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

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).

Ive been using it for a solar setup in my Subaru Outback. Its been good but not great for name brand electronics. Easy to use unit, but more targeted at contractors and installers rather than DIYers. Theres astoundingly limited tracking for modern hardware and no way to write a customized charging program. Just a handful of dropdowns and numbers to tweak. It also eats up a surprising amount of power on its own (50+Wh/day with PV unplugged and nothing rbeing powered), perhaps due to outdated/low end bluetooth hardware. My watch, on the other hand, regularly passes info back and forth With all this wasted power it doesnt even update my phone with the latest stats for offline viewing. Ive tried to find ways around these limitations, but the software isnt very flexible. I picked a name brand controller assuming their dozens of similar products would have given the software time to mature. I was mistaken and wish I had picked a cheaper option.

When my MPPT arrived, I studied the install & configuation information, reviewed Victrons FAQs, read forum input, etc. and then proceeded to connect the MPPT to my vans house battery & then to the solar panels. The screeenshot, taken from the VicrtonConnect app, with the big fat zero was the result. I spent several days troubleshooting, assuming user error, asked for help on the Victron forums, got a few responses, but nothing worked. Victrons troubleshooting policy for items purchased via Amazon is to contact the Vendor. So, this last Monday, I called Inverter-R-US, explained the situation and the steps I had taken to resolve. The vendor promptly concluded I had a bad MPPT and sent me a new one which arrived on two days later. I connected the new one and the screenshot with the 159 watts is the new results. Much better. From the Victron forums, most people who post similar problems with this MPPT are in fact guilty of missing something or doing something wrong. But this goes to show that once in a while, a device is truly bad & needs to be replaced from the get go.

Experimented with a few other charge controllers for our off grid RV. I think I am finally happy with this Victron 100/50 charge controller. My 400ah lifepo4 batteries were charged from 54% to 100% by noon on a sunny blue Arizona sky. My previous charge controllers usually got the batteries to 100% by 2-3 PM if I was lucky. Love the app!! I was able to enter my specific batteries parameters that were recommended by Powequeens manual. Also able to see the history of what my panels and charge controller did for the day/week/month/year. Im Happy!

This is a true MPPT,should of gotten this a long time ago, battery even charging on a cloudy day

These charge controllers are awesome. Im using 4 of them currently with the bmv712 shunt monitor and I love that they all connect via Bluetooth and share data. I love that the chargers synchronize to work with each other. The ability to check on your system and set your charge parameters from your phone is definitely worth it. The MPPT tracking is fast. Their efficiency is phenomenal. Being able to use the VE port as a relay controller rather than load terminals is preferred in my opinion for dump load options. However the app isnt as polished as the controllers themselves. Sometimes the Bluetooth is laggy and glitches. I wish the app showed a little more useful data that it is capable of showing, but it doesnt because if you buy all victron stuff a different product will show you. For example power being used. If the shunt monitor is showing how much power is going into the batteries and the charge controllers show your total network power, you can simply subtract the total power from battery power to show power consumption. Whats annoying is you must first select the charge controller, then it connects via Bluetooth to one single controller. You can only monitor one single device via Bluetooth at a time. It takes 10-30 seconds each time you select a device. This makes it difficult to compare data manually. Sure it shows your average discharge and deepest discharge, but if you dont check right before the sun comes up, theres no way to see what you used last night. No way to see how much power you used that day, week, etc... once again you could do it all manually. The app should just have a system overview showing all the data available and atleast a months worth of history. Or have the app store some data on your phone and synchronize every couple hours if your within range. I realize if you buy a Victron brand inverter or some other fancy expensive data logger it shows a lot of this data. I did not though. Its annoying when it is capable of showing data, but to really be able to use these devices to their potential you need to buy all Victron... I wish the programs for the relay function were a little more flexible. Great for most situations, but not the best. Maybe add some time delay options? Select sun up/down triggers along with voltage triggers. Temperature triggers would also be cool too. There stuff is good, but a some extra lines of code is all you need to make this stuff a little more friendly for the experimenters or budget conscious DIYers.

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.

I had a Victron 75/15 MPPT controller that worked well but failed after 3 years. I replaced it with this, and I get more out of my 300 watt panel than I ever have before. It also has pre-sets for LiFePO4 batteries that I migrated to from AGMs in my Sprinter van. Works perfectly.

I really like Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 100V 30 amp 12/24-Volt Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth). It really is doing everything for me. AAAAA+++++

At first I ordered a budget MPPT charger, only to learn later that in order to program it to use a Lithium battery required ordering another part, which makes it not such a bargain after all. After reading reviews on Victron stating how easy this model is to program, I decided to try one for myself. It was indeed very easy to setup the unit on my iPhone, and switch the default setting to lithium. I enjoyed watching the charge history from day to day. The Bluetooth connection is strong enough to connect from pretty far away. Im really enjoying using the application. The solar charger is working great. Id definitely buy one again.