VictronConnect and Deeck: what each app does

What VictronConnect is for

VictronConnect is the app Victron makes for its own products. Victron’s manual describes it as the app “to configure, monitor, update and diagnose” Victron devices, and it runs on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux (VictronConnect manual).

It is where the settings of your system live: battery capacity and charge voltages, the charger’s algorithm, the Bluetooth PIN, Instant Readout. It also carries the firmware: the app ships with the latest firmware files available when it was released, can update a device without an internet connection, and keeps settings and history through the update (firmware updates).

VictronConnect works one device at a time: you connect to a SmartShunt, look at it or change it, go back to the list and connect to the MPPT. For setting things up that is exactly right. You change one device carefully, and nothing else is touched.

What Deeck is for

Deeck is made for people who want to watch their Victron system, not tinker with it. It is plug & play: open the app near your system and the Victron Smart devices around you show up on their own. You type each device’s Bluetooth PIN once and Deeck reads the encryption key by itself, so there are no keys to copy.

From then on, every device sits on one screen, and the same dashboard is on iPhone, CarPlay and Apple Watch, always in sync.

• One live deck for the whole system: state of charge, voltage, current and the power flowing between solar, engine, mains, battery and loads.
• Autonomy in days and hours, computed from how your battery really behaves and counting down to the reserve you choose, not to zero.
• History: production against consumption and the state-of-charge trend, 7 days free and 90 days with CSV export in Pro.
• Alarms for low charge, low or high voltage and high temperature, with a heads-up before the critical level.
• Widgets and Siri on the iPhone, an Apple Watch app and a CarPlay dashboard.
• Remote access through your VRM account or through Deeck Bridge, without a Cerbo GX.

Deeck reads the Bluetooth Instant Readout broadcast of devices such as the SmartShunt, BMV-712, SmartSolar MPPT, Orion XS, Blue Smart IP22 chargers and Phoenix Smart inverters (full list). It doesn’t change any setting on them.

What you do in which app

Sources for the VictronConnect column: Victron’s manual chapters on Android widgets, Android Auto and VictronConnect-Remote, which “is not possible unless the system includes a GX product”.

Why they don’t get in each other’s way

Victron Smart devices with Instant Readout broadcast their key readings over Bluetooth to any phone nearby, encrypted. VictronConnect itself uses that broadcast to show “key data of Smart products on the Device list page without connecting to the products” (Instant Readout).

Deeck listens to the same broadcast. It connects to a device only once, during setup, to read the key with your PIN, and then closes the connection. It never keeps a connection open, so when you open VictronConnect to change a setting, the device is free, and a GX device, if you have one, keeps working as before. Both apps can be on the same iPhone and run on the same day.

The setup we recommend

Set up in VictronConnect once, then live in Deeck.

1. 1

   In VictronConnect, connect to each device, check its settings and install any firmware update it offers.

2. 2

   Still in VictronConnect, tap the three dots at the top right, open Product info and switch on Instant readout. It is off by default.

3. 3

   Open Deeck near your system. Your devices appear on their own; tap each one and type its Bluetooth PIN, the same one you use in VictronConnect.

4. 4

   Use Deeck day to day: on the phone, in the car, on the wrist. Go back to VictronConnect only when you want to change a setting or update firmware.

If you’re looking for an alternative view of your system rather than a replacement for VictronConnect, this is it: Deeck covers the watching, VictronConnect stays the tool for the settings.

When VictronConnect alone is enough

If you have a single device, check it now and then, and don’t need alarms, history across the system or anything in the car, VictronConnect does the job and costs nothing. Deeck makes the difference when several devices have to be read together: a SmartShunt, an MPPT and a charger in a camper or a boat, where the question is “how many days do I have left?” rather than “what is this one device doing?”.

Questions people ask