Fogstar batteries, read directly

Before you start

Make sure your panel is on the latest software. Battery support improves with almost every release, and a panel a few versions behind may not recognise your battery. Update instructions are in the SavvyVan3 user guide.

A van uses one source of battery data - a SavvyShunt, or a battery that reports itself, never both. With a Fogstar battery you do not need a shunt, and fitting one anyway gives you two versions of the truth.

Name the battery first

The panel finds batteries by name, so give yours one that says what it is.

1. Open the Fogstar app on your phone and connect to the battery.
2. Tap the battery’s name at the top and change it to something that includes the word Fogstar - “My Fogstar Battery” is fine.
3. Disconnect and close the app. Only one thing can hold the connection at a time, and while your phone has it, the panel cannot.

Pairing it

1. On the panel, open Installer Settings and go to the device pairing screen - the one with Scan on the right-hand side.
2. Tap Scan and give it a few seconds to look around.
3. Tap the + beside your battery. It will be listed under the name you gave it in the app.
4. Wait for the symbol to turn blue. The battery moves into the list on the left, and the symbol beside it turning blue is the panel telling you it is connected.
5. Tap the home button. Your battery is now on the main screen, showing live data.

What you get

State of charge comes from the battery’s own management system, so it is a figure the battery is certain of rather than one inferred from voltage. Along with it you get how long is left at the current rate, live current in and out, voltage, watts, and the history behind them. The arrow under the ring points down in red while the battery is discharging, and up in green while it charges.

Disconnect for 60s, bottom right, lets go of the battery for a minute. A battery holds one connection at a time, so that is how you get into the Fogstar app without unpairing anything - the panel picks the battery up again on its own afterwards.

That data feeds the rest of the panel too: water heater control can use spare charge rather than leaving it in the battery.

Looking at the cells

Because the panel is talking to the battery’s management system rather than measuring from outside, it can also show you what is going on inside the pack. Under Battery Settings you get the number of cells, the average cell voltage, every individual cell voltage, the gap between the highest and lowest, whether the balancer is working and how hard, and the pack’s temperature sensors.

Most of the time you will never look at it. The one time it matters - a cell drifting away from the others, which is how a lithium pack usually starts to fail - you can see it on the van’s own screen, without a laptop and somebody else’s app.

If it does not appear

• Check the software version first. It is the most common cause by a mile.
• Close anything else that talks to the battery, including a phone app. A battery holds one connection at a time.
• Get closer. Pair from inside the van, near the battery, rather than from the other side of a metal wall.
• If the panel asked for a PIN and would not take it, check it in the Fogstar app - and if you have forgotten it, Fogstar’s support team can help.

Still nothing? Tell us what you are seeing - including the name the battery shows up as, if it shows up at all. That one detail usually settles it.