Much promised, little kept
For me on board, the Pico Blue is now running for about 5 months and runs parallel to a Victron BMV 702. The general installation was easy. This also applies to the wiring of the main shunt and the modules with each other. The display really high quality, almost like Apple product. It becomes problematic if, for example, you try to interconnect inputs of the SCQ-25 in parallel and to configure them as one input. The first is somehow, even if it is not described - the operating and installation instructions are very very poor and answered not all that you need to know about the installation and operation - in the latter fails then the Pico. If, for example, I connect two 25A inputs so that they should be able to display the yield of the solar system with a solar controller, these are still listed as two inputs in the display. The same applies to the wind generator, which also requires two inputs because it sometimes produces over 25A. The alarms in the Pico Blue are not working and sometimes can not be configured. Only the app, which is also extremely flawed, occasionally produces an alarm. There are many more things that I could list here that do not work. For example, the history display. The programmer has simply rationalized away. Even if advertised on the Simarine website. That goes for many more ads that are being promoted. I was in contact with the manufacturer, who advised me by a firmware update. That was 4 months ago. Since then nothing has been heard of him ... on emails Simarine does not react anymore. The most important, however, last. What about the accuracy of the SOC display and the estimated current values of the different shunts? The SOC (State of charge) display itself is a reasonable idea. But only if it uses a single charger whose behavior he can learn. With me on board there are many different charge controllers (solar, wind, sterling, shore power etc.). All have a slightly different charging behavior. The result is that the Pico in the end no longer knows when the batteries are actually charged to 100%. This must be done manually, or you ignore this behavior. The power display of the mainshunts is very accurate. The same applies to the voltage display. However, the current display of the SCQ25 is pretty much out of place with all 4 inputs. The barometer always shows 4Hpa too much. The temperature display is accurate. The level indicator is extremely dependent on a good calibration and not easy to adjust. After many hours of trying and quite a few calibration points, I managed that pretty well. Oh yes. Caution is also required if you decide on a Blue Package. With me the package was complete. For two others from my acquaintance was the wrong shunt (301 instead of 501) in the package or lacked the SCQ25. Since the Blue package is not packaged by SVB and presumably comes from China, you should definitely check it. My conclusion Pretty device that looks stylish. For temperatures and levels certainly very well suited. Also good to monitor large power consumers such as coolbox, freezer and generators (wind, solar). For battery monitoring, however, only very suitable. The actual values deviate very much from the reality. Here I prefer to stay with the BMV-702.