Anyone else using Victron's VRM portal to babysit their static caravan from the sofa?

Slapped a Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 and a BMV-712 on my static last spring, and now I spend more time staring at VRM graphs than actually going to the bloody thing. Two Fogstar Drift 100Ah batteries, 400W of panels on the roof — system's been rock solid but I'm addicted to the data.

The VRM alerts are genuinely useful though. Got a notification at 2am once that the batteries had dropped to 20% SOC mid-January — turned out a small fan heater had been left on a timer. Saved the cells from a right hammering without me leaving the house.

Curious whether anyone's got custom VRM dashboards set up with widgets beyond the defaults? I've been faffing with the advanced options but it feels like I'm only scratching the surface of what it can do — particularly want to track cumulative yield vs consumption over winter months on one screen.

My garden office Victron setup has completely ruined my productivity — I'm supposed to be working in there, not watching SOC graphs drop 0.3% in real time like it's the world's most boring Netflix series.

Absolutely know this rabbit hole. My shepherd's hut has a SmartSolar 75/15 feeding a pair of Fogstar cells, and the VRM app has essentially become a second hobby.

What broke me was setting up the custom widgets dashboard — once you can see SOC, PV yield, and load consumption all on one glance, you're done for. I caught a parasitic draw last February that I'd never have spotted otherwise; something was pulling 0.3A overnight and the historical graphs made it obvious within minutes.

@DaveMoore70 the Alarm & Notification rules are genuinely dangerous for productivity. Mine pings me if the SOC drops below 40% — theoretically for emergency response, practically just an excuse to stare at trend lines for twenty minutes.

The hut is 180 miles away. VRM means I've probably visited less since installing it.

Ha, guilty as charged. My van conversion runs the same BMV-712 and I've genuinely sat in a car park checking VRM instead of going into the shop I'd stopped at.

The SOC history graphs are the real trap — suddenly you're forensically analysing a slightly weird dip at 3am and convincing yourself something's wrong when the battery was just cold.

One genuinely useful thing though: I set up VRM alerts to ping me if SOC drops below 20%, which on a boat or static is actually worth having rather than arriving to flat batteries and a ruined fridge. So it's not entirely procrastination.

@DaveMoore70 the garden office situation sounds like a lost cause tbh — once you can see live watts you'll never stop watching.

Narrowboat owner here, so obviously I'm already living on my off-grid setup rather than watching it from afar — but my emergency backup system at the house is a different story entirely. Got a Victron Multiplus and SmartSolar combo feeding a couple of Fogstar cells, and I've genuinely set up VRM alerts for things that will absolutely never happen at 2am... and then woken up at 2am to check anyway.

@BoatMel the car park thing resonates deeply. I once missed my bus stop because I was interrogating my battery state of charge through the app.

The real question nobody's asking: has anyone calculated how much boat electricity they've wasted keeping their phone screen on whilst monitoring their house electricity? Asking for a friend who lives on a narrowboat and should probably know better.

Really curious about the alarm thresholds you've all set up in VRM — specifically for SOC low warnings. I've got a Victron SmartSolar 100/20 on my motorhome (currently parked up for winter) and I'm paranoid about the Fogstar cells dropping too low while I'm not there.

What percentage are people triggering alerts at? I've got mine set to 20% but wondering if that's cutting it too fine for lithium chemistry, or whether I should bump it to 30% and actually do something about it remotely.

Also — does anyone use VRM's two-way control to adjust charge parameters from the app, or is that only available on certain firmware versions? Can't work out if my setup supports it without physically going to the van, which rather defeats the purpose.

Been doing exactly this with my cabin setup. Got the Victron CCGX tied into VRM and it's borderline obsessive — I've got custom alerts set so my phone buzzes if SOC drops below 20% overnight.

@DailyWanderer the real rabbit hole is setting up the Node-RED flows through the CCGX to automate stuff based on VRM data. Mine now fires a notification if solar yield looks low three days running, so I know whether to drive out or leave it.

Only gripe is the VRM app on Android feels a bit clunky compared to the browser version. Still, beats turning up to a flat battery on a cold weekend.

Really relate to this @DailyWanderer! I've got a similar setup on my shepherd's hut — SmartSolar 75/15 feeding a single Fogstar Drift 100Ah — and VRM has absolutely ruined me. I check it first thing every morning before I've even had a brew.

@T6Project on the alarm thresholds, I've got my SOC low warning sitting at 40% which gives me enough heads-up to either drive out or remotely adjust loads before anything drastic happens. Seemed overly cautious at first but caught a dodgy connection issue last November before it became a proper problem — paid for itself that moment alone.