BM6 Battery Monitor Review
Batteries, that’s our thing. And not just them, but products for charging them, testing them, boosting, then and monitoring them.
With that in mind, here is our BM6 Battery Monitor review.
What is it, then?
It’s a product you attach to your car/leisure vehicle/storage battery, and it gives you the info you need to keep an eye on the battery, and make sure it doesn’t run out on you!
Here’s the price and specs for the BM6 on Amazon, for those who want to check it out first, and then read the review.
BM6 Battery Monitor
- Voltage: 12V
- Battery types: Lead-acid, all kinds
- No. batteries monitored: 4
- Dimensions: 15.8 x 12.9 x 2.5cm
- Weight: 60g
What was the basis for our BM6 Battery Monitor review?
We tested and evaluated it for the following characteristics:
- Usefulness and suitability to its purpose
- Accuracy of voltage testing
- Ease of use of the App
- Ease of installation
- Helpfulness of additional features beyond monitoring the battery
Rating the BM6 12V Battery Monitor
Here’s where we tell exactly what we liked and didn’t like about this 12V battery monitor.
BM6 Battery Monitor
Pros and who this 12V battery monitor is best for:
Really useful for tracking battery voltage changes
You can see at a glance how your 12V battery is doing. If voltage is starting to get low you can predict when you need to take action to charge the battery or give the car a run, for example. The SoC is great for people who don’t really get what the battery voltage means – a simple percentage so you can see how the battery charge % is going up and down.
The BM6 won’t drain your battery
This is crucial. It’s pretty pointless if the device you bought to make sure your battery charge doesn’t get too low… actually drains the battery itself! That’s not the case here; in fact with 1.5mA current draw, it’s hardly draining it all, that’s really low. This is a serious advantage over other battery monitors, which can drain at as much as 10 times higher a rate.
The App connects well and works well
These types of product have been known to suffer from connection issues between the Bluetooth emitting device and the App. No such worries here with the BM6 monitor, it connected absolutely fine every time. And as for its fitness for purpose, it does exactly the jobs you want it to. Clear simple Voltage values, percentages for state of charge, and so on, that you need to identify the current state of the battery.
Genuinely simple to install
Unscrew the screw nut on each battery terminal, insert the connectors. Then retighten the screw nut. Peel off the sticker and stick it down. That’s literally it. As long as you have moderate strength in your wrists (to be able to unscrew then tighten the screw nut) and a spanner, you’re good to go.
Great Value
Given what you actually get, we think the BM6 car battery monitor is really excellent value. Probably the best thing is peace of mind about your battery. Most of us are pretty much blind as to the state of our battery – not good if we’re relying on it to provide us power when we’re far from home, for example. This way you can keep an eye on it and make sure to take action if voltage gets too low. Even beyond that, it’s quite feature packed. For this price, we’d maybe have just expected a very simple value for voltage and state of charge at this moment. But graphs showing how voltage changes over time is really good, valuable information. Then, you can see temperature and how that affects the battery. There’s the State of Charge over time as well. And up to 4 batteries measured at the same time.
Cons and why it may not be for you:
The App is a bit odd in some ways
We’ve covered the BM6 App as an advantage, as it connects well and can be used perfectly effectively. But we wouldn’t say it’s Apple levels of UX design. For example, you’ll choose between Regular Lead Acid, AGM or “Custom Battery”. Fair enough for the first two, but if you choose Custom Battery, you’re then left with 2 options: Intelligent power algorithm or Voltage corresponding to power. What does it mean?? Well of course, we did work it out in the end. Choosing the second option allows you to choose which voltage matches with a gives State of Charge (SoC). So for example, if you have a LiFePO4 battery, you can make 13.6V at 100% SoC, 13.3V is 90% SoC, and so on. In the end, this is fine, and is necessary to get accurate values for State of Charge for your battery. It’s not intuitive and as simple to set up as you’d ideally like.
Car finder function is hit and miss
In our testing, we found it worked absolutely fine sometimes and not at all other times. So if you’re buying the BM6 12V monitor expressly for this purpose, think again. Don’t see this function as anything other than an occasional little added bonus.
Where can you get it?
See the BM6 on Amazon, right here.
BM6 Battery Monitor Review Summary
Thanks for perusing our BM6 Battery Monitor Review.
As you read, it does the job well. It gives you your battery charge data, and therefore helps you keep track of how well, or otherwise your battery is doing. This gives you advance warning if charge is dropping steeply, and you can then charge it (perhaps using one of these smart battery chargers). You can also see over the longer term if battery charge is dropping very steeply very often. Then you’ll know its perhaps getting to the end of its useful life (and it’s good to know, since car battery replace costs can be high).
The App worked as expected, and most importantly, it connected very well.
The only pitfalls were a few strange aspects to the App (that are fine when you work out what they actually mean!) and the fairly unreliable Find My Car feature.
All in all, we thought, it’s pretty gosh darned good value at the price you’re paying for it.
All the best on deciding whether the BM6 12V monitor (check it out here) is right for you.