Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to monitor their off-grid system? Sharing my setup so far

I've been running a small off-grid setup at my place in rural Wales for about 18 months now — 800W of solar, a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT, and a 200Ah LiFePO4 battery bank. Up until recently I was just relying on the Victron app and a basic battery monitor, but I wanted something a bit more hands-on that could log data over time and send me alerts when things looked off.

So I've cobbled together a Raspberry Pi 4 running Venus OS Large, which pulls data from the Victron kit over VE.Direct and pushes it into InfluxDB, then displays everything through a Grafana dashboard. It's been genuinely brilliant for spotting patterns — I can see exactly when the battery hits absorption, how long it stays there, and whether my overnight draw is creeping up. Last week it flagged that my fridge was pulling about 15% more than usual, which turned out to be a dodgy door seal.

The bit I'm still stuck on is getting decent alerts without having to faff about with a full SMTP email setup. I've had a look at Telegram bots and also ntfy.sh, and both seem promising, but I've not actually got either working reliably yet. Has anyone gone down this route with a similar Victron/Pi setup? Particularly interested in whether Telegram or ntfy is easier to get stable, and whether there are any gotchas with Venus OS Large I should know about before I start breaking things.

Reply by @Gazza24:

Great thread @TracyGrant! I've been doing something similar with my setup in Yorkshire. Running a Pi 4 with Venus OS (the Victron OS) installed — it basically turns it into a GX device on the cheap. Connects directly to the SmartSolar via VE.Direct cable, pulls all the data natively, and you get the full Victron portal integration without shelling out for a Cerbo GX.

If you're not already using it, Node-RED on top is brilliant for custom automations and dashboards. I've got mine sending a WhatsApp alert if the battery drops below 20% SOC overnight.

One tip — make sure you're using a decent SD card or better yet boot from a USB SSD. Had a card corrupt on me last winter at the worst possible time. Lesson well and truly learned! 😅

Really interested in this thread — I'm trying to decide whether to go down the Raspberry Pi route for monitoring my static caravan setup (2x 200W Renogy panels, Victron SmartSolar 75/15, Fogstar 100Ah LiFePO4).

My main question is around EV charging integration — I've got a small EV I occasionally charge from the system and I'm keen to know whether you can pull data from the MPPT and throttle the charging load dynamically based on available solar. Is the Pi handling that logic, or are you just using it for display/logging only?

Also curious what @TracyGrant is using for the VE.Direct to USB interface — is it the official Victron cable or a cheaper third-party one? I've seen mixed results reported online with the off-brand options dropping connection intermittently.

Been running a Pi 4 in my van conversion for about eight months now — pulls data straight from my Victron SmartSolar via VE.Direct cable into a custom Python script, then pushes everything to Grafana dashboards on a local server back home.

The bit that transformed it for me was adding a DS18B20 temperature probe taped directly to the Fogstar battery terminals. Watching charge acceptance drop on cold mornings told me far more than the Victron app ever did.

@IvyWalker one thing worth knowing before you commit — if you're already deep in the Victron ecosystem, their own VRM portal handles the basics brilliantly without any tinkering. The Pi route only really earns its keep when you want custom alerts or you're pulling in data from non-Victron kit alongside everything else.

@TracyGrant curious what you were using before — a Bluetooth logger of some kind?

Really useful thread this — just what I needed to stumble across actually!

I've got a static caravan and a narrowboat both on off-grid setups, so I've been wondering whether a Pi could monitor multiple sites somehow, or whether I'd need one per setup? The caravan is unattended for weeks at a time which is exactly why I want remote monitoring sorted properly.

@ValleyOffGrid — does your setup send alerts if something goes wrong, like battery dropping below a certain threshold? That's the bit I can't quite figure out from the Victron documentation.

Also slightly tempted to use the monitoring data to optimise when I charge my EV from the system — has anyone tried building any logic around that into their Pi setup, or is that getting a bit ambitious for a beginner?

Really glad this thread popped up — I've been doing something similar in my van for about a year now. One thing I'd flag, especially for @IvyWalker who's weighing up the decision: the Pi Zero 2 W is worth considering if power consumption is a concern. I've got mine pulling around 0.4W at idle which makes a real difference when you're being careful with every amp-hour.

@ThingamyBob — running monitoring across two separate setups sounds like a fun project actually. You could potentially centralise everything into a single dashboard if both locations have decent mobile data.

The Victron VE.Direct to USB cable is honestly the easiest starting point — no faffing about with Bluetooth polling, just solid reliable serial data. Happy to share my Python scripts if anyone wants them as a starting point.