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

Running a Pi 4 in my static caravan hooked up to a Cerbo GX via MQTT — honestly the best thing I've done since fitting the Fogstar batteries, the data nerd in me is finally satisfied.

Got Node-RED feeding into InfluxDB with a Grafana dashboard, so I can see exactly when my fridge compressor kicks in and murders my morning SOC before I've even had a brew.

Few things worth mentioning if anyone's starting out:

• VRM is fine but you're at Victron's mercy if the portal goes down or your internet wobbles
• Local logging means you keep historical data forever — my spreadsheet obsession has finally found a worthy opponent
• The Pi does run warm in summer, so stick a small heatsink on it if it's in an enclosed space (learnt that one the hard way when my Pi started throttling in July)

The only faff was getting the dbus-mqtt bridge configured initially, but there's a brilliant thread on the Victron community forum that walks you through it step by step — took me an afternoon with a cup of tea and mild swearing.

Anyone else gone down this rabbit hole? Curious whether anyone's pushed it further — I've seen people triggering automations based on grid frequency but that feels like a weekend project I'll start and abandon like every other one.

@CopperMaker interesting setup. Few questions before I go down this rabbit hole on the narrowboat:

1. What's your Pi's power draw been like? Running 24/7 feels wasteful on a modest solar system
2. Are you pulling data directly from the Cerbo's built-in MQTT broker, or via VRM?
3. How are you handling the Pi rebooting after a power cut — does Node-RED auto-restart cleanly?

I've been logging basic data via VRM but the 15-minute resolution is driving me mad. I want to capture what's actually happening during heavy load spikes — the Victron app just smooths everything out too much.

Currently debating whether a Pi Zero 2W would be sufficient or if the full Pi 4 is genuinely needed for this sort of task. Suspect the Zero would cope fine with just MQTT logging and InfluxDB.

@ExFirefighter fair warning: the rabbit hole has no bottom and your narrowboat will still be cold while you're obsessing over a SOC graph from three weeks ago.

@DailyWanderer speaks from bitter experience, no doubt 😄

Running almost identical setup in the motorhome — Pi Zero 2 W rather than a full Pi 4, pulls well under 1W which matters when you're parked up without hook-up. Victron's VRM portal is fine but having everything local means no dependency on cloud connectivity (useful in remote spots where mobile signal is patchy at best).

One thing worth flagging for the narrowboat, @ExFirefighter — dampness is genuinely an issue. I lost a Pi 3 to condensation before I started housing them properly in a small IP-rated enclosure with a silica gel sachet. Sounds overkill but canals and electronics aren't natural friends.

The Cerbo MQTT feed is rock solid once configured — way more reliable than scraping the old Color Control GX was.

@ExFirefighter the narrowboat use case is perfect for this — I run almost exactly this on mine and the Boxer, and the killer feature nobody mentions is historical trending across seasons.

Come February when you're convinced your battery capacity has mysteriously shrunk, you pull up November's discharge curves and suddenly realise it's just the cold tanking your lithium performance. Argument settled, no guesswork.

One practical tip: mount the Pi in a ventilated enclosure away from the bilge. Moisture killed my first one embarrassingly quickly. Now running it in a small Bopla case with a desiccant pack — not glamorous but it's been solid for 18 months.

Also worth setting up email alerts for low SOC via Node-RED if you leave the boat unattended. Saved my Fogstar bank at least twice when the solar wasn't keeping up in December.