Monitor car battery voltage remotely | FerrariChat

Monitor car battery voltage remotely

Discussion in '458 Italia/488/F8' started by 720, May 22, 2018.

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  1. 720

    720 F1 Rookie

    Jul 14, 2003
    2,623
    So. Cal and No. Utah
    Full Name:
    Rick
    I have been storing my Ferraris at a friend's shop all winter for the past few years. I attach CTEK battery tenders to keep the batteries from going dead. Last year, someone unplugged one of my CTEK tenders and nobody noticed so my battery eventually died. Not the end of the world, but I'd prefer to keep the battery charged.

    I was curious if there was a way to monitor my battery voltage remotely. I searched around, and I was surprised that I only found a couple things. Deltran (the battery tender people) have a relatively new product called a "wireless battery monitor" that attaches directly to the battery. It sounded like exactly what I was looking for. The only problem was it was awful. I could not get it to work at all, and customer service wasn't very helpful.

    I kept looking, and I found another gadget called CarLock (www.carlock.co). This is a "real-time car tracking and alert system" that plugs into the ODB-II port and communicates with CarLock's cloud and your iPhone via cellular network. Bingo! The CarLock device has an accelerometer, a GPS antenna and a GSM antenna, and it does a lot of interesting things such as tracking your car (updated every 30 seconds) notifying you with push notifications when the engine starts, when the vehicle moves, when a vibration is detected, etc. You can also set things up to notify you when it detects harsh acceleration braking, cornering, etc. (parents with teenage drivers need CarLock). But there only feature that I really wanted is something they call "Virtual Mechanic". The carLock device monitors the car's battery voltage, and they claim it will notify you when it detects a drop in battery voltage. I have not been able to get CarLock to notify me when the battery voltage drops. I've talked to customer service a dozen times, and they told me it was a glitch hat they are working on. I hope they fix the bug, but even if they don't the Carlock device still monitors the battery voltage and you can check it manually using the CarLock app on your iPhone. In spite of not receiving battery voltage notifications, I still like CarLock. I attached a screen grab of the battery voltage display. I don't mind checking the battery status manually when my Ferraris are in storage.

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  2. Barry P.

    Barry P. Karting

    Nov 22, 2016
    94
    Milton Keynes
    Full Name:
    Barry
    CTEK also do a battery monitor called the CTEK Sense, it uses Bluetooth to send the info to an app on your phone. You need to be in range to check the voltage but it seems accurate and works well.
     
  3. 720

    720 F1 Rookie

    Jul 14, 2003
    2,623
    So. Cal and No. Utah
    Full Name:
    Rick
    Yes, I forgot to mention CTEK. It seems I'm rarely within Bluetooth range of anything. Story of my life :)

    I'm usually 700 miles away from my cars when they're in storage, so I was happy to find that Carlock uses cellular.

     
  4. Melvok

    Melvok F1 World Champ
    Owner Silver Subscribed

    Jul 25, 2008
    14,115
    Amersfoort, The Netherlands, Europe.
    Full Name:
    Mel
    Price of all together with GSM contract Rick ?
     
  5. 720

    720 F1 Rookie

    Jul 14, 2003
    2,623
    So. Cal and No. Utah
    Full Name:
    Rick
    Hi. Amazon has them for $49, and then it's $9.60 per month to cover the cellular costs, etc. No contracts. Cancel anytime. I only need the battery monitoring feature when my Ferraris are stored away for the winter.

     
  6. Melvok

    Melvok F1 World Champ
    Owner Silver Subscribed

    Jul 25, 2008
    14,115
    Amersfoort, The Netherlands, Europe.
    Full Name:
    Mel
    Yes, as remote it would be THE THING imo … please notify us when it does work Rick :)
     
  7. 720

    720 F1 Rookie

    Jul 14, 2003
    2,623
    So. Cal and No. Utah
    Full Name:
    Rick
    Hi. Please allow me to clarify. The CarLock device works very well. It constantly monitors the battery voltage, and users can quickly see a graphical display of the voltages on their smartphones. This is really all that is necessary for me to keep an eye on my batteries wile my Ferraris are in long term storage.

    However, CarLock advertises that they monitor the voltages and "send an alert" if/when the voltage gets low. It's the notification feature that seems to have a bug. CarLock tech support told me that this feature has a bug, and they are working on it. I asked them to please notify me when they fix the bug. I haven't heard anything yet...

    Regardless, the CarLock devise works very well, and I have not found any other product that allows me to monitor battery status remotely.

     

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