Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 100V 30 amp 12/24-Volt Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth)

I love the Victron SmartSolar charge controller. Weve had 2 of these and just ordered a 150|100 unit for our 1200W expansion on our new RV. These are simple, operate via bluetooth so I dont have to cut any holes and mount a monitor anywhere. It would be cool if I could see the stats via wi-fi, but honestly I dont care to pay for that feature, and bluetooth is more than enough. Its easy to mount, the app is stupid-proof to set up and use, and my only complaint would be that the wires get a little too close to each other for my own comfort while wiring them up. Otherwise, this is the top of the line for charge controllers, and youll certainly pay for it. Just cry, get it over with, and enjoy your purchase.

In a side-by-side comparison between this Victron unit and an HQST solar controller it’s impossible to tell any difference in battery charge current. The Bluetooth communication for setup and monitoring is easy and convenient, except for the occasional dropouts. If you really don’t need the 48 volt capability I recommend saving some money and use the other brands. I intend to run a 48 volt battery system but set up a 24 battery bank for comparison of the Victron and HQST (which is a 24 volt maximum). Each controller was connected to identical 400 watt PV arrays and battery charge current was measured by watt-hr meters. After accumulating 500 watt-hrs the arrays were swapped and test repeated. The results showed no meaningful differences in charge delivered to the battery bank. The solar climate was a mix of sun and clouds during the test. Visual snapshots of both meters during the test reinforced that both controllers were responding similarly throughout the variation in cloud cover.

I have a small system with two 100 watt PV panels and a 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter. This charge controller allows me to squeeze out all the wattage out of the PV panels even on cloudy days. So far Ive seen a max of 175 watts from the two panels in direct sunlight and 24 - 135 watts on cloudy days... not bad. The build quality is exceptional, the plastic case is thick and heavy and the components are solid. I like the simple design. The only thing I dont like about the controller are the wire nuts and ports, they are rather small. You may have a problem connecting any wire gauge smaller than 10 to this controller. The Victron connect app provides useful information via Bluetooth but you need to be within a few feet of the controller to keep a stable connection. I will be ordering the Bluetooth battery shunt shortly and setting up a VE.Direct network to get better battery information as the controller only provides limited information on the battery charge state and voltage. I am finding that Victron is more like expensive Lego blocks if you want additional functionality you need to purchase more bolt-on components. Unfortunately most of their components are expensive but you get what you pay for and they make very good products.

The Victron 100/20amp controller installed and started without problems. I was able to use the VictronConnect app to look at the status of the system and configure the charging profile for my 100 ah hybrid gel battery. The controller powers all loads until PV capacity is exceeded then adds in battery power as needed. No need to remove battery for charging ever.

I like the bluetooth connection to see what is happening real time. Im not crazy about the fact it doesnt store the history of the charge controller input/output. If you use different devices on it you cant get the same history downloaded. Connecting wires with the screw wire block seems less secure to me. I dont know why most of the companies do it this way. Seems to limit the size of wire and makes it less secure. Ive had wires come out easily. This isnt really a dig at this brand, they all seem to have these screw connectors. The back aluminum plate popped off one day. A whole bunch of sand came out of it; it looked like beach sand. Apparently the inside of unit has sand to help with heat dissipation. Never heard of this before but I read up on it. I thought it was a defect at first but others have experienced the same thing. This shouldnt be an issue for most people since they will have it mounted on a wall but I had been moving mine around a lot and one day it just popped off. It does seem to have affected its performance so far. Time will tell. Im using it with a 100ah LiFePo4 battery and RadioB BMS connected to a Renogy shunt/battery capacity. Also us it to charge up the battery with my solar panel and AC/DC power adaptor.

This is a good solar charge controller, once you setup the battery parameters correctly it works really good, it is efficient. What may makes it difficult for some people is the fact that you need the specs from your battery manufacturer to know the battery charge voltages to setup absorption, float, and equalization (only for Flooded or if your battery manufacturer requires that) You need a special usb cable if you plan to use the app in a laptop running windows, unfortunately the bluetooth connection doesnt work for that they say on the Victron forums that they are working on it. The bluetooth app is good, I allow me more distance for monitoring my batteries with more independence, instead of looking to the tiny LCD screen of my old and trusty PWM SCC. UPDATE: this controller have the tendency to consume the battery no matter the chemistry you have. Same thing happens with SLA or LiFePO4 you have the battery all the way to the top and then the controller takes from 12 to 20 amps per day. I have disabled the load, it is permanently off but if you use a voltmeter it shows that you have 0.6 volts on that and 0.1 volts if I disconnect the solar panels. I suppose it is a design defect, but who knows. I will be moving on to a different product this time because at the rate it discharge a battery you are wasting precious solar energy and there are cloudy days that wont allow the battery to be fully charged.

Works better than I expected to it does exactly what it says and it works perfect for a battle born battery no problems with it very happy purchase Having built-in Bluetooth helps a lot if you dont have to buy the extra dongle for communication I really like the fact that its customizable you can set the parameters that you would like for your setup which is extremely helpful For whatever reason it seems to produce a little bit more voltage and current then I would expect it to thats probably what its designed to do but its a major Plus to me

I have a basic 60W setup. 2 panels, one is 50W and the other 10W hooked up in parallel to get 60W. I use it to keep a simple sealed led acid battery charged to run 12V exhaust fans in my apartment. That is all! very simple setup. I had a chaep PWM controller prior to setting this up but I have seen on YouTube that MPPT is the way to go to get the most efficiency so I decided to get this small controller from Victron. Physical hookup is very clear and simple. Connect the battery first, then the panel and then load. At least this is the way I did it. Everything is working so far but I had to custom configure my battery type because Victron did not add a simple lead acid battery preset into the app so I had to manually input my values. I had to reduce the charge amperage to 2A because that is what the small sealed lead acid battery specifies. It has several presets for Victron branded batteries though. This is a very similar way of thinking like Apple does with their products. In other words, they dont like to play well with others and that is bad. It limits the ease of use and configuration of equipment that can be used with this controller. It definitely can be done but Victron Energy is not making it easy. The main complaint is the size of the manual. The font is microscopic and basically unusable. Why include it if you need to use a microscope to use it? For the money that they charge for this and the low cost manufacturing in India they should for a few cents make a bigger manual and a bigger box for this product. I will update this review if I discover any problems in the future as I had this hooked up for 1 day so far and it has been cloudy too.

I already had one set of panels on a Victron controller. Im very fond of the Bluetooth connectivity to my phone. I can easily see how my system is performing by looking at an app on my phone. So when it came time for another set of panels - Victron controller seemed like a good idea. Still is.

I really expected to like the Victron Smart Solar. I already own the 100/15 Blue Solar plus bluetooth dongle, and have good results with it. However, after struggling with the Smart Solar I was disappointed and returned it. In my view its a step backward from Blue Solar. If youre thinking of buying the 75/15 Smart Solar, you may want to reconsider and get the 75/15 Blue Solar and buy the external bluetooth dongle. There is really no benefit to the Smart Solar over the Blue Solar + BT dongle. You might save $10-$20, but you end up with an inferior product in many other respects. First, the integrated bluetooth range is much less than the BT dongle. Were talking 5 feet vs. 20 to 30. This also gets to the heart of my main gripe: Victrons choice of Bluetooth transceiver. Theyre using newer BLuetooth Low Energy technology (BLE) vs older but more widely supported BT 4.0, as used in the external dongle. In my view it wasnt a good move. BLE, is not supported by the majority of BT enabled devices. If you want to use iOS or Android, be aware that even if they have BT, they will likely NOT work with the Smart Solar bluetooth! Obviously this isnt a good selling point and Victron sales literature doesnt warn customers about this ahead of time. Youll end up downloading their app and get frustrated trying to connect to the controller, and eventually learn that your 1 year old device wont work with it. Nearly every device in the world with BT will work with BT 4.0, but Victron went with the BT low energy and gave up compatibility with the majority of the worlds devices. Was that a smart decision? Well they saved a few cents per controller, and I suppose low energy in theory saves some power. But, the charge controller is NOT lacking for power. Its either getting power from a PV array or a presumably large battery, not a tiny batteries where BLE might be useful. I would much rather have 20-30 foot range and use a few more micro watts of power than need to stand 5 feet from the controller. And youll find with Android, that BLE *requires* that you enable location/GPS for the Victron Connect app to work! No kidding. Victron says they dont care about your location, and probably dont. But youll need to accept that and enable location services to use their app with Smart Solar. With Blue Solar and the external dongle its not necessary. This is forced on everyone by Google/Android not Victron, but again, the choice of using BLE was Victrons. Finally, IMO the 100/15 is better constructed than the 75/15, albeit at a higher price. The 100/15 has an external heat sink and the 75/15 does not. That could be a benefit in a hot environment like the desert. You may want to take a look at it. The next step up is 100/20 which also has an external heat sink like the 100/15. All of these have separate load terminals which is really useful because the controllers have a configurable low voltage disconnect (via the app) and can also track how much power the load is actually using. When you get over 20 amps, for example 100/30 amp controllers and up, they do not have separate load terminals. Update: I measured the current draw of a Blue Solar 100/15 and Smart Solar 100/20. Connected to battery at 12.8v. No PV or load connected, and not connected to app via BT. Blue Solar 100/15: 24 mA. With BT dongle 25.5-26 mA Smart Solar 100/20: 34 mA. With BT dongle 35-36.5 mA I dont have numbers for the 75/15, though its likely not more than above. The point is, the BT 4.x dongle takes only 1 to 1.5 mA. Unless youre using a 15 amp MPPT controller with a battery bank the size of a coin cell battery, the BT dongle is the way to go (IMO).