Dawn of the digital caravan

You’ve been out for dinner and it’s wet and dark. So rather than leave your caravan or motorhome’s exterior lights burning, you simply pull out your smartphone and switch them on via Wi-Fi as you approach…

It’s remote, stinking hot and you’re travelling on never-ending corrugations but you worry whether your caravan fridge is keeping its cool or waging a losing battle against heat. So you check your smartphone app again and you have the answer.

Or the bung falls out of your fresh water tank and you receive an alert while driving that you’re running low on the vital fluid.

It’s ‘smart technology’, but it’s not new to the marine or emergency vehicle industries – only to Aussie caravanners, where digital switching is still a rarity. Welcome to the digital age!

We encountered it recently when reviewing the latest 23ft Graceland Van Cruiser flagship model and the scales peeled from our eyes.

Outside, the Graceland is a fairly conventional-looking tandem axle caravan, with traditional Van Cruiser chiseled, upright styling, but where this luxury van broke new ground was with its compact multi-functional FinScan touch-screen console wall-mounted just inside the door.

On the Move caravans currently fits a FinScan system to its $78,990 Traxx off-roader, while Sunliner, Elite and New Age are amongst a dozen or so other local builders to have dabbled with the technology, but for Van Cruiser it was their first application.

What makes the Australian-developed and built FinScan a feature of the future for the caravan industry, is that it controls all the principle DC electronics of a caravan in a single unit.

So instead of having a separate battery level and charging monitor, others for solar input, fresh and grey water levels, plus a myriad of switches to turn on your water pump, interior, reading and exterior lights, one compact programmable digital head unit links them all via a simple touch screen console. Then in the future you can expect to monitor your tyres, turn your caravan’s reversing camera on and off at will, etc.

If this sounds scary to the technologically challenged, it can be simplified to suit your specific needs.

For example you can sync multiple functions to one touch button, with (say) your selection of your caravan’s interior lights programmed to come on under ‘Night’, or those outside under ‘BBQ’ or ‘Mood’, with other appropriate functions able to be activated under ‘Travel’ and so on.

Even better, these various functions can be controlled from the smartphone app that pairs by Wi-Fi with the FinScan system, so when travelling on severe corrugations you can see if your trailer plug has jarred loose, or your fridge door has come open.

The system’s ability to operate in some of the harshest environments on earth, from extreme off-road motorhomes in Russia to ocean-going powerboats, seems to have been established, so the FinScan’s makers say it’s virtually ‘bullet-proof’ for use in remote area, off-road caravans.

As its design is based on simple electronics with a fancy interface, its functions can be over-ridden manually if required, providing a balance between new technology and old-school common sense.

The other comforting feature for remote area caravanners is that, like an electric car, it will start shutting down 12v equipment sequentially to protect your batteries and maintain essential power for things like your water pump, fridge, etc -- if for some reason your system is not getting enough charge through your tow vehicle’s trailer plug or solar panels.

According to Van Cruiser’s Enzo Gnocato, the FinScan is quite simple to install in a new caravan and probably takes less than a day to retrofit to an existing one, as the cabling that connects the various functions primarily runs at floor level, rather than through the walls – a problem with the latest solid composite walled vans.

All this sounds expensive, but a FinScan system in a new van will most likely cost you around $2000-$2500, depending on the number of functions it performs.

Yet if you subtract the cost of the various tank, battery monitors and switches that become redundant when a FinScan is fitted, the net extra cost is likely to be closer to $400-$500 according to FinScan’s sole Australian distributor, the Logix Group, based in Avoca Beach, NSW.

The other feature about new technology such as digital switching, is that by fitting it now you’re effectively ‘future-proofing’ your caravan.

Just as now it’s hard to sell a touring caravan without a separate shower and toilet ensuite, or even a washing machine, we can see the day when digital technology will become a ‘must’ in new vans.

Don’t wait too long; the future is already here!