Hello Luke,

Thank you for your question on my PV Monitoring project. I put my answer here because, it's getting complicated to add something in my project :-)

Your question:

"Hi Michel, 

great project!!  Everything is really interesting.quick question regarding your answer to Thomas.I am completely off grid and would like to be able to monitor my house usage and the battery usage, store the data and upload it to a webserver like you have.  I have a victron bmv 702 battery monitor and you mention in your comment that a Pi should be able to read the output from the v.e direct.  How would I go about doing this?  Do you think it would be possible to do it over the new v.e direct bluetooth dongle?  thanks!"

My reply:

Good news: it seems like Victron have made the VE Direct protocol public. This means that a Rpi 3 "should" be able to communicate with the BMV 702. I say "should" because Rpi 3 Bluetooth module is having some limitations regarding transfer modes it supports, probably due to the SW driver at Rpi level. At your place I would ask Victron if they have tested the communication with an Rpi. If they have not, ask them to send you a dongle to perform your tests. If it works, pay the dongle, if not, return it to Victron.

An alternative could be to use an Rpi 3 with its on-board module disabled (or an Rpi 2) and add a (supported) BLE USB module. This will maybe help you find a way to communicate with your BMV 702.

If this works, this is  a great way to retrieve info from the Victron device.

In any case I guess that there are some tests and experiments to do.

If you succeed, you will be a pionneer !

Good luck and keep me informed,

Regards - Michel

Hi Michel,

thanks a lot for your help, I will get on it!

Merci! ;)