Latest updates to Victron VRM

To connect your system to the VRM Portal, there are two separate steps that need to be taken. First, you need to create a VRM user account. And then secondly, the installation, needs to be paired with that user account..  My article Setting up your Cerbo GX to work on the Victron VRM goes into this in more detail.  The official instruction manual for the VRM is called Getting started with VRM

Because the VRM has proved to be so useful the software has been getting the most development work and their are constant tweaks and improvements.  This article will attempt to keep up by mentioning the major ones.   The most recent will be first.  The changelog shows an itemized list of all the changes.

The May update is announced in the Victron Blog and involves some enhanced Fleet Management features.  Many Fleet Operators have a large list of Victron VRM installations to manage.  This update makes it easier to add a new site, and makes it easier to find an existing site in a long list.  The map enhancements makes it easier to get a list of sites within a certain geographic area.  This update also makes it easier to find and act on alarms.  Its also possible now to add tags to sites so they can be filtered by whatever parameter you wish, eg equipment type,  installation size, customer type or any other parameter you wish to include.

The December 2022 update adds push notifications to the VRM.   When an alarm is triggered on an installation you monitor on VRM, an alert notification will be pushed straight to your Phone, Tablet, or Apple Laptop. You can choose what kind information you’d like to receive.  Push notifications can be sent via the VRM app on your mobile device – or you can choose to receive them via your browser over the web. And, of course, you can still choose to receive event notifications by email. So there are now three ways you can get notification of system alarms and events.  Full details of this update were announced in the Victron Blog Post of December 2nd.  The video below is the full webinar describing all the latest changes

This update also includes modifications to Victron Connect.  Its quite a big update because now it allows you to remotely access VE Can settings, something that wasn't possible before.  It also allows you to set and operate the generator controls on the VRM, and it has more ability to access third party accessories.   The features are outlined in the Victron Blog Post Venus OS v2.90 – Generator controls in VRM, Remote VE.Can, RV-C, Venus OS Large, and more.  A sample screenshot is below, right click and open in a new tab for a higher resolution version.

The main features are summarized below.  Because this update involves changes to the Venus operating system you will have to be able to update the firmware of the Cerbo GX itself and then its connected devices to be able to use these features.  The first screenshot below shows how the generator controls work on the VRM

Next screenshot shows how you can remotely configure VE Can products:

The next screenshot is one that will help answer lots of questions.  When DVCC is enabled the Cerbo changes from being a passive monitor to an active controller.  The Victron VRM now reports this correctly by describing the state of the Multi as "External control"

The Video below goes into the major new features and also covers updates to Victron connect.