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Nomad 1.9 Release

Richard Brown
Richard Brown
CTO & Founder

Applies to: Nomad Release Track: Stable Version: 1.9 Requires action: No

Summary​

This is the release where your van starts looking out for you. It watches the sky before you set off, keeps the recovery number to hand if you break down, tells the people you love when you press SOS, and quietly takes care of the fiddly setup jobs so you can get on with the trip.

Weather and solar​

The weather where you are​

A new Weather card shows the weather now (temperature, wind and gusts, humidity, rain, UV and air quality), any official weather warnings, and the next few days. It follows the van: move somewhere new and it catches up. Add it in Design Mode from the Weather group; the first time, it asks you to turn it on, because it sends the van's rough position to do its job. See Weather and solar forecast.

How much your solar panels will make​

Tell Sensa the size of your panels and it forecasts how much charge they will make today and tomorrow, where the van is. The forecast shows on the solar part of the power flow on the Electric tab, and on each day of the Weather card. Add your Battery size and it tells you how much of your battery that would fill. Turn it on in Settings, Vehicle, on the new Solar card. It covers Europe. See Solar forecast.

On the road​

Breakdown cover on the Cab​

A Breakdown tile on Cab Home puts everything the recovery call asks for on one screen: your provider, its number (and the one to ring from abroad), your policy, your registration, where the van is, and its size. Add your cover in mySensa on your phone, under your vehicle. You get a reminder 30 days and 7 days before it renews. See Breakdown.

SOS tells your emergency contacts​

Add your emergency contacts in mySensa, on the Emergency page. When you hold SOS, everyone with an e-mail address is e-mailed at once, and you are told who was reached. If the van has no signal, the alert goes as soon as it is back in range. Texts cannot be sent yet. See Scenes.

Start a flat starter battery from your Orion XS​

If the starter battery is too flat to start the engine, a Victron Orion XS connected to a Cerbo GX can charge it from your leisure battery for a few minutes. Press Charge beside the starter battery on the Electrical power flow, read the warning, and the button counts you down to Ready. It needs Orion firmware 1.15 or later. See Charge a flat starter battery.

Your network​

Config Network sets your router up for you​

On a Teltonika router, Config Network used to tell you what was not right. Now it puts it right. It shows what it would change, with separate networks for your own devices, smart devices, cameras and guests, and nothing happens until you press Fix. It is all or nothing: if anything goes wrong part way, your router is put back exactly as it was. A Teltonika TSW202 switch is set up in the same step, and with Nerd Mode on you can drag networks onto the router's sockets. If you would rather run the router yourself, simply do not use it: Sensa now shows your own networks under their own names. See Config Network.

Campsite Wi-Fi as your internet​

Press Join a Wi-Fi under Order of use on the Network tab, pick a campsite's, marina's or your Starlink's own Wi-Fi, type its password and press Connect. It joins your list of internet connections, and you drag it to where you want it. See Joining a Wi-Fi.

eSIM data from the van​

If your Teltonika router has an eSIM, the Network tab gets an eSIM card showing how much data you have used and how much is left. Buy data lets you pick a plan and pay on your phone from a QR code. Add your own eSIM installs one you bought elsewhere, the same way. See eSIM data.

Getting started​

A new system walks you through setting up​

The first time you sign in to a new system, or after a factory reset, a Setup Wizard takes you through your licence, tracking, your update window, the Settings PIN, your units, and the weather and solar forecast. It takes a couple of minutes. A system that was already running does not show it. See Setup Wizard.

Heating and climate​

Your heaters​

  • Autoterm's own names. The Air's modes now match its panel, with two more: Heat + Ventilation and Thermostat. See Heating.
  • Starting, not Standby. While a heater starts up, its card says Starting.
  • A bigger Diagnostics popup, in tabs. Its report tells you if the Heater Model you set looks wrong. The test runs are now on an Engineer tab for heater engineers, behind its own PIN.
  • Heater controllers stay put. A controller no longer puts up its own setup Wi-Fi every time your router restarts, and finds its way back onto your Wi-Fi by itself if it loses it.
  • Diesel days left makes sense. It stays hidden until your heaters have run enough to give a figure of a year or less, rather than showing a silly number.

SensaClimate​

  • Heating with the air conditioner on batteries. With no outside temperature sensor chosen, an air conditioner that can heat now does so on batteries whenever the charge is above Heats above. Before, the diesel heater always took over. See Heating with the air conditioner.
  • Routines can set the SensaClimate temperature.
  • The lock and power buttons have moved into the Climate Control box's header.

New devices​

  • Foxygen leisure batteries, 105Ah to 460Ah, read over Bluetooth. Sensa reads the size from the battery itself.
  • Sensa Dial, a round touch screen in a rotary knob: turn it to set the heating, dim the lights, read the tanks or the battery, or use it as a bedside clock.
  • Moes 4 gang switch: every button, and every single, double or held press, can start its own routine.
  • Aqara H1 double rocker: left, right or both rockers, with single, double, triple and held presses.
  • Aqara Cube T1 Pro: flip it, leave it still or turn it. Turning it can dim a light or set the temperature, with the new Dim by turn and Temperature by turn actions in Routines.
  • Gledopto 5-in-1 LED controller, now the Zigbee LED controller we recommend. Sensa reads which kind of strip it is set for and shows the right controls.
  • Shelly Plus RGBW PM, a Wi-Fi LED controller: one colour light, or four separate white lights, each with its own card on the Lighting tab.
  • A USB GPS plugged into your Sensa unit can be the van's GPS, for a van whose router has none. See Navigation.
  • The Teltonika RUTM11 and RUTM11 eSIM routers are now recognised by name.

Smaller changes​

  • Two update switches. With Nerd Mode off, Software updates shows just Sensa updates and Vendor firmware, each with one switch.
  • Zigbee updates you can trust. Zigbee devices are offered only firmware we have checked, and it installs only when you press Update now. See Zigbee devices.
  • More devices on every tier. Nomad Base now takes up to 50 devices and Nomad Pro up to 100, including vans bought before the change.
  • Solar per charge controller. With more than one solar charge controller, Home and the History tab show what each one made, stacked, with a key.
  • Battery amps. The battery on the power flow now shows amps as well as watts.
  • Van Level setup is simpler. Three settings, Front, Left and Up, replace the six there were, and a live bubble level beside them shows whether you have it right. Your existing setting is kept.
  • Clearer names. A newly paired Zigbee device is named after what it is, such as Moes 4 Gang Zigbee Switch, rather than a string of numbers. Long names are cut short with "..." instead of pushing buttons off the card.
  • Pictures from your phone. A large photo uploaded in Images is shrunk to fit, rather than refused for being too big.
  • Diagnostics. On a new system the diagnostics switches start on, and the Setup Wizard shows you each one. The device list sends only the make and model of your devices, never the names you gave them.
  • Tracking from a phone. While Use a phone when the van has no GPS is on, Settings reminds you that Tracking follows the phone, not the van.
  • Design Mode. Add card groups the gallery more clearly, with a new Weather group, and Automation is now Intelligence. A card you add appears straight away, before you press Save.

Fixes​

  • Removed devices leave nothing behind. Deleting a device now removes all of its readings and controls, which could otherwise come back after a restart, and a factory reset now clears every device. A board's own status light no longer shows up among your lights.
  • SensaClimate after removing a unit. Removing a heater or air conditioner clears it from SensaClimate, rather than leaving No longer reporting in the dropdown for ever.
  • Multi-button switches. Routines on some multi-button Zigbee switches could fire on the wrong button, or not at all. They now fire on the button you chose.
  • Finding devices. Discovery waits longer for slow devices, so it misses fewer. A Victron Cerbo on a busy network is now found, and stays listed if one scan is slow. An SMLIGHT Zigbee coordinator is found on a separate smart-device network too.
  • The van's GPS. A router added after a restart is used for the van's position straight away, rather than after the next restart.
  • Router password. A wrong router password is now caught when you save it and says Wrong admin password., rather than being stored and locking the router out after repeated tries.
  • Home Assistant's own menu. Some new units showed Home Assistant's sidebar and its settings on the tablets. It is hidden again for every login.
  • Devices list. After Remove, the list sometimes still showed the device. A device ignored before it was added could get stuck under Ignored with no way to remove it. Both are fixed.