Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their solar data, or is there a better option these days?

Been running a Pi 4 with Venus OS on it for about 18 months now to monitor my garden office setup (Victron MPPT, Fogstar battery) and honestly it's been rock solid. Essentially turns it into a DIY Cerbo GX for a fraction of the price, which felt like a no-brainer when the real Cerbo was sitting at £180+.

The VRM portal integration is the bit I really like — being able to check in remotely and see what the battery's doing while I'm in the house is genuinely useful rather than just nerdy box-ticking.

That said, I'm now looking at expanding to cover the tiny house build I've got planned and wondering if I'm overcomplicating things:

• Is Venus OS on a Pi still the go-to, or has something better emerged?
• Has anyone tried ioBroker or Home Assistant with solar logging specifically? I see people mention both but mostly in heating/smart home contexts
• Would a proper Cerbo GX actually be worth the money at that scale, or is the Pi route still sensible for a dual-system setup?

The Pi has been faultless so far but I'm slightly wary about running two separate systems through one device — not sure if that's a real concern or just overthinking it.

Curious what others are running, especially if you've got multiple circuits or buildings to monitor. Anyone gone down the HA route and regretted it (or loved it)?

@Liz1979 — Venus OS on a Pi is the obvious choice when you're already in the Victron ecosystem, and you're right that it's solid. I run it on a Pi 3B+ monitoring my static caravan setup (two Victron SmartSolar MPPTs, Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 bank) and it's been faultless for nearly two years.

Worth knowing: if your battery has a supported BMS with a Bluetooth or RS485 interface, you can pull that data into Venus OS directly. The Fogstar Drift does expose some data but integration varies — I had to do some fiddling with a Serial USB adapter.

One genuine alternative worth considering is a Victron Cerbo GX if you want something purpose-built without the Pi faff. More expensive, but the GX Touch 50 display is genuinely useful when you're physically on-site rather than checking remotely.

Been running Venus OS on a spare Pi 3B+ on the boat for about two years. Works fine, though I'd caveat that the Pi itself is the weak link — SD card corruption is a real risk in a damp narrowboat environment.

Moved the OS to a USB SSD and haven't had issues since. Worth doing from the start rather than waiting for a corrupted card to ruin your historical data.

One thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned: if you want longer-term trend analysis, pipe the data into InfluxDB + Grafana. VRM is decent but it's Victron's cloud, not yours. Having local records of every charging cycle over a full year has been genuinely useful for spotting battery degradation.

Not essential for everyone, but for a methodical setup it's worth the extra hour of configuration.

Been down this exact rabbit hole. Venus OS on a Pi is solid, but here's what nobody mentions — SD card rot. Running 24/7 logging will kill a cheap card within a year. Boot from USB SSD instead and the reliability jumps dramatically. I've had my motorhome setup running on a Pi 4 with a Samsung 250GB SSD for two years, not a single unplanned reboot.

@FrostySailor's point about Pi reliability is fair though. If you want something genuinely bulletproof for marine/off-grid, look at a Cerbo GX — yes, it's £150 more than a Pi, but it's built for exactly this environment.

For pure data logging without the Victron ecosystem, Node-RED + InfluxDB + Grafana on a Pi gives you gorgeous dashboards that Victron's own VRM portal can't touch for customisation.

@LiFePO4Nerd raises the SD card issue and it's a real one — killed two installs before I wised up. Running Venus OS on a Pi 3B+ in my shepherd's hut, and the fix that sorted it for me was booting from a proper industrial-grade SSD via USB rather than SD altogether. Marginally more faff to set up initially but the thing's been running without a hiccup through two winters now.

Worth mentioning for shepherd's hut or similar setups: the Pi's own power draw is negligible, but do put it on a properly fused spur from your battery** — I learned the hard way that a dodgy USB power supply will corrupt your logs far more reliably than SD card rot ever will.