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Summary: Know how long you can live off-grid with BatMon battery monitors. Richard Director of BatMon talks to us about measuring your van electrics and knowing how long you can live off the grid – accurately! Demistify when you need a 30amp device, verses a 300amp or 500amp device. Don’t get stuck off-grid, be in the know. Also – Discount code 10% off with VanBandits.
Focus: Campervan battery monitoring, accurate van battery monitor, van electrics, smart van living, living off-grid successfully
Interviewed by: Simon from Van Bandits.
Interviewee: Richard Scott, Director of BatMon Battery Monitoring devices.
Read time: 9 – 11 minutes.
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Simon, Van Bandits
I understand that it’s a specific battery monitoring product that you developed, in particular for living off grid. Um, what can you tell me about that?
Richard, BatMon
I’ve had campervans for over 20 years now and, you know, the first thing everyone gets into when they spend a weekend off -grid, is heating and cooling, right? It’s like, well, how do I keep my beer cold, and how do I keep warm? Twenty years ago, all we did was buy ex BT van Eberspächer diesel heaters, and so I fitted one of those. And thought, brilliant, all my problems are solved, and then the battery went flat in the camper van after basically the first night. The weekend, well, it wasn’t ruined, but, you know, it was cold, and you know, that really annoyed me, so I wanted to do something about it.
The current shunts and things like that were available back then, and obviously, technologies moved on. You could look at the display of your battery shunt, current shunt, and it will say you’ve got five days left of battery. Then you switch the lights on and it then says you have two days left. Yeah? And it, well, that’s pointless, you know. It’s absolutely pointless. So, nobody uses it. And so, what I wanted to do, and the reason BatMon exists, is because I wanted all the information on my campervan electrics. I wanted to install a current shunt on every circuit, so I know exactly how much power is consumed, and how much is generated. So, I can learn from the data to know exactly how long I can live off-grid.
“Not all providers of battery monitoring devices allow integration of their equipment with other van devices – we do!”
Simon, Van Bandits
This is what your device does that others can’t do.
Richard, BatMon
You know, most of the time circuits are running less than one or two amps and to get an accurate view of what’s going on, you need an accurate device that’s going to be on every circuit, it’s very geeky. And the challenge is, is how to make that not so geeky, and that’s what we’re working on.
A huge success for me is when my wife goes off in the camper van for a week, off-grid, completely off-grid, bless her. I mean, awesome in Scotland last week with a BatMon on her phone, and she just loves it. We’ve designed it with two interfaces. There’s the geeky side, which has got all the data you’ll ever need, and then there’s the simple view, where it’s just a smiley face or a sad face. You know, there’s other data there, but if it’s smiley, happy days.
Simon, Van Bandits
What’s the most common problem or most common fault that BatMon helps with?
Richard, BatMon
Clearly, BatMon’s not going to stop your equipment from failing, right? What BatMon is primarily used for is finding out when things aren’t working quickly. So, it’s basically protecting you from your battery running out, so you know. Ours is extremely accurate. It will tell you when your battery’s getting low, and you can do something about it. However, also with one that’s installed on every circuit, it’ll tell you, for example, when your alternator charger doesn’t charge your leisure batteries, so your battery to battery, or your split charge circuit, when that’s not working, and you can instantly see when you’re driving along, exactly how that’s performing.
I find because my van is covered in lots of different vendor’s equipment, I’ve got a solar controller panel, which is from one provider (which I can’t change because it’s got a vendor-specific screen in there). Then I’ve got a different brand of battery-to-battery charger. I’ve realised actually they don’t talk very well to each other. In fact, when the solar is on, the performance of the battery-to-battery isn’t very good. But, you know, with the power of BatMon, I can switch a relay to turn off the solar from the BatMon app. Soon I will be able to automate this if I want to.
Simon, Van Bandits
Is BatMon mainly aimed at DIY, vehicle electric type people, or do you partner with electrical installers as well?
Richard, BatMon
We’re starting to partner with electrical installers, especially locally. It’s simple, especially on the battery, but if you’re not confident in electronics, you shouldn’t be going anywhere near it.
Every instal is different. I’ve seen a lot of people’s batteries with lots of wires coming off a battery terminal that might take a little bit more to install because your installer might not want to leave it in a mess like that. And then you can see some batteries with just one connection coming off to a bus bar. You know, that sort of installation will take five minutes to instal, with lots of wires coming off your battery, it might take an hour or two,
Simon, Van Bandits
Yeah, it’s a very specific kind of van adventure, isn’t it? I can see how this would certainly mean monitoring things like your fridge, so you know, your beer is going to be cold and your butter is not going to melt, and that kind of thing.
Richard, BatMon
I mean, I was in North Portugal, and there was one extremely hot day, and my batteries went flat, and I could not work it out, and I still don’t know, but if I’d have had BatMon back in 2019, I’d know why. I suspect it’s because behind the fridge, in the vent it got so hot that the fridge went into a sort of mode where it just sucked power and drained the battery straight away, even though solar was on full tilt. But I don’t know, but I will know now if it happens again because I now monitor temperatures as well as currents and voltages!
Simon, Van Bandits
So, can we get technical just for a little while here? So, what I don’t get is why a 30amp BatMon is more accurate than a 300amp or a 500amp device. I mean, bigger is better, isn’t it?
Richard, BatMon
So actually, you don’t measure the current. What you do measure is the voltage over a fixed resistor and use Ohm’s law to get the current reading. The technology used to do this accurately is amazing but to be able to accurately measure to a resolution of 0.0025A we have found that the nearer the current shunt is to the voltage sensor on the battery monitor PCB, the more accurate you will be. The 30A shunt is actually soldered onto the PCB so you cannot get closer than that. The 300A and 500A shunts are directly mounted to the PCB with small bolts to get them as close to the PCB as possible. This makes BatMon very accurate.
Plus, a 30A shunt is a lot cheaper than a 300A or 500A shunt!
Simon, Van Bandits
When would I need to consider a 30amp, a 300amp or a 500amp bundle? Because I see you have three different selections on your site, which one should I choose for what I need to do?
Richard, BatMon
I would basically say, if you have a power inverter in your camper van or your off-grid habitation if it’s a 2,000-watt inverter, then it uses a 300amp combination. If it’s a 3,000-watt inverter, use a 500amp combination. And if you haven’t got an inverter, but you have got solar and you have got battery-to-battery, I’d still use a 300amp. So, I’d recommend a 300amp combo to most people. And to be fair, if you want a 500amp and you’re asking the question, you shouldn’t really be messing around with it. You know, when you get to that high current, unless you are completely confident in what you are doing, talk to your automotive electrical guy and ask them what they think about your system you really need. You need somebody to look at your bespoke system and advise what is safe for you.
Simon, Van Bandits
Your device comes with an app which can control turning things on and off with it. Can I sit up front and turn things on and off in my van?
Richard, BatMon
Yes, the range is pretty good, it’s about 15 metres, and that does depend on where it’s installed in your van. If it’s installed in a concrete box under the seat, then the range isn’t that good, you know. But most of the time it’s about 15 metres.
It’s Bluetooth low energy. And we have to do that because the low-energy part is critical. We cannot install battery monitors that flatten your battery, no, no.
Simon, Van Bandits
You say on the website that your devices are like mini computers. Can you programme them to send you a remote alert to your Bluetooth in case there’s a problem, if you’re low on power or there’s a system fault, or can you get an alert on your phone that goes, oh, look, gotta go and check this out?
Richard, BatMon
You can. But generally, the way a smartphone works, you can’t guarantee that it will connect to a BatMon when it’s in the background unless it’s connected to the internet, you’re not going to get that. This is something we are working on fixing using WiFi in a future product.
Simon, Van Bandits
What about integration with onboard systems, displays like SavvyVan, for example, can you wire your BatMon’s directly to it, to report directly into that interface?
Richard, BatMon
We do integrate with SavvyVan already – a fantastic product. We are very open to integrating with other suppliers too. So, you know, depending on what they want to do, they can re-skin BatMon to be their product, or they could just integrate it to use it with BatMon, it’s up to them.
Simon, Van Bandits
So, it’s pretty customizable in that respect then?
Richard, BatMon
Yeah, we’ll provide the integration assistance. You know, it’s really not that hard.
Simon, Van Bandits
I’ve also spotted that with all this data that you collect, you can keep collecting it for up to 10 years and you can also export it into an Excel spreadsheet, and turn it into a graph.
Richard, BatMon
What’s even cooler nowadays with ChatGPT and, you know, AI engines, like you just stick it in there and just say, what can this tell me? It’s amazing. We wanted to provide a way for our customers to get the data, so at the moment, they can email that data to themselves, but the problem we have is Bluetooth is low energy so it’s quite slow. Getting 30 megabytes of data from each device can take up to about seven minutes per device. So, if you’ve got seven devices installed in your van, that’s a long time. It’s not a good user experience; however, it can be done, you know. It’s definitely a feature that we wanted to have from day one, and in future products, this will all be automated, so you won’t have to download it.
Simon, Van Bandits
Excellent. Thanks for your time today and for letting us know about the BatMon product.
BatMon – More than just battery monitors. Buy BatMon battery monitoring devices using VANBANDITS10 to get 10% off your order. Or get in touch with Richard at BatMon to discuss more about van battery monitoring and what is best for your van.
Simon has plenty of experience with converting campers and vanlife. In a former life he used to be ‘on the tools’ as a carpenter in the UK and has a strong interest in woodwork, interior designing and cabinet making. He loves the methodology of DIY campervan conversion, the setup and getting the ship on the road. Read more on Simon’s van bandits profile.
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