VanessaCharge

Setting up

VanessaCharge signs in with a Personal Access Token you create in VRM, rather than with your Victron password. That is why there is no account to make and nothing of ours in the middle — and it is why the first few minutes take some work. It is once per installation.

  1. Open the app and choose Get Started. The VanessaCharge welcome screen: a sun mark, the line Connect your Victron VRM installation to see live solar and battery data, and a Get Started button. See it at full size
  2. Choose Get a token. This is the Add Installation screen, and it is where you will end up again in a few steps. If you have already made a token in VRM, Paste token skips the trip to Victron’s site. The Add Installation screen with an empty VRM API Access Token section offering Get a token and Paste token, an Installation field reading Paste a token above first, and an Enable inverter control toggle switched off. See it at full size
  3. Sign in to VRM. Victron’s site opens inside the app. This is your normal Victron account, and the app never sees the password — the sign-in happens on Victron’s page, not ours. The Victron Remote Management sign-in page, open in a browser sheet inside the app, with an email address field and a Login button. See it at full size
  4. On the Access tokens page, choose Add. VRM takes you straight here after signing in. Any tokens you have already made are listed below the button. The VRM Access tokens page, with the signed-in address and the table of existing tokens greyed out, and an Add button beneath the description. See it at full size
  5. Give the token a name, and Save. The name is only there so you can recognise it later — “VanessaCharge” does the job. Leave the expiration date empty unless you want the app to stop working on a particular day.

    Copy the token now. VRM shows it once. There is no way to read it back afterwards, so if it gets lost the fix is to make another one and delete the one you cannot see — which costs nothing, and is worth knowing before you close the window.

    The Add an API access token dialog on the VRM site, with a Name field and an optional Expiration date field. See it at full size
  6. Back in the app, choose Paste token — and read the prompt. iOS asks whether VanessaCharge may paste from Safari, and the prominent blue button is the one that refuses. The one you want is “Allow Paste”, underneath it. An iOS prompt reading VanessaCharge would like to paste from Safari, with Don’t Allow Paste as a prominent blue button and Allow Paste as a plain button below it. See it at full size

    This prompt belongs to iOS, and the app can neither skip it nor restyle it. Answering it by reflex is the most common way setup goes wrong, and the symptom — a token field that stays empty — does not point at the cause.

  7. Choose Look up my installations. With a token in place, the app asks VRM what your account can see. There is no installation ID to find, though you can type one in if you would rather. The Add Installation screen with a token in place and the token value masked, offering Look up my installations and Enter installation manually instead. See it at full size
  8. Pick your installation, then Save. It is listed under the name it has in VRM. The same screen after looking up installations, listing one named Vanessa above Enter installation manually instead. See it at full size

Inverter control

The toggle at the bottom of that screen is off, and it is the one thing in the app that can change your system rather than read it. It is experimental. Leave it off unless you want it; turning it on later takes one tap.

Undoing it

The same Access tokens page in VRM lists every token you have made and can revoke any of them. Revoking cuts the app off immediately, and there is nothing to undo on the phone afterwards. Deleting the app takes the token and the cached trend data with it, and leaves your VRM installation untouched.

If a step does not go the way this page says it does, contact support. Never send the token itself.