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Battery Drain - Reporting on low battery inside asset list

OHurs-1741
Original Poster

Hi All,

 

One of our clients is keen on reporting on when there asset battery is running low.

 

We really want something that will replicate the low battery set up on the asset list inside Geotab. But instead of relying on us to manually check the list every few hours, every time something pops up on that list we want an email.

 

Eg, if a vehicle is parked on the side of the road at a job site with the flashing lights going, the battery is going to drain over that period. We want to be notified that that is happening so we can contact the person operating the vehicle and ask them to start it up before it actually goes flat, therefore preventing the need to jump start and the inconvenience of having a vehicle that won't start.

The cranking voltage is only referencing the voltage when the engine starts, meaning we don't get the proactive notification before a vehicle is flat, just an alert that the engine is turning over and it's already too late.

 

Any ideas on the best way to report this?

 

Kind Regards,

Owen

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Top Answers

@EishiFUN​ It should work without ignition from what I can see. There's no ignition condition on the rule and GO devices do log significant voltage change when the ignition is off and the device is in sleep mode. I double checked what was being recorded when my battery died last year and it was definitely logging the voltage change despite the ignition being off:

 

2025-05-30 09_09_10-Measurements _ MypreviewGeotab — Mozilla FirefoxThe only issue I can see with the ignition being off is that it might only report the voltage when the device does it's next heartbeat, but if you're talking about stuff like lights draining the battery, the device should still be heartbeating every 30 minutes anyway.

5 Replies

EishiFUN
Geotabber

Hello @OHurs-1741​ ,

 

Thank you for asking your question in our community. I think this one may be hard to track since when the ignition is off the device is also not sending us any vehicle data. I wonder if @TonyFC-1053​  has tried to solve something like this and if he can share anything with us.

 

I will also look to see if I can find any information about someone who has solved this kind of issue before. I will let you know what I find.

 

Have a good one!

Eishi FUN

@OHurs-1741​ It seems like the default Battery Drain rule is what you're looking for, would this work for you?

2025-05-29 11_52_06-Rules _ MypreviewGeotab — Mozilla Firefox

EishiFUN
Geotabber

Thanks Tony. That rule still wont trigger until ignition though right?

@EishiFUN​ It should work without ignition from what I can see. There's no ignition condition on the rule and GO devices do log significant voltage change when the ignition is off and the device is in sleep mode. I double checked what was being recorded when my battery died last year and it was definitely logging the voltage change despite the ignition being off:

 

2025-05-30 09_09_10-Measurements _ MypreviewGeotab — Mozilla FirefoxThe only issue I can see with the ignition being off is that it might only report the voltage when the device does it's next heartbeat, but if you're talking about stuff like lights draining the battery, the device should still be heartbeating every 30 minutes anyway.

EishiFUN
Geotabber

Yes you are correct that rule should work. Sorry I was forgetting about the heartbeat that should be sending it. Thank you adding in your input as always it is greatly appreciated @TonyFC-1053​ 

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