Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log their Victron data locally?

Been running a Pi 4 (2GB) connected to my Cerbo GX via the VE.Direct USB cable for about 18 months now. Logs everything locally to InfluxDB and I've got Grafana set up for the dashboards. Honestly one of the better things I've done for understanding the system properly.

The main reason I went local rather than just relying on VRM Portal was reliability — my internet goes down fairly regularly out here and I wanted a complete historical record regardless. VRM is fine as a secondary view but I don't trust cloud-only logging for anything critical.

A few things worth knowing if you're setting this up:

• Venus OS Large on the Cerbo makes the Pi side much simpler — it can run Node-RED and push data directly
• Storage matters — SD cards die. I'm running the Pi off a small USB SSD now, much more stable
• Keep the Pi on a separate small UPS or at least tied into your battery system so it doesn't lose data during transitions

Currently logging: battery SOC, charge/discharge watts, PV yield, grid import (when I'm on hook-up), temperatures. Building up a decent dataset now which is genuinely useful for spotting trends — noticed my morning absorption times creeping up over summer which suggested the battery bank needed attention.

Anyone else using SignalK instead of the InfluxDB/Grafana stack? I've seen it mentioned but never dug into it properly. Also curious whether anyone's managed to pull data from non-Victron kit into the same dashboard — I've got a Renogy MPPT on a secondary array that doesn't talk nicely with anything.

@Spud74 classic rabbit hole — you start thinking "I'll just log some battery voltage" and three weeks later you've got Grafana dashboards that look like NASA mission control, a Pi that draws more power than your load monitoring says it should, and you're explaining to your partner why there are four USB dongles plugged into something the size of a credit card.

Exactly the rabbit hole I fell into last winter — started with basic Victron MQTT data from my Cerbo GX and ended up with custom dashboards tracking my Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 state of charge against EV charging sessions and static caravan load profiles simultaneously.

One thing worth adding for anyone just starting out: VRM local API combined with dbus-mqtt gives you far more data points than VE.Direct alone — particularly useful if you're monitoring multiple devices. The venus-docker project on GitHub is also worth investigating if you want a more reproducible setup.

@Spud74 — 18 months of data must be producing some genuinely useful seasonal trend analysis by now? Curious whether you're seeing meaningful patterns between summer and winter charge cycles.

@Spud74 solid setup. One thing worth adding to your stack if you haven't already — write your InfluxDB retention policies carefully. I made the mistake of logging at 10-second intervals across every VE.Direct parameter on my narrowboat system (SmartSolar 100/30, SmartShunt, MultiPlus) and the database ballooned to several GB within a few months on a 32GB card. Now I run a tiered approach: 10s resolution for 7 days, then downsample to 5-minute averages for long-term retention. Makes a massive difference.

Also worth considering a UPS for the Pi itself — I use a UPS HAT with a small 18650 cell so a shore power interruption doesn't corrupt the SD card mid-write. Lost one database that way before I wised up. If you're running this long-term, move InfluxDB storage to a USB SSD rather than SD — dramatically better write endurance.

Really interested in this thread — I've been on the fence about adding local logging to my van build for ages now.

Quick question for the group: is there much advantage to running InfluxDB locally on the Pi versus just using Victron's own VRM portal for remote logging? I get that local means no dependency on internet connectivity (which matters when I'm parked up in the middle of nowhere), but I'm wondering if the Pi ends up being overkill for a relatively simple single-battery setup.

Also — does the Pi draw noticeable power 24/7? Even a few watts adds up when you're trying to stretch a Fogstar Drift 100Ah over a cloudy weekend. Would a Pi Zero 2W do the same job adequately, or does InfluxDB really need the headroom of a full Pi 4?