Cheap Wireless / Wi-Fi battery monitor

[CharlzO]

Just throwing this out there, as a low-budget option. I have a small 28' sailboat on Lake Ontario that I (pre-2020 at least so far) try to get up to every weekend or other. Nothing too elaborate, with just a small solar panel feeding some GC2 batteries. Leading up to this season, I saw a Schulink wireless battery monitor on clearance at a local Wal-Mart. I figured for the price, it was worth a shot.

It's not the most sophisticated, but it simply hooks to your bank, and you can hook it to an available Wi-Fi network to allow you to remotely access your battery level. So I can sit here at home, and pull the app up and see my current battery voltage, as long as the boat is at the marina and able to connect to it's Wi-Fi network. Sure this wouldn't work for boats that aren't able to pick up a signal, but since mine remains at the dock when I'm away, it's at least a rough gauge.

Here's a link (current as of now at least) to the same from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SA.../dp/B07DLXCGJX

[jamhass]

Very good, I like it

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by CharlzO

Just throwing this out there, as a low-budget option. I have a small 28' sailboat on Lake Ontario that I (pre-2020 at least so far) try to get up to every weekend or other. Nothing too elaborate, with just a small solar panel feeding some GC2 batteries. Leading up to this season, I saw a Schulink wireless battery monitor on clearance at a local Wal-Mart. I figured for the price, it was worth a shot.

Totally. Nice find.

As an experiment I've banged out a few similar test wifi monitors (batt voltage, air temp, pressure, humidity, pump run or other alarm, etc) using ESP8266 boards. But it's very nerdy and takes time.

Going up a bit in price, FloatHub has a system that's still fairly economical, and adds some features. You can get transponders that use just wifi, or cellular too.

It's great to know that your boat is ok, battery charged, etc, when you're some distance away.

[bstreep]

I like this solution.


We use Monitor and Find Everything from the Internet - Wireless Sensor Tags all over the boat. No monthly fee, just connects wirelessly.

[CharlzO]

Those sensor tags look like they could be quite handy indeed, I'll have to look at some of those for more playing around. As does Floathub, and $100 bucks for a year's worth of cellular access to data without relying on wifi all the time is quite appealing.