Control the heater, monitor gas & battery — all in one app: CampMatic as your camper hub

Three questions decide whether a camping weekend is relaxed or stressful: Is it warm enough? Is there enough gas? Will the battery last? Anyone who knows the camper life also knows the rituals we otherwise use to answer them — a hand on the heater dial, lifting the gas bottle to guess, a multimeter on the battery terminals.

There is a better way today. With CampMatic you answer all three questions in a single app — and not just at the pitch, but from anywhere: from the sofa, from the office, from the beach. One device in the camper, three jobs: control the heater, monitor gas, monitor the battery.

This article shows how the three building blocks work together — and why together they are more than the sum of their parts.

The three building blocks at a glance

CampMatic originally started as a WiFi controller for the Truma Combi in the VW Grand California. A lot has been added since. Today a single CampMatic device covers three areas:

The key point: it is one device that handles all three jobs. No second box, no second power supply, no three different apps from three different manufacturers to swipe between.

Why three apps are the problem

In theory you could buy each function separately. A Truma solution for the heating, the official Mopeka app for gas, some BM2 app for the battery. In practice that has three catches:

• Bluetooth is local only. Both Mopeka and BM2 sensors broadcast over Bluetooth Low Energy — range about 10 metres. So with the manufacturer apps you only see the values when you are standing right next to the camper. From winter storage 200 km away you cannot reach them.
• Three apps, three logins, three logics. Every app looks different, each wants its own account, none talks to the other. There is no central "something is wrong in the camper" alert.
• No shared history. You cannot see whether the battery is sagging because the heater runs on gas all night — because the data sits in separate silos.

CampMatic is the bridge. The device in the camper reads the Bluetooth sensors, controls the Truma directly and sends everything bundled over WiFi or 4G to the cloud. From there the app, the Telegram bot and Home Assistant fetch the values — wherever the camper is parked.

The interplay: one winter camping evening

Theory is nice, an example is better. Picture an evening winter camping — the camper stands in the snow, you sit inside, it is −8 °C outside:

• 18:00 — via the app you set the Truma to 21 °C. The heater fires up and draws its gas from the main bottle.
• 22:00 — a look at the app before bed: gas still 34 %, leisure battery 12.6 V (75 %). Fine for the night. You set the heater to a 16 °C night setback.
• 03:00 — Telegram beeps: "Main gas bottle below 15 %." You roll over and keep sleeping — you now know: swap the bottle before breakfast, no nasty surprise in the freezing kitchen.
• 08:00 — bottle swapped, in the app you see the reserve bottle at 92 %. The battery survived the night at 12.3 V — all in the green.

That is exactly the point: none of the three pieces of information is revolutionary on its own. But together, in one app, with one alerting logic, they take away the constant "is everything still okay?" worry. You look once and you know — or you do not look at all, because Telegram gets in touch when it is needed.

When the heater hits the battery

Perhaps the most underrated benefit of bundling: you see connections that stay invisible in separate apps.

The Truma Combi heats with gas — but its fan, control electronics and, in combi mode, the water pump run off the 12 V onboard battery. A heater that runs all night in winter is therefore also a constant drain on the battery. In the CampMatic app you see both next to each other: if the battery curve drops more steeply overnight than usual, you immediately see the reason — and can act (check solar, connect shore power, set a lower night setback) before the battery slips into deep discharge.

Same with gas: you see not only that gas is being used, but at what rate — and can extrapolate whether the bottle lasts the weekend or whether you should bring the reserve.

Several sensors, no problem

For both gas and battery, CampMatic supports several sensors at once (1..n). Typical setups:

• Twin-bottle system — a Mopeka sensor on the main and reserve bottle each. You see both separately and always know which bottle is currently in use.
• Leisure + starter battery — a BM2 on each. If the starter battery drops unexpectedly (faulty split relay? forgotten load?), you notice before the engine refuses.
• The full setup — Truma + 2× Mopeka + 2× BM2, all on one device, all in one app. Each sensor gets its own name and its own card with live value and history.

Everything ends up in one place

Whether heating status, gas level or battery voltage — the values reach you through the same three channels:

• CampMatic app — one overview with cards for heating, each gas bottle and each battery, plus history charts (24 h to 90 days).
• Telegram bot — push warnings on thresholds and ad-hoc queries by command (e.g. /status, /gas, /battery).
• Home Assistant & MQTT — all sensors appear automatically as entities via MQTT auto-discovery. Build your own dashboards and automations ("if gas < 20 % and battery < 50 %, send a message to the tablet"). More on this: Truma in Home Assistant via MQTT.

Which CampMatic device do I need?

The answer hinges on a single question: do you also want to control the Truma heater — or only monitor?

You have a Truma and want to control it

Then the CampMatic Truma controller is right. Heating control, gas and battery monitoring are all already built in — you only add the sensors you want.

• GC_HW01 (WiFi) — €149
• GC_HW_GSM01 (4G) — €189, for campers without WiFi

You "just" want to monitor gas and battery

No Truma, a Webasto/Alde, or simply no smart heating control wanted? Then take CampMatic Guard — same app, same Telegram bot, same MQTT connection, just without the Truma control:

• CM_LC_01 (WiFi) — €59
• CM_LC_GSM01 (4G) — €89, for campers without WiFi

Both paths land in the same app, the same Telegram bot and the same Home Assistant. The only difference is whether the Truma control is on board.

What does the complete setup cost?

Note: Mopeka and BM2 sensors are not included. We do not sell them ourselves — but you can get them easily in retail (Mopeka approx. €50–70, BM2 approx. €15–25 each).

Conclusion

Heating, gas, battery — these are the three lifelines of every camper. Individually they can be monitored, but only together, in one app, with one alerting logic do you get that good feeling of having the camper under control at all times, without constantly checking.

CampMatic bundles all three on one device: Truma directly wired, Mopeka and BM2 over Bluetooth, everything onward over WiFi or 4G to app, Telegram and Home Assistant. If you want to control the Truma, take the Truma controller from €149; if you only want to monitor, the Guard from €59. In both cases you end up seeing the same thing: a calm camper that lets you know when there is really something to do.

→ CampMatic Truma WiFi (GC_HW01) — heating + gas + battery, €149

→ CampMatic Guard WiFi (CM_LC_01) — monitor gas + battery, €59

Not sure which device and sensors suit your camper? Check the help or write to us via the contact form — we help you put it together.