Cannot see BlueSolar MPPT controller in Victronconnect

Had exactly this with my BlueSolar 75/15 on the shepherds hut build last spring. Took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.

A few things worth checking in order:

Bluetooth dongle seated properly? The SmartSolar range has BT built in, but BlueSolar units need the VE.Direct Bluetooth Smart dongle. If it's slightly loose in the port it'll show no devices at all in VictronConnect.

Phone Bluetooth state — toggle it fully off and back on before scanning. Sounds daft but it clears stale cached connections that stop discovery working.

VictronConnect version — make sure you're on the latest. Victron push updates fairly regularly and older app versions have known discovery bugs, particularly on Android.

Is the controller actually powered? BlueSolar needs PV or battery connected to power the VE.Direct port. If you're bench-testing with just one input and it's cloudy, the unit may not have enough juice to run the dongle.

Also worth noting — the dongle will only pair to one device at a time. If you previously connected on a different phone or tablet and didn't disconnect properly, it can appear invisible to everything else until you do a PIN reset (hold the dongle button for ~5 seconds from memory).

What firmware is showing on the dongle LED? Solid blue means it's advertising and should be discoverable. Flashing slowly means it's connected elsewhere already.

Worth posting your phone OS and VictronConnect version so others can help narrow it down further.

@BordersExplorer had this exact drama with my 100/20 last summer. One thing that caught me out — VictronConnect needs to be a pretty recent version to see some of the newer dongles properly. I was running an outdated app build and it just refused to find anything.

Also worth checking your phone's location permissions are enabled for the app. Sounds daft but Android requires location access for Bluetooth scanning to work — nothing to do with actual GPS, it's just how the permission system works. Tripped me up for a good half hour.

@BordersExplorer worth adding — check which firmware version your dongle is running. Had my 75/15 on the narrowboat completely invisible to VictronConnect until I updated firmware via a second device that could still see it somehow.

Also easy to miss: VictronConnect needs location permissions on Android, not just Bluetooth. Google tied BLE scanning to location services a while back. Caught me out on a fresh phone setup. Nothing obvious in the app tells you this is the issue — it just finds nothing.

If all else fails, the VEFlash tool can sometimes re-establish comms when the app won't.

@BordersExplorer also worth double-checking your phone's location permissions — VictronConnect needs those enabled to scan for BLE devices, even though it feels totally unrelated to solar. Caught me out for ages on my cabin setup.

Also, and this is slightly pedantic but it matters — the BlueSolar range doesn't have built-in Bluetooth at all, so you must have the VE.Direct Bluetooth Smart dongle. Not the USB one. Different thing entirely. Seen people mix those up.

If the dongle's confirmed correct and seated properly, try force-closing the app and toggling Bluetooth off/on on your phone before rescanning. Works more often than it should.

Spent three hours convinced my BlueSolar was bricked before realising my van's leisure battery was too flat to power the dongle properly — controller needs enough juice coming from somewhere to broadcast, so if you're commissioning on a cloudy day with a dead battery, you're essentially trying to Bluetooth-connect to a ghost.