Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to log Victron data locally without VRM?

I've been running a small off-grid setup at my static caravan in Wales for about two years now — 400W of panels, a Victron SmartSolar 100/30, and a 200Ah lithium bank. The Victron app is decent enough for a quick glance but I've always wanted proper historical logging without relying on the VRM portal, partly because the site WiFi is genuinely awful and partly because I just like having my data sat locally where I can see it.

Last month I got a Raspberry Pi 4 talking to the SmartSolar over USB using a VE.Direct cable and I'm pulling data into InfluxDB with Grafana on top. It's working brilliantly — I can see SOC, PV watts, battery voltage, and load current going back weeks, all on a nice dashboard. The bit I'm still puzzling over is getting alerts sorted. Right now if the battery drops below, say, 20% SOC overnight I don't find out until I check the dashboard manually, which rather defeats the purpose.

Has anyone set up Grafana alerting on this kind of setup, or gone a different route entirely — Node-RED maybe? I've seen a few people mention Telegram bots for notifications which sounds ideal given the dodgy signal up there (data seems more reliable than calls). Keen to hear what others are doing, especially if you've got it running on similarly modest hardware.

Hey @Foggy80, nice setup! Yes, been doing exactly this for about 18 months at my place in Scotland. I'm running a Pi 4 with a Venus OS image flashed onto it — effectively turns it into a GX device without needing a Cerbo. Connects to the SmartSolar via VE.Direct cable and logs everything locally into InfluxDB, then Grafana for the pretty graphs. Completely offline, no cloud dependency whatsoever.

The historical data is brilliant for spotting patterns — I noticed my battery wasn't quite hitting absorption properly during winter until I overlaid temperature data alongside it. Never would've caught that just glancing at the app.

Only faff was getting the VE.Direct USB adapter, but they're not too expensive. Worth every penny if you like knowing exactly what your system's doing. Happy to share my config if useful!

Great thread! I've got something similar running at my place in Cumbria. One thing worth mentioning that I haven't seen come up yet — if you're using the VE.Direct to USB cable to connect the SmartSolar to the Pi, make sure you're pulling data via the vedirect-to-mqtt bridge rather than polling directly. It's much kinder on the serial interface and plays nicely with Home Assistant or Node-RED if you go down that route later.

I'm storing everything in InfluxDB with Grafana dashboards on top — genuinely satisfying watching your battery cycles visualised over weeks. The historical yield data alone has helped me tweak my load scheduling considerably.

@Foggy80 what are you planning to use for the dashboard side of things? And @Tango65 curious whether you're running your Pi headless or keeping a monitor attached?

Got my Pi Zero 2W talking to a Victron MPPT via VE.Direct-to-USB, shoves everything into InfluxDB, and Grafana makes it look dead professional — until the Pi itself needs power and you realise your "monitoring system" is the first thing that dies in a flat-battery emergency 🙃

Genuinely though, worth grabbing a VE.Direct cable rather than Bluetooth polling — far more reliable and doesn't hammer the SmartSolar's radio. Running mine in the van conversion and the cabin setup, same scripts both places.

@CraigThompson curious what you've spotted that hasn't been mentioned — bet it's the VRM portal still phoning home even in "local only" mode, caught me out that one.

Great thread, loving seeing so many UK off-grid folk doing this! I've had a similar setup running at my place in the Cotswolds for about a year now. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — if you want to keep things ticking along without internet access (which is rather the point for a lot of us), make sure Grafana and InfluxDB are set to start automatically on boot. I use systemd service files for both. Saved me a headache when the Pi rebooted after a power wobble.

Also worth considering a small UPS for the Pi itself — I'm using a cheap eBay unit with a 18650 cell so the logging doesn't drop out when the battery hits low-voltage cutoff. @VoltMax — are you doing anything similar to protect your Zero 2W during those moments?

Great thread! I've been doing something similar at my place in Yorkshire for about eight months now. One thing I'd add that I haven't seen mentioned yet — if you're running a Pi with VE.Direct, it's worth setting a static IP for it on your router so your Grafana dashboard URL never changes. Sounds obvious but I forgot and spent an annoying afternoon chasing it after a router restart! Also, if anyone's struggling with the VE.Direct USB adapter dropping out occasionally, adding usb-autosuspend=0 to your boot config sorted it for me completely. @VoltMax are you using the official Victron VE.Direct cable or a third-party one? I tried a cheap knock-off initially and had all sorts of grief before switching to the genuine article. Makes a massive difference to connection stability in my experience.

Great thread! One thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned yet — if you're running your Pi headless and lose power unexpectedly, your SD card can corrupt. Caught me out twice before I switched to booting from a USB SSD instead. Much more reliable.

Also worth looking at @VoltMax's InfluxDB approach for data retention policies — by default it'll keep everything forever and your storage will quietly fill up over months. Set a sensible retention policy early and save yourself the headache later.

@Foggy80 — are you pulling data over VE.Direct or Bluetooth? I found the wired connection far more stable for consistent logging, especially if your Pi is tucked away in a damp outhouse. Bluetooth can drop out at the worst moments.

Great thread @Foggy80! One thing worth mentioning — if you're pulling data via Bluetooth rather than USB/VE.Direct, expect the occasional dropout. I switched to a proper VE.Direct to USB cable on mine and it's been rock solid ever since. Also worth setting up a simple cron job to push daily CSV summaries to a USB stick as a backup, especially if you're not visiting the van regularly. Means you've still got historical data even if the SD card decides to give up the ghost. Cheap insurance really!

Really glad this thread exists — been running a Pi 4 at my cabin for about six months doing exactly this.

One thing nobody's touched on yet: data visualisation. Raw logs are fine but pairing your collection script with Grafana transforms everything. I can see at a glance when my panels peak, how my Fogstar battery behaves overnight, patterns across weeks.

The setup took an afternoon but the insight it gives into your actual usage habits is genuinely worth it. Spotted I was consistently hitting absorption earlier than expected — turned out a panel had partial shading I'd not noticed. Logs caught what my eyes missed.

Good thread this. One thing I'd add on top of what's already been discussed — have a look at Node-RED if you haven't already. It pairs brilliantly with the VE.Direct data and lets you set up automations alongside your logging, like sending a pushover notification if your SOC drops below a threshold overnight. I've got mine alerting me if anything looks off at my place while I'm not there. Runs happily alongside InfluxDB/Grafana on the same Pi without breaking a sweat. @OffGridJess you might find it useful for your cabin setup particularly.

Great points all round. One thing I'd flag specifically for EV charging integration — if you're logging SOC and PV yield locally via the Pi, you can feed that data into a simple charging controller script to gate when your EVSE is allowed to draw.

I'm running a Pi 4 with VE.Direct USB to a Victron Multiplus, and I've got a Python script that checks real-time battery SOC and estimated solar forecast before enabling my Zappi-equivalent relay output. Keeps the van battery topped up first, then diverts excess to the car.

The local logging is what makes this possible — VRM's cloud latency is far too unpredictable for anything approaching real-time control logic.

Really useful thread, this. I've been doing something similar with my SmartSolar 150/35 and a Pi Zero 2W — worth noting that the Zero handles the serial-over-USB connection to the MPPT absolutely fine if you're watching your power budget on the Pi itself. I use InfluxDB + Grafana for the dashboards and it's rock solid. One tip: set your InfluxDB retention policy early on before you've got months of data to reorganise. Learned that the hard way! @PGL_Builds — Node-RED is brilliant for the automation side, fully agree.