VanPi Provides the Tech to Upgrade Your #VanLife

If you somehow aren’t already familiar, #VanLife refers to the trend of living out of a van while traveling around the country or world — often while working along the way as a “digital nomad.” This lifestyle was already growing rapidly in popularity, but then exploded during the COVID pandemic as housing costs rose and people looked for ways to escape crowded urban areas. Technically speaking, one could live out of any van while sleeping in the back on a pile of clothes. But a major part of #VanLife is RV-style conversion and PeKaWay’s VanPi products can provide a technological edge.

The most popular vehicle among #VanLife folks is the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter cargo van, which provides lots of interior space. To make their Sprinter vans livable, most modern nomads choose to add many RV-style amenities like beds, showers, toilets, solar systems, TVs, kitchens, air conditioning, and much more. Those systems get complicated, and monitoring them and controlling them is not a trivial task. Even longtime players in the RV industry struggle to streamline these systems. For example, the heat and air conditioning in most RVs work independently with their own controls instead of sharing a thermostat like they do in a typical home.

PeKaWay’s VanPi is a Raspberry Pi-controlled system that can handle just about every device, appliance, and utility in a camper van, travel trailer, or RV. It’s a bit like a home automation and IoT (Internet of Things) system for four-wheel homes — in fact, it even works with Apple HomeKit. This is a complete and well-devised ecosystem of products that is both open source and expandable to accommodate most use cases.

It all starts with the VanPi Relay Board, which accepts either a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B or a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 and acts as interface for the various systems. As the name suggests, it contains relays (eight of them) for direct control over several systems. It can, for example, toggle power to heaters, lights, water pumps, and so on — anything that draws less than 10 amps. It also contains connections for up to four temperature sensors and four tank sensors (for fresh water, gray water, and/or black water). It also supports an LCD touchscreen interface so users can control everything from a central location.

Several add-on boards and modules expand the capability of the VanPi Relay Board. For example, the affordable Measurement Shunt board monitors battery voltage and sends the data back to the central Relay Board through an RJ11 cable. The DIMMY board contains eight MOSFETs controlled by a Wemos D1 for dimming lights. We expect PeKaWay to release other boards and modules in the future, though the current offerings can handle most vans.

Finally, the IoT Bridge module provides remote access to a VanPi system. It comes pre-installed with an international SIM card with two years of service (users can reload that for a fee). After adding the IoT Bridge, users can connect to and control their VanPi system through an iOS or Android app. Imagine being able to turn on your van’s heater as you’re finishing up your last run at a ski resort, so it is nice and warm when you get back—that’s possible right out of the box with the VanPi Relay Board and IoT Bridge.

These products are available now through PekaWay’s online store. There are also tutorials, documentation, and downloads available on their website to help you hack and tweak your VanPi products.