Shunt Test – Redarc Smart Battery Monitor

The Redarc Shunt is clearly a direct competitor to the Victron Smart Shunt, with an almost identical form factor. This could make it appealing for some people with mixed systems to swap to the Redarc version, however it’s not ready for that just yet.

Overall the build quality is expectedly good, and the familiarity of format will be good too. The M10 bolts do their job nicely. We find it surprising that they have opted for the manual shunt calibration method (i.e. cutting plates) instead of a software calibration which seems more appropriate for a device like this.

The overall accuracy and repeatability is ok and it had up to 3% variation against Victron which we used as a baseline. This doesn’t mean it was 3% wrong, it’s just a comparison. However we don’t yet see the claims of being “5 times more accurate” that have been touted. We also only have a sample size of one, so there’s a chance our unit was not indicative.

The App is quite a disappointment at this stage, but fortunately this is something Redarc can improve over time with updates. We do acknowledge that this is their entry into “Smart” devices, so let’s bring on some rapid updates and improvements. There are 2 App’s that are required. The first App is the RedVision Configurator to set the shunt up for use. The second is the RedVision App which is for monitoring. This decision is overly complex, Redarc please just have one App to do both. If you feel you need to protect certain settings, put in a password.

Changing settings seems clunky too, sliders instead of manual input makes for a tedious procedure. Saving settings also needs more than one step, sometimes resulting in settings not being saved. The SOC updating of the App seems to be unreliable, with it seemingly hanging which sometimes needs a restart of the App or even the entire Shunt. If there’s a power interruption, it can reset SOC down to 0% which is frustrating, it should remember the last figure.

There’s no Peukert setting, which while isn’t essential, it’s a simple thing to implement into software. There’s also no zero current setting, again not essential but it can be useful in certain situations (it can also be bad sometimes). We would like to see some better settings like their “competition” uses. And being Redarc we would expect an IP 65/67 rated version too, it’s an odd choice to come out with this IP 22 style. The positive cable has a nice M10 lug on the end however it also includes a temperature sensor and custom plug, this will make it difficult/impossible for anyone to extend it if they want/need to. There’s no inline fuse in the event of cable damage.

Our biggest gripe is the capacity reading. At this stage it seems like there’s only a SOC figure down to 1%. There’s no Ah remaining or used figure. One of these should be shown clearly like is done on most other shunts.

For those in the Redarc ecosystem, it’s probably a good choice. With some rapid updates perhaps it will come up to the standard of usefulness that has been claimed.