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wtf is boardstromtank?

pacificmeister/boardstromtank — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1PythonAudience · generalComplexity · 2/5Setup · moderate

TL;DR

A Venus OS driver that turns a Boardstrom Bluetooth radar tank sensor into a normal Victron tank reading on your GX display, VRM, and MQTT.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((BoardstromTank))
    What it does
      Reads radar sensor
      Publishes as Victron tank
      Shows on GX display
    Tech stack
      Python
      Bluetooth
      Venus OS
    Use cases
      Boat tank monitoring
      RV tank monitoring
      Remote VRM viewing
    Audience
      Boat owners
      RV owners
      Off grid users

Code map

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Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Show your boat or RV tank levels on a Victron Cerbo GX display without drilling extra holes for a sensor.

REASON 2

Monitor tank levels remotely through the VRM online portal or over MQTT for home automation.

REASON 3

Run several Boardstrom sensors at once, each appearing as its own tank on the display.

What's in the stack?

PythonVenus OSBluetoothD-BusMQTT

How it stacks up

pacificmeister/boardstromtank0xustaz/streamgatea-bissell/unleash-lite
Stars111
LanguagePythonPythonPython
Setup difficultymoderatehardhard
Complexity2/54/54/5
Audiencegeneraldeveloperresearcher

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires a Venus OS device with Bluetooth and, ideally, the PackageManager tool for the easiest install.

No license information is given in the README.

Wtf does this do

BoardstromTank is a small driver that lets a specific brand of tank sensor, the Boardstrom radar sensor, show up as a normal tank reading on a Victron Energy system. If you have a boat, camper van, or off grid setup with a Cerbo GX or similar Victron display running Venus OS, this project makes your water or fuel tank levels appear on that display, on the touch screen, in the VRM online portal, and over MQTT, the same way a wired sensor would. The Boardstrom sensor is a battery powered radar unit you fit to a tank without drilling extra holes. It measures the distance from the top of the tank to the liquid surface and sends that reading out over Bluetooth about once a minute. This driver runs on the Venus OS device, listens passively for that Bluetooth broadcast using the standard BlueZ Bluetooth stack, and turns it into a proper Victron tank entry. It does not connect to the sensor or interfere with it in any way, so the sensor keeps talking to its own companion app at the same time. Setup does not require editing configuration files. The easiest path is installing PackageManager first, a separate tool that manages Victron add-ons, then adding BoardstromTank as a package by entering the author's GitHub username and the package name. A manual install over SSH is also documented for people comfortable with the command line. Once running, the tank appears automatically in the Venus OS device list within a minute of the sensor broadcasting, using rough default calibration. To get accurate readings, you open the tank's setup page on the GX and enter two distance measurements, one for empty and one for full, while watching the live distance value update on the same screen. The project supports multiple sensors at once, each becoming its own tank on the display. It is described by its author as beta software, tested so far on a Raspberry Pi 4 running Venus OS. Support is offered through a Reddit community and a direct email address, and a log file lets you watch what the sensor is broadcasting if a tank fails to appear.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Help me install PackageManager on my Venus OS Cerbo GX so I can add the BoardstromTank driver.
Prompt 2
Walk me through calibrating my Boardstrom tank sensor using the empty and full distance readings.
Prompt 3
Explain how to troubleshoot a Boardstrom tank sensor that isn't showing up in my Venus OS device list.
Prompt 4
Show me how to manually install BoardstromTank over SSH on my Venus OS device.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is boardstromtank?

A Venus OS driver that turns a Boardstrom Bluetooth radar tank sensor into a normal Victron tank reading on your GX display, VRM, and MQTT.

What language is boardstromtank written in?

Mainly Python. The stack also includes Python, Venus OS, Bluetooth.

What license does boardstromtank use?

No license information is given in the README.

How hard is boardstromtank to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is boardstromtank for?

Mainly general.

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