Renogy BT

I like this app because I can be inside the house and monitor the solar charging. Bluetooth unfortunately is a very limited range system, so I am surprised they don’t just make the controller WiFi accessible, but when you can buy a Renogy controller (or many others) for $20 you can’t expect to get everything. The cumulative numbers are somehow off. It shows today I discharged 11Ah, charged 24Ah, seems correct, but YTD totals I don’t know where in the equipment the inaccuracies are, but they are there. : charge 1917Ah, discharge 11Ah. That can’t be right. I’ve seen 240W charging from a single 70W panel, normally I get readings far more correct (I think). The main screen slwill show 39W charging, go to the next screen and the highest charge rate for the day is 38W.

I’ve used this app for almost a year and have documented bugs that have yet to be addressed. So I’ll list them again. 1. The Recorded Chart shows the proper date at the top but the bottom left it displays 2016. It can’t be changed and does not update. 2. The Recorded Chart in previous versions would allow you show the actual value of a data point. This version only reads the Min. Value and the Max value. Useless you just want to Min and Max. I don’t need the chart to show that. 3. I have never had the equalizer voltage kick in using the number of days setting. 4. I set my Battery type to USER that allows me set the parameters for my battery. If I set equalizer voltage it becomes the boost voltage and I end up cooking the battery. 5. The Min. Recording will record the lowest battery voltage even if it is a momentary drop from starting a generator. This recording should have a dead band or an average setting. Maybe a 5 second delay. That would make the reading useful. The Min value is also recorded in the number of times the battery was over discharged. I could go on but I think the programmer needs to hire a tester before the software is released to the public. It’s a good thing it free.

When you spend $1000+ on a product I think it’s reasonable to expect a thoroughly thought out product. The solar panels and charge controller works wonderfully but wow is this app and the bt device terrible. The daily solar usage resets at a random time at night around 10:30 so knowing your usage for the evening isn’t possible. The daily power generated and power used is opposite on the graphs, there is no way to reset the data and customer support is completely useless. I would pay double to get an app/device that actually works.