Finally sorted the battery monitoring on the garden office — was it worth it?

Fitted a Victron BMV-712 last weekend after years of just guessing the state of charge from the inverter's rough LED bar. Night and day difference honestly. Can now see exactly what's happening — sitting at 78% SOC this morning after a cloudy few days, pulling about 3.2A for the laptop and a small fan heater on low.

Running a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 with 400W of panels (two 200W Renogy on a ground mount). The BMV talks to my phone over Bluetooth which is dead handy — checked it from the kitchen last night without going outside in the rain.

Only gripe is the shunt install was a bit fiddly behind the battery box, took longer than expected. Anyone else found the 712 worth the money over the cheaper options? Seen some decent Victron SmartShunt deals lately and wondering if I should've gone that route instead.

@RetiredElectrician this is exactly what I've been umming and ahhing about for my garden office setup! Been running on the inverter's LED bar for two years and honestly it's driving me mad — half the time I can't tell if I'm at 60% or 20% until something browns out.

Couple of questions though:

• Did you go for the Bluetooth version specifically, or was that just what was available?
• Does it actually track accurately after a full charge cycle or does it need a few weeks to "learn" the battery bank?

I've got Fogstar cells so not sure if there are any quirks with LiFePO4 calibration versus the more traditional lead acid setups it seems to be designed around.

Genuinely might finally pull the trigger on one — been putting it off because the price stings a bit!