Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their battery data, or is there a simpler option?

Been going back and forth on this for a few weeks now. I've got a Victron SmartShunt on my motorhome battery bank (3x Fogstar Drift 100Ah in parallel) and while the VictronConnect app does the job day-to-day, I'd really like proper long-term logging so I can spot patterns — capacity fade over time, how the batteries behave in cold weather, that sort of thing.

A Raspberry Pi with Venus OS seems like the obvious route and I've seen a few builds on here that look really solid. But I'm not particularly confident with Linux and I'm wondering whether the setup time is actually worth it versus just paying for something like Victron's Remote Monitoring (VRM) portal properly.

A few specific questions:

• Does VRM actually give you decent historical data, or is the free tier too limited for real analysis?
• For those running a Pi with Venus OS — how much time do you spend maintaining it once it's set up?
• Is there anything in between? Something plug-and-play that still gives you CSV exports or similar?

My use case is mostly weekends and longer trips, so the system sits idle a lot. Not sure whether a Pi drawing continuous power is even sensible in that scenario, though I imagine it's pretty minimal.

Would be interested to hear what setups people are actually running day-to-day rather than just what looks good on paper.

@BevJackson64 mate I went full Pi rabbit hole on my garden office setup and three weekends later I was debugging Python at midnight instead of, y'know, using the garden office — just grab Victron's own Cerbo GX and let it talk to your SmartShunt natively, saves your sanity entirely.

That said if you're already comfortable with a Pi, the venus-docker project gets you a proper VRM-compatible setup without reinventing the wheel. Grafana dashboards look dead impressive when you've got guests round and want to pretend you're some kind of energy wizard.

For your 3x Fogstar Drift parallel bank specifically, the VRM portal's historical SOC graphing is genuinely useful for spotting if one cell group's drifting — which is the actual useful bit beyond "ooh pretty numbers."

@BevJackson64 the good news is Victron already solved this for you — the VRM Portal (free) will log everything remotely once you stick a Cerbo GX or even the cheaper Venus OS on a Pi in the middle. That said, if you're after pure data logging without the Victron ecosystem tax, a Pi running VenusOS Large with Node-RED built in is genuinely brilliant. I've got mine pulling SmartShunt data into InfluxDB with Grafana dashboards — looks properly professional and took one weekend rather than @BitsAndBobs's heroic three 😄

For a motorhome specifically though, I'd honestly just go Cerbo GX + VRM. It's plug-and-play, handles dodgy mobile signal gracefully, and you're not debugging SSH sessions in a campsite car park. The Pi route is more satisfying but "simpler" was your word, not mine.

@BevJackson64 worth asking — do you have a Cerbo GX or Venus GX in your system, or just the SmartShunt on its own? That changes the options considerably.

If it's standalone SmartShunt via Bluetooth only, your Pi route makes more sense than it might seem — there's a well-documented BLE library that polls the SmartShunt directly and feeds into InfluxDB/Grafana. Steep initial curve but rock solid once running.

That said, for a static caravan setup specifically I'd probably just add a Victron Venus OS on a Pi (official image, free download) — it turns the Pi into a proper GX device with VRM logging built in, no custom scripting needed. Plugs into the SmartShunt via USB-VE.Direct cable. Much less faff than rolling your own stack.

What's your connectivity situation on site — is WiFi reliable enough for VRM cloud logging?

@BlownFuse good question — that's what I'd want to know too before going further down any route.

@BevJackson64 just the SmartShunt on its own means no VRM without adding a GX device, right? Which then raises the question — is it worth chucking a Cerbo GX in just for logging, or does the Pi route actually make more sense cost-wise at that point?

I'm in a similar-ish position with my static caravan setup. Got a SmartShunt and keep wondering whether to just bite the bullet on a Cerbo or bodge something together. The Cerbo isn't cheap but at least it just works without faff.

What's the actual budget here? That'd probably settle the argument pretty quickly — Pi is cheaper upfront but your time has value too, especially if you're not already comfortable with Linux.