Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to monitor their Victron kit instead of the official Cerbo GX?

Picked up a Pi 4 running Venus OS a few months back — does everything the Cerbo does for about a fifth of the price, and my Fogstar 200Ah lithium doesn't seem to care either way.

Got the VE.Direct to USB cable running straight into it, pulling data from my SmartSolar 100/30 and the Multiplus 24/3000 no bother. VRM portal picks it up perfectly, remote monitoring and everything.

Only snag is the occasional kernel panic after a firmware update — lost visibility for two days last January and nearly missed a dodgy cell voltage spike on the battery. Is that a dealbreaker for anyone, or are you all just accepting that "cheap has a price"?

Been running Venus OS on a Pi 3B+ for nearly two years now — completely solid. One thing worth mentioning that @RetiredEngineer might find useful: the Pi runs warm in a sealed enclosure, so I've got a small heatsink and a 5V fan on mine. Lost comms once on a hot summer day before I sorted the cooling, which was a bit nerve-wracking watching the system go blind temporarily.

Also make sure your SD card is a decent quality one — cheap cards don't love the constant read/write cycles. I switched to an industrial-grade SanDisk and haven't had a single corruption issue since. Some folks go the extra mile and boot from USB instead, which is probably the belt-and-braces approach if you're leaving it unattended for long stretches.

Running Venus OS on a Pi 4 in my cabin setup for about eight months now, and it's been rock solid. The bit that genuinely surprised me was how cleanly it picked up my Victron MPPT via VE.Direct — literally plug and play, no fiddling about.

One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet: the VRM portal integration works identically to the Cerbo. Same dashboards, same remote access, same alerts to your phone. Victron clearly doesn't care what hardware Venus OS runs on as long as the identifiers check out.

Only gotcha I hit was the SD card dying after four months — completely my fault for using a cheap no-name card. Swapped to a SanDisk Endurance series (the ones designed for dashcams) and haven't had a hiccup since. Worth specifying that if you're recommending this to anyone.

Really useful thread this. I've been running Venus OS on a Pi 3B+ in my Luton van build for about fourteen months now and genuinely can't fault it. One thing nobody's mentioned yet — the VRM portal integration works just as well as on a Cerbo. I can check my system remotely from anywhere, which is brilliant when the van's parked up somewhere and I'm not sure if I left something drawing power.

Only gotcha I'd flag is making sure your SD card is decent quality. Lost one early on and it caused some head-scratching until I switched to a Samsung Endurance card, which is designed for continuous write cycles. Sorted it completely.

Total cost for my monitoring setup was under £40 including the VE.Direct cable. Compared to Cerbo GX prices, it's a no-brainer honestly.

Good to hear others are having solid results. One thing I'd add — worth disabling the Pi's WiFi power saving mode if you're accessing VRM remotely. Caught me out for weeks, kept dropping the connection at odd hours and I thought my router was on the way out. Turned out the Pi was just nodding off.

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Though make sure it persists across reboots or you'll be doing it all over again. There's a /etc/rc.local method that works reliably enough.

@LutonLife — curious whether you've had any issues with the MicroSD card over 14 months. That's the one thing that still makes me slightly nervous about the whole setup. Been eyeing up booting from USB instead but haven't got round to it.

Great thread, been running Venus OS on a Pi 4 for about six months now on my narrowboat with a pair of Pylontech US2000s and a Multiplus-II. One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet — if you're connecting via VE.Can rather than VE.Direct, make sure you grab a proper isolated USB-CAN adapter. I tried a cheap non-isolated one from Amazon initially and was getting all sorts of gremlins, particularly when the inverter was under heavy load. Swapped to an isolated unit and everything settled down immediately. Also worth keeping a spare SD card with a fresh Venus OS image ready to go — takes about ten minutes to set up from scratch if something goes sideways, and you're not waiting for Victron to ship a replacement unit. @RetiredEngineer72 solid tip on the WiFi power saving, caught me out early on too.