Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to monitor their solar setup, or is it more hassle than it's worth?

Been running a Pi 4 for about 18 months now on my tiny house setup and honestly wouldn't go back. Paired it with a Victron MPPT and the VE.Direct cable — once you've got Venus OS running it's dead simple. Real-time data, historical graphs, the lot.

The "hassle" bit is front-loaded. Took me a weekend of faffing to get everything talking properly, mostly because I was stubborn and didn't read the Victron docs properly first. Once it's dialled in though? Zero issues.

Running mine headless with a small touchscreen outside the battery compartment. Can also check everything remotely which is handy when I'm away and want to make sure nothing's gone sideways overnight.

Few things worth knowing:

• Use a good SD card or you'll be reinstalling every few months (Samsung Endurance ones are decent)
• Power it from a stable 5V line — spikes killed my first Pi
• Venus OS is genuinely the easiest route if you're on Victron kit

The alternative is just buying a Cerbo GX but that's £200+ when a Pi 4 does 90% of the same job for a fraction of the cost.

Curious whether anyone's gone down the Home Assistant route instead? I've seen a few builds online but never tried it myself. Also wondering if anyone's monitoring non-Victron kit — does it get messier with Renogy or similar?

@PanelMatt good to know it's been stable long-term. A couple of questions if you don't mind:

1. Does Venus OS handle the VE.Direct connection natively, or did you need extra drivers?
2. How are you logging historical data — built-in to Venus or exporting to something like InfluxDB/Grafana?

My situation is a static caravan with a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 and a Fogstar Drift 200Ah. I'm also looking at EV charging management eventually, so I need monitoring that can handle load-side data too, not just generation. Wondering whether a Pi running Venus OS gives enough flexibility there, or whether I'd be better off with a full Cerbo GX given it has proper DVCC support out of the box.

The Pi route is clearly cheaper but I'd rather get the architecture right first time than unpick it later.

@BlownFuse the question got cut off but I'll assume you're asking about data logging and VRM portal integration — both work natively with Venus OS on a Pi, no faff required.

What I'd add from running a similar setup in my shepherd's hut: the SD card is your enemy long-term. Venus OS does write fairly frequently and I killed two cards before switching to a USB SSD as the boot drive. Absolute game-changer for reliability.

Also worth knowing — if you're on a Victron MPPT with VE.Direct, you can pull historical yield data, state of charge trends, and alarm logs all through VRM without writing a single line of code. The free tier covers most people's needs entirely.

Only real hassle is initial network config if you're on 4G rather than fixed broadband, but even that's manageable.

Been running a similar setup for about 8 months — Pi 4 with Venus OS talking to a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 via VE.Direct. Rock solid so far.

One thing worth adding that nobody's mentioned yet: SD card wear is a real issue if you're logging frequently. Lost one after about 3 months before I moved the data directory to a USB stick. Cheap fix but important.

Also if you're on a tight budget, Pi Zero 2 W handles Venus OS fine for basic monitoring — picked mine up from PiHut before the stock drought eased. Frees up the Pi 4 for other tasks if you've got one doing double duty.

@BlownFuse whatever the rest of your question was — VRM portal integration is genuinely worth setting up even on a slow rural connection. Data compression means it's not hammering your bandwidth.

My shepherd's hut Pi has been running Venus OS so long it's basically part of the structure now — Victron VRM on the phone at 2am while checking on the sheep is either peak off-grid living or a cry for help, not sure which.

Been doing this for two years now — Pi 3B+ running Venus OS talking to a SmartSolar 150/35 and a MultiPlus 24/3000. The VE.Direct cable is genuinely plug-and-play once Venus OS is flashed.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: keep your Pi on a decent UPS or at minimum wire it directly off the battery bus, not via an inverter. Lost a week of data when my inverter shut down on low voltage and took the Pi with it. Schoolboy error.

Also worth adding Node-RED on top if you want custom alerts — I've got Telegram notifications when SOC drops below 20%, which has saved my batteries more than once with Fogstar lithiums being quite particular about deep discharge.

@MidlandsNomad what are you using for temperature monitoring? That's the gap in my current setup.