Good to see progress. Interestingly, I see no sign of an external communication port on their batteries in the picture. Maybe they are indeed relying on Bluetooth …
I’m pretty sure they are doing exactly that. If so, classic example of sizzle to fool the unwary, rather than sausage to make the system better. “Give ’em a phone app and the suckers will buy it every time”.
Conor Smith
May 3, 2023 2:48 am
There is a Hub that connects to each battery with bluetooth. That hub monitors each battery SOC, charge rate, balancing status, ect and aggregates the data. It connects with CAN, N2k, and bluetooth to other devices, including having programable relays to set off various alarms or trigger contactors.
You know this for sure? If so, please link me to your source. I don’t think that’s yet finalized. I also don’t like the idea of using bluetooth for process control. Bluetooth, while fine for monitoring, is not a mission critical method for process control. They mention “mesh” which is WiFi, but even then a hard wire would be safer.
Panbo seems to have more detail on the system than is publicly available from Dragonfly. Here’s a quote from the article: “The Hub allows connectivity to other devices via BlueTooth, NMEA 2000, RV-C, Victron’s VE.Bus, and Ethernet.”
What isn’t clear is how the batteries connect to the Hub. A Dragonfly video indicates a wireless mesh.
There is no plan to make all of their existing batteries interoperable with the new system.
Lots of claims, I agree, no product yet though. I fear we are seeing a lot of vapour ware here. In my view Battle Born have a history of focusing on sizzle to sell, rather than sausage to make the system robust. These are the people that told us that all we had to do was “drop in” when that was not true or safe on a boat: https://www.morganscloud.com/2022/04/25/why-lithium-battery-load-dumps-matter/
If it were say Victron or Mastervolt, companies with a long term recored of fully functioning systems, I would be way less sceptical.
Good to see progress. Interestingly, I see no sign of an external communication port on their batteries in the picture. Maybe they are indeed relying on Bluetooth …
Hi Richard,
I’m pretty sure they are doing exactly that. If so, classic example of sizzle to fool the unwary, rather than sausage to make the system better. “Give ’em a phone app and the suckers will buy it every time”.
There is a Hub that connects to each battery with bluetooth. That hub monitors each battery SOC, charge rate, balancing status, ect and aggregates the data. It connects with CAN, N2k, and bluetooth to other devices, including having programable relays to set off various alarms or trigger contactors.
Hi Conor,
You know this for sure? If so, please link me to your source. I don’t think that’s yet finalized. I also don’t like the idea of using bluetooth for process control. Bluetooth, while fine for monitoring, is not a mission critical method for process control. They mention “mesh” which is WiFi, but even then a hard wire would be safer.
Panbo seems to have more detail on the system than is publicly available from Dragonfly. Here’s a quote from the article: “The Hub allows connectivity to other devices via BlueTooth, NMEA 2000, RV-C, Victron’s VE.Bus, and Ethernet.”
What isn’t clear is how the batteries connect to the Hub. A Dragonfly video indicates a wireless mesh.
There is no plan to make all of their existing batteries interoperable with the new system.
Hi Mike,
Lots of claims, I agree, no product yet though. I fear we are seeing a lot of vapour ware here. In my view Battle Born have a history of focusing on sizzle to sell, rather than sausage to make the system robust. These are the people that told us that all we had to do was “drop in” when that was not true or safe on a boat: https://www.morganscloud.com/2022/04/25/why-lithium-battery-load-dumps-matter/
If it were say Victron or Mastervolt, companies with a long term recored of fully functioning systems, I would be way less sceptical.
I agree there is little published about the system and the details are still being worked out.
Search for: Dragonfly intelLIgence Hub. The best source, although relatively brief, still appears to be this PDF:
https://s201.q4cdn.com/601240956/files/Dragonfly-IntelLigence-Announcement-Presentation-V7-01.14.2023.pdf