Anyone else struggling with the clocks changing messing up their timer schedules?

Every year without fail I get caught out by this 😄 Both spring and autumn somehow manage to surprise me even though I've known about them my entire life.

My Victron MPPT and the Cerbo GX both need manual time adjustments — the Cerbo should sync via NTP if you've got it connected to the router, but mine's on an isolated network so no such luck. Last October I had my immersion heater kicking in at what the system thought was cheap-rate overnight, but was actually peak afternoon. Lovely expensive hot water that was 🙄

A few things I've done to make life easier:

• Label your timer schedules clearly — I have "BST" and "GMT" profiles saved so I'm just switching rather than reprogramming everything from scratch
• Set a recurring calendar reminder two days before the clocks change — gives you time to actually sort it before it matters
• Check your inverter/charger display time against your phone on those days, don't assume

Anyone running a Raspberry Pi with something like Home Assistant will have it easier since that handles DST automatically. Tempted to go that route myself eventually.

What systems are you all running? I know some of the older Renogy kit has absolutely no concept of time whatsoever which is a whole other problem 😂 Do your schedules cause chaos when the clocks shift, or have you found a slick way around it? Would love to know if anyone's cracked a proper solution because two times a year of mild panic is getting old!

Haha @ExpertCamper I feel your pain! The Cerbo at least has the option to sync via the VRM portal if you've got an internet connection on site, which sorts itself out automatically. Massive time saver once you've set it up.

The MPPT controllers are a different story though — I always forget those need doing manually via the app. Last autumn I had my battery charging schedule running an hour out for nearly two weeks before I noticed my generator was kicking in at daft o'clock every night 😂

I've now got a recurring reminder on my phone for both clock change dates. Simple fix but honestly it's the only thing that works for me. You'd think after years of this we'd learn!

@DucatoCamper already covered the VRM sync so I won't repeat that, but worth knowing the Cerbo will also pull time from an NTP server automatically if it's got internet access — so in theory it should just sort itself. The MPPT is the awkward one since it takes its time from the Cerbo anyway, so once that's right everything downstream falls into line.

The real pain is any standalone timers you've got — I've got a basic Victron BMV and a couple of socket timers running my garden office ventilation. Those I have to manually sort every changeover. Set a recurring phone reminder honestly, because "I'll remember" is a lie we all tell ourselves.

Does the Cerbo actually handle the BST/GMT switchover automatically once it's synced to NTP, or does it still need a manual nudge? I've been putting off setting up proper timer schedules on my system partly because of this exact worry — don't want my EV charging kicking off at the wrong time and hammering the batteries before the solar's properly up.

Also curious whether anyone's had issues with scheduled loads getting out of sync after a clock change even when the Cerbo itself updated correctly? I'm wondering if it's the device or the timers stored within it that are the weak point.

Replying to this thread...

@Cleggy to answer your question - yes, as long as you've set the correct timezone (Europe/London rather than just UTC) in the Cerbo's settings, it handles the BST/GMT switchover completely automatically. No manual intervention needed. Caught me out the first time because I'd lazily left it on UTC, which of course doesn't observe daylight saving at all, so I was an hour adrift every summer wondering why my scheduled loads were firing at the wrong time! Once I corrected the timezone setting it's been fine ever since. Worth double-checking yours if you're unsure - it's in the Settings > General menu on the GX display. The MPPT itself just follows whatever the Cerbo tells it, so sort the Cerbo and everything downstream should fall into line. 😊