New LiTime Battery with Victron Connectivity

Spotted this doing the rounds this week — LiTime have apparently released a new battery with native Victron comms built in. If that's legit and the BMS actually talks properly to a Cerbo GX without needing a third-party dongle or a rats' nest of RS485 adapters, that's a pretty big deal for the price point they tend to sit at.

My garden office setup runs a Fogstar Drift alongside a Victron Multiplus and Cerbo, and getting proper two-way comms sorted was more faff than I'd like to admit. Ended up down a rabbit hole of JK BMS firmware updates and a cheap USB adapter before it all played nicely. If LiTime have genuinely solved that out of the box, they might be onto something.

Few things I'd want to know before getting excited though:

• Is it VE.Can or VE.Bus connectivity, or just a basic DVCC signal?
• What's the cycle rating looking like compared to their older units?
• Any UK stockists holding them, or is it another six-week wait from a Chinese warehouse?

The cynical part of me wonders if "Victron connectivity" is marketing fluff for something that technically works but needs fiddling. Wouldn't be the first time.

Has anyone actually got hands on one yet? Curious whether real-world installs are behaving as advertised or whether there's the usual teething nonsense to work through. Drop your experience below if you've pulled the trigger — proper data points from actual installs are worth far more than spec sheets on this one.

Saw this mentioned on a narrowboat Facebook group yesterday actually — someone on the Llangollen canal had fitted a pair and was getting proper SOC readout on their Cerbo without any fiddling. That's the bit that always gets me; I've spent hours wrestling with Bluetooth dongles and custom cables just to get my bank talking sensibly to my GX Touch.

If the BMS genuinely integrates over VE.Can or even just clean DVCC communication, that's a proper game-changer for the budget end of the market. Fogstar and EVE cells have ruled that space for a while now.

My only hesitation — and it's the same one I had buying my first Renogy panels — is whether "native Victron comms" means genuine two-way control or just read-only data dressed up in marketing language. Those are very different things in practice.

Genuinely interested in this if it pans out. Been running Fogstar Drift cells in the shepherd's hut with a Cerbo GX and the lack of native comms has meant relying on a shunt for SOC data rather than actual BMS figures — always felt a bit blind.

Does anyone know if it's proper two-way communication or just read-only data? That distinction matters a lot for things like DVCC working correctly.

Also curious about the BMS continuous discharge rating — LiTime's previous gen was a bit conservative there. For a static setup like mine it's fine, but worth checking before people start recommending these for anything with a decent inverter load.

@RhysLewis77 — if that narrowboat group gets more real-world feedback, worth posting here. Marine installs tend to put batteries through their paces properly.

@WattNick anyone got a link to the actual spec sheet? "Native Victron comms" could mean anything from proper VE.Can integration to just a sticker that says "compatible" — need to see whether it's actually showing SOC, cell voltages, and temp in the GX Device List or just winking at it from across the room.

Running a Victron setup in the van and a separate Cerbo in the garden office, so genuinely tempted if the BMS data is real rather than marketing fluff. Price point will be the deciding factor against Fogstar though — that's a hard target to beat on £/kWh right now.

@T5Project raises exactly the right point — "native Victron comms" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. I've seen Chinese battery brands claim "Victron compatible" when they mean they've bolted on a generic RS485 adaptor and crossed their fingers.

What I'd want to know before getting excited:

• Is it VE.Can or VE.Bus, or just some DVCC workaround?
• Does the BMS data actually populate properly in VRM — cell voltages, temps, cycle count?
• What's the actual BMS C-rating under UK winter temps?

Running a Victron setup in my garden office and the difference between proper integration and "it mostly works" is significant when you're relying on it daily.

Has anyone found the actual product page rather than a reseller listing? LiTime's own specs are usually more honest than the marketing copy floating around.