We have a 60′ narrowboat which (in my opinion) is asking for a tech upgrade. There’s plenty of systems on board that have opportunities to be upgraded with monitoring and control tech. Some environment monitoring would be good to have as humidity levels on a boat can be all over the place, which can easily lead to damp areas.
The boat systems currently include (from back to front (stern to bow)),
- Diesel Engine
- Diesel heating system for hot water and heating
- Leisure Batteries
- AC power
- Toilet tank
- Bathroom stuff
- Lighting
- Gas oven and hob
- Fridge freezer
- Washing machine
- Kitchen sink
- Fresh water pump and tank
- Air source heat pump
- Bow thruster
- Navigation lights and horn
- Starlink
So I’d love to try and add some smarts to these systems to be able to monitor them and alert if anything is untoward. I’d also like to add solar and CCTV
Most narrowboats we have seen have some smart electrical power systems and maybe a remote start for the heating system. These usually comprise of a Victron power system which can be accessed through their app. This would do everything from battery charging and maintenance, solar control and inverting the DC to AC for mains power. For the remote heating system, Webasto (who make our diesel heater) have a GSM module that can be attached to the heater to remotely control it. This relies on a subscription to Webasto’s service, which at the time of writing is €34.99 a year.
So I think the plan is going to be to host a home assistant instance and lots sensors to monitor all the things. Then we can setup automations and alerts with remote control and monitoring. But we need to be conscious that this setup will require power, which is a limited resource on the boat.
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