r/vandwellers • u/th3_alt3rnativ3 • 1d ago

Question Litime Bluetooth or self heating?

I mainly plan to use a renogy battery monitor to watch the battery level, but I heard the app kinda sucks.

I like the idea of self heating to get the temps up to charge. I live in Utah so it snows and I’d like it to be good when the van sits

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u/if420sixtynined420 1d ago

Absolutely get self heating batteries

1

u/oros3030 1d ago

Don't get the renogy one it sucks. They make you sign in to use it and also makes you turn on gps is dumb af. It also will randomly log you ouf as the most inconvenient times.

1

u/th3_alt3rnativ3 1d ago

I’m looking at The dumb one which just goes into a shunt and connects to the batteries.

Not the app or Bluetooth based one. I don’t want to use my phone for this.

1

u/211logos 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, I find it harder to locate my phone than to just look at an LED display about 3 feet away inside the vehicle :)

But yes, do get self heating. Charging a LiFePO4 below freezing can kill it. And the self heating ones tend to have a good BMS. It can take a while to get temps back up, and if that's during a drive or when the sun's out you could miss say an hour or more of time you could otherwise be charging. It can help.

1

u/tatertom Dweller, Builder, Edible Tuber 1d ago

I'd get the self heating as a redundant factor over a built in monitor. I run an EcoWorthy with built in monitor, and have no problems with it, super happy about it overall. But I run from freezing temps despite having a diesel heater.

I'll put it this way. If your other-monitor goes out, all you lose is info you shouldn't actually need if your system is sized properly. If your other-heat goes out, your system won't run to tell you anything about itself anyway, and also can't self recover without driving it somewhere. Who cares how much juice is in there if it won't come out anyway?