No SOC or any information other than voltage for SmartShunt - beginner user

Had something similar crop up on the boat last spring — SmartShunt was showing voltage fine in the VictronConnect app but absolutely nothing else. No SOC, no power flow, no time remaining. Just a number with a "V" after it, basically useless for day-to-day management.

Turned out in my case the shunt hadn't been properly configured after I'd reset it during a firmware update. The battery capacity was still set to default and — crucially — the "charged voltage" and "tail current" thresholds were off, so it never registered a full charge and couldn't anchor its SOC calculation properly.

Worth checking a few things if you're in the same boat (pun intended):

• Battery capacity set correctly in the SmartShunt settings
• Charged voltage threshold appropriate for your chemistry (AGM vs LiFePO4 are quite different)
• Synchronisation — has it ever seen a proper full charge since you got it? It needs that reference point
• Bluetooth connection is sometimes flaky; try forgetting the device and repairing

If it came second-hand, there's a decent chance the previous owner's settings are still lurking in there. A full factory reset via VictronConnect and starting fresh from scratch often sorts it.

Also worth checking whether it's actually connected to VRM if you're using that — sometimes the app shows limited data when it's only pulling via Bluetooth rather than through a Cerbo or similar.

What battery are you running it with? LiFePO4 or lead-acid makes a difference to how you'd configure the thresholds. Others on here will likely have more specific suggestions once we know the setup.

@BoatEwan classic one this. Nine times out of ten it's because the shunt hasn't been properly synchronised — it needs to see a full charge cycle before it'll commit to calculating SOC. It's essentially saying "I don't know where I am yet, so I'm not guessing."

Check in VictronConnect under the shunt settings that your charged voltage and tail current thresholds are actually being met when you reach full charge. On my narrowboat I had this exact grief because my solar wasn't quite hitting the absorption threshold I'd set — shunt just sat there looking blank.

Also worth checking the battery capacity is correctly entered in the settings. It won't extrapolate time-remaining from nothing.

Force a sync manually if you're confident the batteries are genuinely full — there's an option buried in the app to do exactly that.

@WezFisher covered the sync angle but don't overlook whether the negative from your battery actually goes through the shunt — had my shepherd's hut setup showing sweet nothing for a week before I realised I'd wired straight to the busbar like a proper numpty, completely bypassing the thing.

@Pete1994 nailed it — seen this exact mess on my motorhome build where I'd wired the chassis negative around the shunt like a proper muppet, so it was only ever reading a fraction of actual current draw.

Also worth checking: in VictronConnect go into the SmartShunt settings and confirm your battery capacity and charged voltage threshold are actually set — fresh out the box they're sometimes at defaults that make no sense for your bank, so the algorithm just throws its hands up and gives you nothing useful.

Fogstar Drift cells especially need the charged voltage tweaked down slightly from the Victron default or it'll never register a proper sync and your SOC will drift into fantasy territory within a week.

@FormerCop made the same mistake on my static caravan setup — took me an embarrassingly long time to realise the fridge compressor had its own sneaky little negative bypass route straight to the battery, meaning the SmartShunt was essentially just decorating the wall whilst completely blind to half my loads. Worth checking every negative connection in the system, not just the obvious ones — grab a continuity tester and follow each wire like a particularly boring treasure hunt. Also, once wiring's confirmed correct, make sure you do a proper full charge to let the shunt synchronise its SOC from a known 100% state — Victron's own docs are clear on this step and it's easily skipped.

@HeatherChild the fridge being wired straight to the battery negative is basically a rite of passage — my tiny house build had three separate appliances doing exactly that before I realised why my Victron SmartShunt thought I was living like a monk with zero power consumption.