Anyone else using a Victron Cerbo GX with a non-Victron inverter? How are you handling the monitoring gap?

I've got a Victron setup — Cerbo GX, SmartSolar MPPT 150/35, and a SmartShunt — all talking nicely to each other over VE.Direct and showing up perfectly in VRM. The problem is my inverter is a Giandel 2000W pure sine unit I picked up before I went full Victron, and obviously it doesn't speak any Victron protocol. So on the VRM dashboard I've got this glaring blind spot where AC output should be. Batteries, solar, state of charge — all spot on. Inverter load? Nothing.

I've been looking at a few workarounds. One option is adding a Victron Energy Meter (like the ET112) on the AC output side, which should feed load data back through the Cerbo. That'd run me around £60–70 and I think it would work, but I'm not 100% sure the Cerbo treats it as "inverter out" rather than just a generic AC input reading. Has anyone actually wired one up this way? The VRM screenshots I've found online are all from people running MultiPlus units so it's hard to tell what the dashboard looks like in my situation.

The other thought was just ditching the Giandel eventually and going for a MultiPlus-II, but that's a £500+ jump and feels like overkill when the Giandel is doing the job fine for my van. Would really love to hear how others have patched this together before I start buying bits.

@PanelDai my Giandel sits outside the Victron ecosystem like that one sheep who refuses to come in at night — I just wired a Victron Energy Meter on the AC output side and now VRM at least knows something is happening over there, even if it's a bit vague about the details 🔌

@PanelDai this is a really common headache. If your Giandel has a remote on/off terminal, you can wire that to the Cerbo's digital output and at least get basic control. For actual monitoring though, I've had good results running a clamp-type CT sensor on the inverter's AC output, feeding into a small energy monitor that pushes data via MQTT to Node-RED, then into VRM through a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS. Bit of faff to set up initially but once it's running you get live wattage showing up as a "grid" source in the Cerbo dashboard. Not perfect — you lose the deeper inverter diagnostics — but the power flow visualisation becomes properly meaningful rather than having that glaring gap. Happy to share my Node-RED flow if that approach appeals to you.

@PanelDai worth mentioning that the SmartShunt is actually doing you a favour here even without direct inverter comms — since everything flows through it, the Cerbo is seeing your inverter's load, just attributed to DC consumption rather than as a named AC source. Not perfect labelling, but the energy accounting is still sound.

If you want cleaner data, a CT clamp on the AC output feeding into something like a Shelly EM can push consumption figures to VRM via MQTT. Takes a bit of faffing to set up but once it's running it's quite elegant. There are a few walkthroughs floating around on the Victron Community forum specifically for this scenario.

What battery chemistry are you running? That might affect which approach makes most sense for your setup.

@PanelDai one thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet — have a look at whether your Giandel draws a consistent enough idle current that you can use the SmartShunt data to infer inverter state reasonably reliably. It's a bit rough and ready, but I wrote a simple Node-RED flow that watches the DC current from VRM, and if it exceeds a threshold for more than 30 seconds it flags the inverter as "active" in a dashboard tile. Not proper telemetry by any means, but it gives you a rough runtime indicator without any additional hardware. Pair that with what @Cerbo_Guy said about the remote terminal and you've actually got a fairly workable picture. Not elegant, but off-grid rarely is! Happy to share the flow if it's useful.

Great thread. @WonkyDrifter makes a fair point about the SmartShunt carrying some of the load here. One thing worth considering is setting up a custom VRM dashboard widget to track your battery discharge rate as a proxy for inverter load — it's not perfect, but it gives you a reasonable picture of what the inverter's pulling without needing direct comms. Also, if you haven't already, check whether the Giandel has any kind of RS232 or USB monitoring port — some of the less-documented models do, and there are Node-RED flows floating around that can bridge that data into the Cerbo via MQTT. Takes a bit of tinkering but it's doable on a Pi sitting alongside the Cerbo. Happy to share links if useful.

@PanelDai I ran into exactly this with a non-Victron inverter in my shepherd's hut build. The gap I kept hitting was AC output visibility — the Cerbo simply has no idea what's happening on that side without something feeding it data.

What solved it for me was adding a Victron Energy Meter (the ET112) on the AC output. It integrates natively into VRM and gives you real consumption figures rather than relying on inference from the SmartShunt alone.

Alternatively, if budget is tight, a Shelly EM clamp meter can push data via MQTT into the Cerbo — needs a bit of scripting but it works. There's a decent write-up on the Victron Community forum covering the integration.

Neither option gives you control over the Giandel, but at least your monitoring picture becomes complete.

@PanelDai the SmartShunt will give you accurate DC-side current draw when the inverter kicks in, so you can at least infer what it's pulling. Not perfect, but workable.

What I'd actually do is add a Victron Energy Meter (ET112) on the AC output — plugs straight into Cerbo via USB and shows up natively in VRM. Suddenly you've got real AC load data without replacing the inverter. Done exactly this on my boat with a non-Victron Victron inverter situation and it fills the monitoring gap cleanly.

The ET112 is about £60-70 and takes an hour to fit properly.