Thanks for the quick response.
I guess one alternative would be to just send the values as csv (and not label them), and have a fixed, known position for each value. However, this somewhat restricts the flexibility of the system, e.g. allowing different devices to measure different things, and still be able to parse the values on the other side. When you say don't use text, is this what you mean? (I read the post, but didn't really see where you talk about text vs. something else)
BAT:42 indicates the battery level of the device : )