How do I communicate with Ultralife SMART batteries?

All Ultralife SMART batteries are compliant to the Smart Battery System specification and therefore make use of the SMBus protocol for the data exchange/link requirements of the system. Successful connection to the communication contacts is necessary to establish message reading and writing. Ultralife makes many Cables and Accessories, as well as provides dimensional drawings of interfaces, to assist with this task. Because the SBS specification mandates all SMART batteries have the same read/write addresses, users must be careful when trying to communicate with more than one SMART battery in a system.

Multiplexing is necessary for all multi-SMART battery systems and applications that require series connections of SMART batteries require isolation of the SMBus grounds to prevent shorting. For more information a whitepaper written by Ultralife on this topic is available at here.