Watch out boys & girls there is a new Sheriff in town and his aim is better than the old Sheriff!!
Seriously, the Smart Gauge is a pretty amazing tool. It should be noted that I am a die hard skeptic, go figure.. Thus, when new toys like this come along I need to see, touch, poke, prod, test and put them through the paces.
As a result of my skepticism I just finished multiple MONTHS of testing the Smart Gauge. I tested it on AGM, FLA (flooded lead acid), GEL and LiFePO4 batteries.
Suffice it to say that it does exactly what it says it says it does with AGM, GEL and FLA batteries. This is great!
It falls flat on its face with LiFePO4 batteries, but this was to be expected because LiFePO4 has such a flat voltage curve as to be apparently unlearn-able. I suspect if an algorithm was created specifically for LFP batteries it may eventually learn the bank, but I doubt Smart Gauge will do that...
PHOTO: The Smart Gauge is plain & simple, it has no ammeter and only shows battery SOC for the house bank and voltage for an AUX bank. Here is is showing the bank at 92% SOC. In the mindset of keep it simple voltage is displayed in 0.05V increments and SOC, displayed as "C", from 0-100%. That is all it does, see, simple. The difference is it does it accurately and tracks SOC regardless of temperature, battery age etc.. The longer you use the Smart Gauge, and leave it connected to the bank, the more accurate it becomes.