It honestly feels like a way to spy on family/company vehicles. Powered by the battery… knowing its voltage just being a side effect. But I guess that’s only if the app also tells you these data.
This product seems to be a bit of an in-between, not having the ability to trickle charge the battery, but you can keep any eye on it and charge or jump it as needed.
Also, they make the tractor a lot happier to start in the winter. :)
Every vehicle was on a trickle charger, for a few reasons. But one reason I especially liked…
The La Ferrari CAN NOT run the batteries dead. If it does, and it’s locked, you are in trouble. Like call a Ferrari rep to come fly out and partially take it apart to get it charged and running again trouble.
Same with some Bugati I had never heard of.
Everything down to McCarens and lower. These aren’t vehicles that will run after sitting for a month let alone a few. Some might top at a week.
One time, I had to change the oil on a McClaren… it has no dipstick, no oil pan, and you need to remove ~50 bolts and two skid plates to access anything.
They are art and engineering pieces that you get inside. They are not cars per se.
Another (more common) use case is people that take their caravan out on the road. Many have a plug into the car that keeps the caravan fridge powered on when driving.
For me, I wanted to keep track of the voltage of the battery in a caravan when not connected to mains power.
I ended up using a multimeter but an app would have been more convenient
These types of gadgets are useful too in my other car where I can spot check the voltage when on the road and when charging USB devices 12V USB Outlet Qidoe Dual 18W Quick Charge 3.0 Port & 20W PD 12V USB C Car Charger Socket with Voltmeter and Power Switch, Waterproof Multiple Car USB Port Adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B1WJ3W5X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
Still looking for a solution, by the way, if anyone knows of something which will work (kind of thinking I want to go with ESPHome now though).
Typically used for solar panels, but you could always hook up a 18-20v power supply and let it manage/charge your battery. The nice thing about these controllers is that they can handle multiple battery types and have multi-stage charging algorithms.
Could easily integrate with Home Assistant. Might give it a go actually.
It reads the real time voltages, not voltages stored in the embedded device's memory (for when there is no BLE connectivity while it's running). If there is interest, I can work out this part too.
[1] https://gist.github.com/x1sec/3af7efdcd3465aac09093081c32ba3...
[2] https://doubleagent.net/hardware/ble/bluetooth/2023/05/23/a-...