to a mqtt server in home assistant . With this you can pole the battery info every second or less and still use the battery info in Venus Os to do some automation or DVCC . If you have multiples bateries, you can use battery agregator on the Venus OS to combine them all in one . I do not see the point of having the info on Home assistant to control the batteries that should be controlled by the Venus OS , unless it is just for viewing purposes, so they should allways first be connected to the Venus OS . This is the cheapest and simplest way to have all info without a doubt .
Cheapest perhaps for the info, but not for buying the Victron Inverter. Home Assistant is the "VenusOS" for those of us who do not own Victron equipment. In addition, sending all of your data to the Victron website (Netherlands or whereever it may be) in order to view it limits your ability to manage your system if internet goes down. With HA the data never leaves your home.
bms blue tooth protocal is a little bit diff on each company so they need code update. for jk bms witch popolar it easy to find people to do the job. blue tooth protocal by design it meant to stay connected. not keep connect and disconnect. the down side is it will not accept another connection at the same time. For my case i wrote the program my self. it can connect to bmp pretty reliable and read data pretty fast (in milli seconds) Also the range of blue tooth can be extend a little by additional blue tooth antenna. But like you said it can be security issue if it goes too far.
Hi Andy, do you know if we can make comunication between jk inverter bms and the seplos bms, as I read on jk manual precisely on the "comunication protocol" paragraph at page number 4 that it's written SEPLOS BMS CAN protocol V1.0 Do you know something about it?? Thank you very much for everything 😊😊
As far as I know, this is not possible and there is no communication between the JK and the Seplos BMS. I'll ask JK what this setting is for... Peter is currently developing a CAN to CAN Multiboard where several different BMS can be combined using the Pylontech protocol.
I think the connection issue is from the shear number of devices it detects and the 10 second setting, no way can it connect to all of those devices within 10 seconds, it is probably causing a race condition, change it to 30 seconds and see what happens.
I tested a lot of setting combinations but always had the issues and error messages. Eventually, the integration shuts down and I have to restart it manually again.
When selecting the keep_alive option, they stop beeping on each data poll.
5 місяців тому
Thanks for this great information about monitoring a BMS that uses Bluetooth.. Would be easier if manufacturers like JK would just go WiFi wireless with a web server chip and install or have an optional add on board.. I still plan to buy an Android based TV box like the Q96 pro and reflash it to be an Android PC then use Windows remote desktop to link to it across my network so I can remotely control the 2 JK BMS.. For $20 to $30 US off Ebay and free firmware flash programs off the internet it won't be that hard or expensive but a learning curve none the less..
Sorry i got an issue my shunt keeps stops sending details to RI. I have to login to it through bluetooth and restart it for it to keep giving details. I am using original victron ve direct cable.
Hi . I have a jk inverter bms with Deye . Everything is working fine. As an extra measure : Is there a protection device I can install between the inverter and the bms in case the bms fails and the parameters are all reset for whatever reason...? So my battery does not get overcharged and damaged...?
Hey Andy off topic a bit from this video. But if the JK inverter BMS is off can you safely connect that battery then to an inverter without getting a spark and then turn it on after to power the inverter? I know they have a button to turn the BMS on and off and was wondering if it does fully disconnect the BMS such that you would not need a recharge resistor?
Did you change the Bluetooth password or is the software just using the default password? You can try a Bluetooth dongle on the Nuc with a longer cable to get it out of the network box and closer to the battery's.
I changed the BT password to 111111 for all my devices as shown in the video. I tried with a USB dongle and an extension cable and also moved the actual HA device closer to the batteries. Same results.
I am using BATMON with JBD and I get those values once every 60 seconds, at minimum. How can I get it updating faster than that? if I use sample period seting of 1, it means 1 minute, not 1 second! I can only increase value bigger.
Thanks Andy, I've been looking for something like this. I tried this with 2 JBD and 1 JK BMS, but the JK is missing some perimeters like SOC and total pack voltage. Are others seeing this also? Any ideas anyone?
Home Assistant is a software which can run on many platforms. I have mine running on an Intel NUC computer but it will also run on a Pi and many other hardware. github.com/home-assistant/operating-system
Hallo Andy, vermutlich habe ich nicht ganz verstanden, wie Du die JKBMS über Bluetooth verbindest. In den Daten zu dem SMlight SLZB-06(M) wird nirgendwo erwähnt, dass auch eine BT zu Ethernet-Verbindung unterstützt wird. Es ist in den Geräten zwar ein ESP verbaut der dies unterstützen könnte, aber in der Software-Oberfäche zu diesem Gerät habe ich nicht gesehen, dass es eine Konfiguration für BT gibt. Hier wird die Zeilgruppe der Zigbee-Anwender adressiert. Hast Du hier den ESP umkonfiguriert oder funktioniert BT ‚out of the box‘? - Ich hätte gerne meine Victron BT-Komponenten überwacht, aber das BT-Signal reicht nicht so weit wie ich es benötige. Um eine Fehlinvestion zu vermeiden, würde ich sichergehen wollen, dass ich meine Idee damit umsetzen kann. VG
So we can build whole battery from parts, including flashing firmware to BMS but a few HA settings and scripts are too much that we have to pay $200 per $5 board for plug and play. Nope.
3:17 - what has happened, have you sold subs or is the 7 just missing. Anyhow, I bet it will be time to print another 8 - and hopefully 3 more 8s for the big party 88.888 quite soon I hope.
Andy bravo for this video which, as usual, deals with very interesting subjects. I appreciate your ability to make controversial videos. I obviously can't let pass the fact that you suggest that a paid solution is necessarily better than an open-source solution! Especially as the paid solution you're referring to is based for the most part on open-source code! I'm not particularly familiar with the Batmon application, but you raise a number of questionable points about it. Most of the criticisms relate to security, so let's take a look at some of these issues. As far as the ability to cut the charge or discharge of the BMS is concerned, the problem, if there is one, comes solely from the BMS and not from the application. As long as this possibility is given, it seems normal to be able to use it. If for any reason you don't want to use it, simply don't show this option on your dashboard. You seem to like the way Peter's card uses the "charging enable" control to actually perform a different operation from what it's called, which is simply to reduce the charging current. If this is what you want to do, it's extremely simple to write a script to do this in HA or, if it's too complicated for you, ask the author of the application to add this option (thanks to responsiveness of open-source developers)! Now, as far as security issues concerning the Bluetooth link is concerned, these have nothing to do with the application, but are problems linked to the use of BLE peripherals. I'm not a great Bluetooth specialist, but from what I understand, unlike normal Bluetooth, BLE doesn't establish a master-slave relationship (which requires the slave to go into pairing mode). The BLE protocol allows you to connect sporadically to the device in order to save energy (hence the name BLE), so there's a risk of intrusion, but the likelihood of someone passing close to your battery with a Bluetooth sniffer and having the right application to control it is, I think, very low. But if you're worried about this, the only solution to guarantee complete security is to use a BMS without Bluetooth connectivity. To sum up, for the two problems you mention, the solution must come from the BMS manufacturer and not from the Batmon application.
How does this method compare to using Solar Assistant IO? Does anyone have any experience comparing the 2? I've been using Solar Assistant IO for years with very minimal issues.
A question for the guru of solar educated vuiwers please leave comments. How would you decide what voltage to set-up your solar panel strings to? I'll have about 110 feet from my panels to my inverter.
Depends on your inverter and battery voltage. The Inverter instructions should give info regarding the suggested PV voltage. Personally, I use approx twice the battery voltage - nominally 48 volts - with the panels giving 105 volts in a serial/parallel connection. I may change the configuration to PV 140 volts depending on results over Winter.
I keep getting this Batmon install error: The command '/bin/ash -o pipefail -c venv/bin/pip3 install -r requirements.txt' returned a non-zero code: 1 HaOS on RBPi4b. Anybody know how to resolve this?
I had two JK BMS connected about 6ft from a pi. I’ve heard turning off WiFi helps with BT connectivity as the antennas are shared. I’m too lazy to take my SD card out to modify due to ha container, if anyone knows how to do this w/o ejecting please help 😅
Very informative as usual......😮 It must have taken you ages to edit as you seem to have loads and loads of cuts, and it looks like you're using a telly prompt for your lines...... P.S. are you going to do anymore videos on your unplugged EV channel using your Tesla on your little trips out?...... it would be nice to know how you getting on with your car now that you've had the Tesla a while....❤
Thanks for the feedback. No line scripting here, never. These videos in general take a very long time due to the mobile phone and PC screen recording. I have no plans to do any more EV videos, there is just not enough time as I have already 3 channels to serve. Sorry...
There are a million and one Tesla videos out there - not really much point in Andy doing more. Andy and I have both had our Teslas for over 4.5 years now. FWIW mine continues to be brilliant, but I have no plans to update, EVEN though I’ve driven the new one and yes, it’s significantly better in a number of areas.
That's the thing, apparently you can not switch off the bluetooth on those JK-BMS, so the security threat remains as long as you have the bms connected to your battery.
Yes, I tried that as explained in the video. The SMLIGHT device was flashed with that. But Batmon cannot connect through that. See also: github.com/fl4p/batmon-ha/issues/220
for just a bluetooth dongle or a few dongles. intsead of 200 dollars per peter for each bms. lets see ill take the Bluetooth solution for my 3 batteries over 600 dollars for the peter boards. you talk about the communication delay, and alerts, but If you have set up you bms right it should stop the batteries. most of use just want communication of any kind with more than 1 battery
This is stupid. Always connecting and disconnecting from the BMS is the most inefficient way of doing this. I myself contributed to coding the Victron JKBMS Bluetooth integration (part of the dbus-serialbattery project) and if you stay connected to the BMS, it will send updates of all the values by itself every 500ms. And this is exactly how the Victron Bluetooth BMS integration works, it's been running reliably for many months for me now, not a single disconnect. This is how it should be done, not by polling.
Does not work I can hear a bop. That’s all. Says. . Échec de l'enregistrement de la configuration du module complémentaire, Missing option 'devices' in root in Batmon (2af0a32d_batmon). Got {'concurrent_sampling': True, 'keep_alive': False, 'verbose_log': False, 'sample_period': 10, 'publish_period': 30, 'invert_current': True, 'watchdog': True, 'expire_values_after': 20, 'install_newer_bleak': False, 'bt_power_cycle': False}
I'm also using BATNON from more than a year and it's almost perfect. 99% uptime in 24/7 monitoring.
I'm using it in remote mode via mqtt.
Batteries are in one city, home assistant in another and everything is fine.
I've been using batmon for quite a while. I have several batteries as well. I found that each Bluetooth adapter can only handle 2 or 3 devices, before it get's overloaded. I added multiple bluetooth adaptors, and kept the count to 2 or 3 per device. This resolved it for me.
I am currently using BatMon with three JBD BMS units. Initially, I experienced connection problems due to a poor-quality USB Bluetooth adapter. However, after switching to a high-quality adapter, it worked beautifully.
I've never encountered major problems, with monitoring intervals ranging from 3 to 13 seconds. The key factor is ensuring the Bluetooth adapter is very close to the BMS units. Mine is positioned about 1 to 1.3 meters away. The further the distance, the more issues you are likely to face.
Despite the convenience of Bluetooth, nothing compares to cable communication. For stable and reliable performance, I would definitely choose Peter's boards. Considering my investment of thousands of dollars, spending a few hundred dollars on upgrading is well worth it, as the results can lead to significant savings.
In my experience, I always prefer wired over wireless communication. It is more reliable and hassle-free.
Thank you for the video, i like to see more videos with home assistant integration.
I thibk the problem is with the jk bmses, not jbd. Maybe a better bluetooth device like you say may help, but my rpi 3b+ is just a meter away and doesnt work so well. Works mostly ok with only one bank though, but cant handle two banks. Not sure how good the bluetooth is in a rpi 3b+ is
Thank you Elie! I also tried with an external TP-Link USB BT dongle and a 1m USB extension cable but had not much luck either. I'll try a couple of different settings found here in the comments to see if the situation improves.
At the moment, I just want this to monitor my 12V batteries and as explained, I would not recommend using such a wireless integration to control a power system.
One good tip , once you connect bms to the batMON its not connect to the jkong app .
@@lukas181118 depends how you set it up.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
Once Batmon establish connection I can’t connect via jikong app( scan shows nothing)
Bluetooth is the signal with the lowest range and usually needs line of sight. WiFi and ZigBee are in the same frequency range and could interfere with Bluetooth.
I would totally agree with you that wired connection is the better choice for fixed batteries.
I think the BMS i ordered doesnt have the option to read data. Can i build a wired connection..?
I use this add-on myself and have for over a year with minimal issues. Yes, like anything DIY, some tinkering is needed.
My current configuration has the batmon sample_period set to 2, publish_period set to 5 and expire_values_after set to 300. I also have the bt_power_cycle enabled and install_newer_bleak disabled. I have concurrent_sampling disabled, invert_current enabled, and keep_alive enabled. This one in particular made the biggest change.
Keep alive keeps the Bluetooth connection active and doesn't log in and out like you were experiencing. This ends the repeated beeps and improves reliability in the connection. With these settings, I've had reliable connections to my JK BMSs. I assume these setting exist so people can adjust to make it work best for each unique situation. It has not been trouble free but recent updates have made it much more reliable.
I agree with other comments about having the BT dongle as close to the batteries as possible. Mine is about 1m away and I did have to use a USB extension with a separate dongle to get it close enough. My batteries are also in a steel cabinet which reduces the signal.
With regard for data delay, the integration does not post an update to MQTT with the same value as the previous poll which is why some data shows a more recent update over another.
What did your drop outs look like before this tinkering? I see mine go to “Unavailable” on occasion.
@@leblancexplores My drops were terrible/constant. More dropped data than retrieved. I still get them but for a minute or two and days apart now. I wouldn't use home assisatn for anything critical but the BMS still functions normally so even if the dropped data happens in an emergency, the BMS is ultimately responsible for dealing with it in real time, which is how it always should be anyways. If the frequency of the data you receive is good enough, you may just change the expire_value setting. Basically, this tricks it into keeping it from going unavailable even if the data is a little older.
Thanks a lot for sharing your settings. Many critics here but not much help.
I will try your settings and see how they go.
I have tested several combinations of them in the last few weeks with not much difference. keep_alive, bt_power_cycle,... all tested...
I also had a 1m USB extension cable to bring a BT USB dongle closer to the batteries and also out of the steel box. No improvements for my. Maybe it's the garage with its metal walls bouncing signals all over the place...🤷♂️
I wonder if it would work better just using the mqtt data produced without going through home assistant ? I use Pylon to MQTT from github ( classic diy page ) and it uses esp32 directly into console port of my jakiper bms . Then the esp32 makes and sends the mqtt data via wifi to raspberry pi which is running mosquitto broker, telegraf, influxdb, and grafana. I view the data on graphs I made in grafana and never any problems. But I get that this software is for gathering bluetooth - just wondering if there is any hold up in the home assistant part of it ?
I tried to tell you this a couple years ago, and you told me "I don't have any confidence in Home Assistant". Me and 3 of my local friends all have been using HA to run our systems VERY RELIABLY for several years. Much better than the Victron solution. Some of us use BATMON, and I also developed an ESP based board (the Dave Board) that performs the same as the Peter Board, and costs us USD4 per board. We are all very happy with the vendor-neutral HA system, especially since none of us have Victron brand inverters.
Can you point me, how to build one?
@@at906 Sure. Send me an email.
Yes, you told me that several times. Great it works for you. Hence, I'm sharing my' not so great' experience here. And no, it has nothing to do with the reception between HA and the BMS as explained in the video.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I know you constantly tell everyone not to send emails, but perhaps that would be a better way to explain how to reliably run HA with Battery monitoring options. I have ben running HA for several years with near-real-time monitoring (certainly better than Victron) with virtually 100% uptime. If you want to do a fair (informed) test, drop me an email.
@@DavidPrue Thanks David.
You don't need to move your homeassistant device. Homeassistant can communicate with remote bluetooth devices with cheap ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy devices.
Hi Andy, at 9:10 you say that batmon maybe work with the jk inverter BMS but for that case it's not needed. The jk inverter bms has can cable to comunicate with cerbo.... and if the cerbo it is on the same network of home assistant via modbus protocol you can read and control everything of the victron system without any additional hardware. Since it's a cabled lan network it's more relaiable than bluetooth or WiFi
When I once said that Bluetooth in BMSs are a wide open gate to all curious, "pranksters" and openly malicious people - I was laughed at... Some even accused me of some kind of obsession because I suggested turning off or electrically disabling Bluetooth. And what now? Am I a prophet? :)))
Thousands of people around the world have just learned how to stick their nose into other people's affairs... I have no grudge against Andy, on the contrary, it's very good that he revealed it. People should be aware of the risks.
Works fine with me 3 jk’s for few month now without any issues
I've used Batmon running on a RPi4 and Home Assistant with MQTT for a couple months now. I set it up to serve as a Bluetooth bridge to Wifi as I'm also too far for Bluetooth reach into my home. I monitor numerous Victron devices and a single JBD bms, along with all 9 Bluetooth temp/humidity sensors I have installed in my van (these actually do reach into the house).
I've had zero issues with signal or data dropouts and the RPi is right on the ragged signal edge where my phone will no longer connect to any of the devices. It just works. I also don't have the sticky problem with the charge/discharge relay control through HA, that too works fine. I also use BT keepalive which 'secures' access to bms as it only allows one connection at a time. This isn't much a practical problem for my use though...one would have to be 5' from the vehicle.
The config settings don't have any negative impact on connection for me. Maybe your NUC Bluetooth adapter is at fault. Try a RPi, super quick to load HA, batmon and mqtt.
I'm running a RPi3B+ with MQTT and the batmon standalone version in my shed and the Home Assistant RPi itself "lives" in my house. they communicate through MQTT, is this the same setup you have?
Brilliant Timing and Know-how transfer. Love it Andy. 🎉❤❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🙏
he could of done it without costs using Node-Red?
@@MrElciupacabra not at all with connection handshake.
I had exactly the same random stability Bluetooth problems when I made an esp32 to HA (rpi4) running under ESPHome. At the time I thought it was a bad esp32 board, so gave up and went TTL to esp (very similar to the Peter board), and that’s rock solid. There must be something wrong with the entire Bluetooth code in HA if totally different hardware gives the same issues.
The project has something to it. Not exactly for monitoring the battery of the solar system, but for the batteries in e-bikes and motorcycles, for example. They can then at least be monitored when charging at home.
Interesting project. I installed it on my HA computer and unfortunately it does not see my batteries. They have JBD BMS but are not found by Batmon. The installation is working correctly as if I enable dummy in the config it works. I even added an external BT dongle. Bummer as it seemed like an interesting idea.
Hello Andy,
BSC is also able to connect to the JKBMS via Bluetooth. You only need to have a ESP32 close to the JKs. The HA server can sit anywhere in the network.
BSC updates data every second.
I had a look at BSC a while back and this is over my top as I explained in the video. Hardware, software, scripting... not an easy solution and out of reach for most.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
Hhhmmmm....
Hardware: ESP32 developer Board is enough for monitoring. It is easy to buy online for a few bugs.
Software: Firmware bin file easy to download and upload on the ESP.
No scripting needed. BSC sends mqtt messages. Only need to configure IP, user and passwort of your brooker on HA.
Come on Andy - try harder 😉
Even a "BWL Student" would be able to manage this 🐸🐸
We are spending a lot on cables, inverters, cells… I will check out the BSC at liligo as soon as they offer it. Better to use a wired connection…
I just want to monitor my cells and I don’t understand why we have to put this additionally to the inverter BMS as they (JK) could easily just do the exact same thing with their firmware.
How hard could it be to transfer all cell values for all packs? Or at least display lowest and highest cell in victron Venus OS over all packs and not only the master.
I guess their main goal is to protect the cells and all that nerdy monitoring stuff just costs them too much time. It is maybe a too German expectation that someone tries to improve a product again and again. 😅
Anyway the options in BSC are far more than I was looking for and why not use it as an additional instance to verify bms values are making sense + triggering an emergency shut down or something else.
@@andreasw5925
Monitoring or tracking?
To monitor there are displays available for JKs.
To track there is additional hardware needed. The JK itself has no storage for the tracking data.
For only catching data, i think Bluetooth will do the job and you don't need the BSC board with all the interfaces. A simple ESP32 devKit will be enough.
I suggest to give it a try.
For shure, If BMS manufactors would start to implement Wifi or Ethernet into their board, it would be a great success.
I am very happy with BSC. The official hardware still not available from Lilygo, but in the latest beta there is support for Lilygo TCAN485 which I use. The big selling point for me is combining different vendor BMSes into one battery bank for inverter to consume. Biggest downside is that most documentation and the UI is in German
One more reason to have a function implemented in their BMS to switch off the bluetooth connectivity when you're not using it yourself (and don't want anyone else to connect/control your battery e.g. with batmon).
Pointing fingers at JK!👈🏻
edit: I paused the Video to write this, then noticed you said the same later on... ;-) Was I the first one to request that function?🤔
Thanks, quite a few people requested that already. I think JK is afraid people could lock themselves out once BT is disabled and they end up with a lot of support requests.
The bipping every time that the BLE comm is stablished drive me nuts, so i turned it to a physical connection with the RS232 to a ESP32 for the JK, is very straight forward connection with 3 wires... ESPHome in HA, a copy and paste lines into the ESP and thats is... using the syssi lib
Hi, Andy, I read that the password in the JK BMS is only processed internally in the app. If you have access to the BT communication, you can send and receive all commands and parameters directly without a PW.
I picked up on that too and which means it is a security issue with the BMS and not BATMON. Hopefully this is clarified and JK has the finger pointed at them instead.
Ahh, yeah, I remember that now having read that in a forum a while back. You are right. The password is just for the app, not for the BMS!
thats a proper security concern 😤
Andy, in my batmon the charge, discharge and balance switches work in real time, I use it frequently and I also use the pin. What you refer are not Batmon fault but poor signal, first thing put the bluetooth dongle outside the case, you must have an usb extension to use the bluetooth. Also lower your publish_period to 40. The only thing I miss is be able to use mobile JK app and Batmon at the same time. I also use batmon with my Victron smartshunt to give me a global batteries value.
I agree 100%. The "not sticking" that Andy experienced is mostly due to his poor choices of configuration parameters. To connect with the bluetooth app, you only need to go to Settings/Addons and turn off Batmon. I really prefer the ESPHome implementation for JK BMSs, with the Dave Board.
As I explained I tried all that and had the HA closer to the batteries and also used a USB extension cable. I will try the 40s publishing time but played around with these numbers as recommended on fl4ps Github site.
@DavidPrue not sure what poor choices of configuration you are referring to..
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I will make a video for you
@@DavidPrue You can just post your setting here like others did so everyone can benefit from that info. Thanks.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I use batmon close to 2 years, is not perfect but is getting more stable. Try to use a different dongle, I use one sonoff and didn't even bother to update firmware has recommended and it works. Those are my parameters.
devices:
- address: F4:13:D2:6C:xx:xx
type: victron
- address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx
type: jk
- address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx
type: jk
- address: C8:47:8C:E8:xx:xx
type: jk
concurrent_sampling: false
keep_alive: true
verbose_log: false
sample_period: 30
publish_period: 40
invert_current: true
watchdog: true
expire_values_after: 50
install_newer_bleak: true
bt_power_cycle: true
mqtt_user: mqtt44
mqtt_password: mqtt.xxxx
mqtt_broker: core-mosquitto
pin: "xxxxxx"
mqtt_port: 1883
sweet now to find a Smlight SLZB-06M solution for batmon , because I am not moving my HA Laptop
Yes, switching off bluetooth is a important safety feature...at least Victron gives you all the option ☺
Let’s get some things straight…
The discharge/charge switch is “immediate”, not on next poll or whatever is hinted here. The toggle to switch both is a part of the HA widget and is buggy because it’s sending two commands simultaneously (had this same problem with the ESP flavor of this).
ALSO…
Any of these JK/JBD BMS have the same security issue. If Batmon is connected you won’t be able to see these Bluetooth devices anymore as they’re already connected to HA so it’s actually more secure IMHO.
The beep should ONLY happen once when initially paired.
I also kindly disagree with your circuit breaker analogy Andy. If I wanted a BMS that only did protection things I wouldn’t buy one with Bluetooth connectivity. This solution is really elegant because it’s wireless, especially for my application.
p.s. hopefully my prior comment is not too harsh, you’re awesome Andy keep up the good work!
Only if you set keep connection alive, it beeps just once and blocks the connection. I tried that as well and had not much luck either. Plus the inconvenience of not been able to connect with the app without stopping Batmon.
Yeah, a BT BMS has advantages but from a safety perspective, maybe not so great. That's why the manufacturer could give the user a choice. Like Seplos does, where BT can be disabled in the Function Switch settings.
Have you checked the expansion/bloating of cells inside your Battery Shelf?
Mine bloated by 2mm on both sides. I will be redoing my battery shelf soon to add some compression to prevent it from further expansion.
I've used batmon for HA for a year or so. Unfortunately for me it will only connect to one jk bms at a time and regularly drops connection. If it rarely connects to both my banks, it drops connection to both banks. Great when it works, like I think it does for most people, just not me 🙄. The guy that wrote the software can't seem to find the bug for me.
Try these settings. They work well for me with two JK BMSs.
My current configuration has the batmon sample_period set to 2, publish_period set to 5 and expire_values_after set to 300. I also have the bt_power_cycle enabled and install_newer_bleak disabled. I have concurrent_sampling disabled, invert_current enabled, and keep_alive enabled.
P.S. I am using a separate BT dongle and a USB extension to get the dongle about 3ft/1M close to the BMSs
Andy, didn't see that in the video but did you check the keep_alive option in the batmon addon?
It may help with your issues as it prevents the disconnect/reconnect sequence from happening, saving some time and adding stability to the connection. And no more bipbip either 😄
I also checked concurrent_sampling + bt_power_cycle + install_newer_bleak in my settings. With those settings I'm getting instantaneous response from switching on/off charge/discharge/balance switches. 5 sec sampling + 10s publish. All working great but I only have 1 JK to monitor 😉
It seems like mosquitoes would be a problem with the open water ways under your gutter drains.
i installed the home assistant OS (direct to the to be boot disk, connected by usb to sata, on another PC with balena etcher). On the home assistant PC, used the batMON link to add it, and installed MQTT which just needs a button pressed to configure it. Checked batMON logs to find its bluez output showing the MAC address, and edited the batMON config with the type JK and its MAC. Then dashboard showed all the settings. I have 2x 2A bal 200 Amp JK 4S-8S. The 12v one never worked with the JK RS485 dongle. The 24v one yesterday stopped working with its RS485 dongle, so no data to raspberrypi venus OS. That BMS must have blown a mosfet, as it does not switch off discharge anymore, and has led to under voltage of the weakest cell. A previous Ant BMS also blew a few mosfets. Have tried my SNADI inverter direct connect to battery negative before, but the SOC etc is wildly inaccurate. The SNADI is capable of remote off, and at present a SCC turns it off when an overall battery voltage gets low-ish. (recently increased that voltage!) Also i have remote emergency stop switches for the charging, load and inverter, as i once had a cell off-gas. Will buy a 2A bal 200 Amp JK Inverter BMS, and use one of the relays to switch off the inverter at cell low voltage of 3.1. so leaving some power for home assistant, the pi's and 2x 35Watt PC's. Maybe home assistant needs grafana to do the dials shown on batMON github site.
super, the RS485 interface of one of my JK BMS is for whatever reason not working thus monitoring in the Cerbo GX did not work for that battery. But with the BT option I at least have now a proper monitoring which seems to work. When I installed it I had first issues to read out the JK BMS even though the log showed that the JK BMS was recognized. After some frustration I shortened the distance between the BT USB dongle and the JK BMS which turned out the solution for the issue. Just in case someone else has the same issue. ;-)
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Andy 👍👍
Away again out West in the van at the moment and almost no internet, so I’ve been missing your videos unfortunately. 😢
(I can watch this .. but only at minimum resolution.) Maybe it’s time for Starlink.
As always, love your work, cheers. 👍👍
Why don't use a Bluetooth proxy for home assistant like esphome?
Plus 1 simple plug and flash then put anywhere use the m5atoms and cost 8 then ha can stay anywhere
I explained this in the video.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia your configuration is base on network Bluetooth extender not esphome that is integrated in home assistant
Only 95°f here today, a bit cool as well
I also now fighting with it. Look like I made it. The logs looking constant. Bought extra a Rasp 5. But how u make the nice display?
Simplest is to use the victron driver for serial battery with bluetooth connection from Louis van der walt , then you can use the data from the battery on the Venus OS. With node red on Venus OS, you can mqtt that information to a mqtt server in home assistant . With this you can pole the battery info every second or less and still use the battery info in Venus Os to do some automation or DVCC .
If you have multiples bateries, you can use battery agregator on the Venus OS to combine them all in one .
I do not see the point of having the info on Home assistant to control the batteries that should be controlled by the Venus OS , unless it is just for viewing purposes, so they should allways first be connected to the Venus OS .
This is the cheapest and simplest way to have all info without a doubt .
Cheapest perhaps for the info, but not for buying the Victron Inverter. Home Assistant is the "VenusOS" for those of us who do not own Victron equipment. In addition, sending all of your data to the Victron website (Netherlands or whereever it may be) in order to view it limits your ability to manage your system if internet goes down. With HA the data never leaves your home.
bms blue tooth protocal is a little bit diff on each company so they need code update. for jk bms witch popolar it easy to find people to do the job.
blue tooth protocal by design it meant to stay connected. not keep connect and disconnect. the down side is it will not accept another connection at the same time.
For my case i wrote the program my self. it can connect to bmp pretty reliable and read data pretty fast (in milli seconds)
Also the range of blue tooth can be extend a little by additional blue tooth antenna. But like you said it can be security issue if it goes too far.
Hi Andy, do you know if we can make comunication between jk inverter bms and the seplos bms, as I read on jk manual precisely on the "comunication protocol" paragraph at page number 4 that it's written SEPLOS BMS CAN protocol V1.0
Do you know something about it?? Thank you very much for everything 😊😊
As far as I know, this is not possible and there is no communication between the JK and the Seplos BMS. I'll ask JK what this setting is for...
Peter is currently developing a CAN to CAN Multiboard where several different BMS can be combined using the Pylontech protocol.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia thank you very much Andy!! Interesting the CAN to CAN Peter device
@@AndreaFurlan-ro8cw I've got an alpha version here and make a video soon to show the current state of it.
I think the connection issue is from the shear number of devices it detects and the 10 second setting, no way can it connect to all of those devices within 10 seconds, it is probably causing a race condition, change it to 30 seconds and see what happens.
Since 100Balance BMS is a Daly BMS, I wonder if it'll work with this as well?
Does it improve when you lower the frequency of polling? 21:11
I tested a lot of setting combinations but always had the issues and error messages. Eventually, the integration shuts down and I have to restart it manually again.
As this is not my topic...i will ask fornthe algo...is there something new from stuart?
Thanks. No nothing new. I keep an eye on his shop...
Don't some of the bluetooth bms go to sleep ? I wonder if the Batmon does something to keep them awake and that is why it makes them beep sometimes ?
When selecting the keep_alive option, they stop beeping on each data poll.
Thanks for this great information about monitoring a BMS that uses Bluetooth.. Would be easier if manufacturers like JK would just go WiFi wireless with a web server chip and install or have an optional add on board.. I still plan to buy an Android based TV box like the Q96 pro and reflash it to be an Android PC then use Windows remote desktop to link to it across my network so I can remotely control the 2 JK BMS.. For $20 to $30 US off Ebay and free firmware flash programs off the internet it won't be that hard or expensive but a learning curve none the less..
Sorry i got an issue my shunt keeps stops sending details to RI. I have to login to it through bluetooth and restart it for it to keep giving details.
I am using original victron ve direct cable.
When are you going to get more inverters to make it three phased?
Hi .
I have a jk inverter bms with Deye . Everything is working fine. As an extra measure : Is there a protection device I can install between the inverter and the bms in case the bms fails and the parameters are all reset for whatever reason...? So my battery does not get overcharged and damaged...?
Hey Andy off topic a bit from this video. But if the JK inverter BMS is off can you safely connect that battery then to an inverter without getting a spark and then turn it on after to power the inverter? I know they have a button to turn the BMS on and off and was wondering if it does fully disconnect the BMS such that you would not need a recharge resistor?
Did you change the Bluetooth password or is the software just using the default password?
You can try a Bluetooth dongle on the Nuc with a longer cable to get it out of the network box and closer to the battery's.
I changed the BT password to 111111 for all my devices as shown in the video.
I tried with a USB dongle and an extension cable and also moved the actual HA device closer to the batteries. Same results.
Hi andy where can we purchase a peter board? Can you use peter board when your battery banks are in parallel and is communicating vis rs485.
I am using BATMON with JBD and I get those values once every 60 seconds, at minimum. How can I get it updating faster than that? if I use sample period seting of 1, it means 1 minute, not 1 second! I can only increase value bigger.
Thanks Andy, I've been looking for something like this. I tried this with 2 JBD and 1 JK BMS, but the JK is missing some perimeters like SOC and total pack voltage. Are others seeing this also? Any ideas anyone?
What about pace bms? :(
The SOK is pace if I remember correctly?
Andy, i applolgise but I am not familiar with Home Assistant. Is it a Rasberry Pi software or is it hardware application I have to purchase elsewhere.
Home Assistant is a software which can run on many platforms. I have mine running on an Intel NUC computer but it will also run on a Pi and many other hardware.
github.com/home-assistant/operating-system
Hallo Andy, vermutlich habe ich nicht ganz verstanden, wie Du die JKBMS über Bluetooth verbindest. In den Daten zu dem
SMlight SLZB-06(M) wird nirgendwo erwähnt, dass auch eine BT zu Ethernet-Verbindung unterstützt wird. Es ist in den Geräten zwar ein ESP verbaut der dies unterstützen könnte, aber in der Software-Oberfäche zu diesem Gerät habe ich nicht gesehen, dass es eine Konfiguration für BT gibt. Hier wird die Zeilgruppe der Zigbee-Anwender adressiert. Hast Du hier den ESP umkonfiguriert oder funktioniert BT ‚out of the box‘? - Ich hätte gerne meine Victron BT-Komponenten überwacht, aber das BT-Signal reicht nicht so weit wie ich es benötige. Um eine Fehlinvestion zu vermeiden, würde ich sichergehen wollen, dass ich meine Idee damit umsetzen kann.
VG
Andy, soon I will send u the infos about the Batterie Safety Controller , then u have really something interesting to compare :)
So we can build whole battery from parts, including flashing firmware to BMS but a few HA settings and scripts are too much that we have to pay $200 per $5 board for plug and play. Nope.
Thanks Andy
3:17 - what has happened, have you sold subs or is the 7 just missing. Anyhow, I bet it will be time to print another 8 - and hopefully 3 more 8s for the big party
88.888 quite soon I hope.
The tape...😅
Does this program work for BMS Seplos V3???
Andy bravo for this video which, as usual, deals with very interesting subjects. I appreciate your ability to make controversial videos. I obviously can't let pass the fact that you suggest that a paid solution is necessarily better than an open-source solution! Especially as the paid solution you're referring to is based for the most part on open-source code! I'm not particularly familiar with the Batmon application, but you raise a number of questionable points about it. Most of the criticisms relate to security, so let's take a look at some of these issues. As far as the ability to cut the charge or discharge of the BMS is concerned, the problem, if there is one, comes solely from the BMS and not from the application. As long as this possibility is given, it seems normal to be able to use it. If for any reason you don't want to use it, simply don't show this option on your dashboard. You seem to like the way Peter's card uses the "charging enable" control to actually perform a different operation from what it's called, which is simply to reduce the charging current. If this is what you want to do, it's extremely simple to write a script to do this in HA or, if it's too complicated for you, ask the author of the application to add this option (thanks to responsiveness of open-source developers)! Now, as far as security issues concerning the Bluetooth link is concerned, these have nothing to do with the application, but are problems linked to the use of BLE peripherals. I'm not a great Bluetooth specialist, but from what I understand, unlike normal Bluetooth, BLE doesn't establish a master-slave relationship (which requires the slave to go into pairing mode). The BLE protocol allows you to connect sporadically to the device in order to save energy (hence the name BLE), so there's a risk of intrusion, but the likelihood of someone passing close to your battery with a Bluetooth sniffer and having the right application to control it is, I think, very low. But if you're worried about this, the only solution to guarantee complete security is to use a BMS without Bluetooth connectivity. To sum up, for the two problems you mention, the solution must come from the BMS manufacturer and not from the Batmon application.
Solar energy is free but trying to capture it is where we are seeing our money go. And trying to make sense of the Amps, Watts, and Volts.
Well, the charging, discharging and conversion problem is solved, so the next step in evolution is to make all the data available and usable.
Passwords? Victron devices have BT passwords but so many people don't even bother to change from the default.
Yup, BatMON is for convenient monitoring, not industrial automation, like RS485 and CAN :)
How does this method compare to using Solar Assistant IO?
Does anyone have any experience comparing the 2? I've been using Solar Assistant IO for years with very minimal issues.
I'm sure all the Fachinformatiker and BWL students watching can manage some scripting :)
I'm waiting for their reply😆
Did you test the esphome buetooth proxy ?
Yes, as explained in the video. The BT proxy is not recognised by the Batmon integration.
2:19 If it costs $100~$100 per BMS, might as well buy the new JK BMS...
andy is it possible that you have a bluetooth device that’s not a battery that it’s trying to poll and getting hung up?
A question for the guru of solar educated vuiwers please leave comments. How would you decide what voltage to set-up your solar panel strings to? I'll have about 110 feet from my panels to my inverter.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Depends on your inverter and battery voltage. The Inverter instructions should give info regarding the suggested PV voltage. Personally, I use approx twice the battery voltage - nominally 48 volts - with the panels giving 105 volts in a serial/parallel connection. I may change the configuration to PV 140 volts depending on results over Winter.
Should say charger - not inverter
Unfortunately the add-on is not available for ha core installations 😪
No, it is not.
I confused, what’s a Peter board?
6:28 the home page says that it works with home assistant
I keep getting this Batmon install error:
The command '/bin/ash -o pipefail -c venv/bin/pip3 install -r requirements.txt' returned a non-zero code: 1
HaOS on RBPi4b. Anybody know how to resolve this?
Are you sure your in Australia 🇦🇺 you get more rain than sunny England 🏴 😂
anyone else having this "WARNING [__init__] Unknown device type" error when trying to connect jk bms to batmon?
HA with Bluetooth Proxy ?
can anyone tell me what size uart plug i need for daly
150A bms bluetooth as my dog chewed mine and need to replace plug dongle seems fine
I had two JK BMS connected about 6ft from a pi. I’ve heard turning off WiFi helps with BT connectivity as the antennas are shared.
I’m too lazy to take my SD card out to modify due to ha container, if anyone knows how to do this w/o ejecting please help 😅
Hm, isn't your garage your "real home"? So home assistant is correctly placed there. Same applies for me 😛
Very informative as usual......😮
It must have taken you ages to edit as you seem to have loads and loads of cuts, and it looks like you're using a telly prompt for your lines......
P.S. are you going to do anymore videos on your unplugged EV channel using your Tesla on your little trips out?...... it would be nice to know how you getting on with your car now that you've had the Tesla a while....❤
Thanks for the feedback. No line scripting here, never. These videos in general take a very long time due to the mobile phone and PC screen recording.
I have no plans to do any more EV videos, there is just not enough time as I have already 3 channels to serve. Sorry...
There are a million and one Tesla videos out there - not really much point in Andy doing more. Andy and I have both had our Teslas for over 4.5 years now.
FWIW mine continues to be brilliant, but I have no plans to update, EVEN though I’ve driven the new one and yes, it’s significantly better in a number of areas.
Heya, oke I'll stay withh the peterboard as I'm living in the city center and to have bluetooth with pasword that's a no go for me.
That's the thing, apparently you can not switch off the bluetooth on those JK-BMS, so the security threat remains as long as you have the bms connected to your battery.
Cold is great for solar.
Like# 1
🥈
What happened only 8000 subscribers on board.
Oh, should be 8.000.000. A couple of zeros have fallen off..😅
esphome bluetooth proxy?
Exactly
@@wildekek yes of course
Yes, I tried that as explained in the video. The SMLIGHT device was flashed with that. But Batmon cannot connect through that.
See also: github.com/fl4p/batmon-ha/issues/220
for just a bluetooth dongle or a few dongles. intsead of 200 dollars per peter for each bms. lets see ill take the Bluetooth solution for my 3 batteries over 600 dollars for the peter boards. you talk about the communication delay, and alerts, but If you have set up you bms right it should stop the batteries. most of use just want communication of any kind with more than 1 battery
This is stupid. Always connecting and disconnecting from the BMS is the most inefficient way of doing this. I myself contributed to coding the Victron JKBMS Bluetooth integration (part of the dbus-serialbattery project) and if you stay connected to the BMS, it will send updates of all the values by itself every 500ms. And this is exactly how the Victron Bluetooth BMS integration works, it's been running reliably for many months for me now, not a single disconnect. This is how it should be done, not by polling.
HHmm intresting do you have more info?
I bought a BMS to balance the cells. But i dont have bluetooth option or to read data.. do you think i could connect one to it?
🐸🐸🐸
🥉
Does not work I can hear a bop. That’s all. Says. . Échec de l'enregistrement de la configuration du module complémentaire, Missing option 'devices' in root in Batmon (2af0a32d_batmon). Got {'concurrent_sampling': True, 'keep_alive': False, 'verbose_log': False, 'sample_period': 10, 'publish_period': 30, 'invert_current': True, 'watchdog': True, 'expire_values_after': 20, 'install_newer_bleak': False, 'bt_power_cycle': False}
I think you may be running into a limitation of how many bluetooth devices can be connected at one time.
Moin 👍👍👌
2 frogs for that Batman Andy 👎
Chinese drip torture
bloody bluetooth mate, hate it
Where is the instructional video for complete beginners showing how to run it.
Ηι
🥇
You have more job to do with your network cabinet, you need to drill holes for external wifi and bt antenna connectors 🤣