Live a Smart #VanLife with This Open Source Project

As any #DigtalNomad influencer can tell you, a #VanLife vehicle is a lot more complicated than just a mattress thrown into the back of an old Ford Econoline. Those vans are, in essence, miniature RVs. And the small sizes force the designers to be even more cognizant of space utilization, resulting in greater complexity. Modern vans are often stuffed full of electronically controlled systems and monitoring them all can be overwhelming. That’s where the open source Smart Van project can help those living the #VanLife.

Smart Van is a project being developed by Roberto Pompermaier, who is a windsurfer, snowboarder, van owner, and IoT architect. JOD Smart Van is open source software, built on the John OS IoT platform, that Roberto created specifically for monitoring and controlling the systems commonly used in vans. The Smart Van project also includes hardware designs, like the SVBox IoT 1.0, to let users take advantage of the aforementioned software.

The Smart Van hardware and software come together to give the user complete control over their van’s systems, as well as the ability to monitor those systems from anywhere with cellular connectivity.

Imagine, for example, that you’re a rock climber and a dog owner. You leave your pup in the nice air-conditioned van while you go for a climb. But half way up the wall, a breaker trips and the air conditioner turns off. If you have Smart Van, you can get a notification on your phone so you can head back down ASAP. With the right hardware, you could even reset the breaker while hanging from rope.

Smart Van is perfect for situations like that. The amount of control it has over any given system will depend on that system’s hardware, but it can be a lot.

To get people started, Roberto designed the SVBox IoT 1.0. In its 3D-printed enclosure is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer that talks to the outside internet through a SIM7600 4G modem. That lets it communicate with the Smart Van app that runs on the user’s smartphone. That SIM7600 module also offers GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) positioning. The Raspberry Pi can monitor the van itself through a Bluetooth OBDII reader and can display basic information on a small screen. An uninterruptible power supply lets the system continue to run, even if the van loses power. Four physical buttons allow for some direct control without going through the app.

There are a variety of sensors and expansion modules available, depending on what the user wants to monitor. The biggest complications are systems with proprietary protocols. For instance, your solar controller may not want to talk to JOD Smart Van. But if this catches on, it is likely that the community will reverse engineer the most popular products out there. Even as it is, the Smart Van project is very promising.