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

Just finished wiring up my system in a converted horsebox — 400Ah of lithium (4x 100Ah Winston cells), a Victron SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT and a Giandel 2000W pure sine inverter. The MPPT talks to the Cerbo fine over VE.Direct, and I can see solar input and battery state of charge no problem. But the Giandel is obviously invisible to the whole setup, so I've got no idea what my actual load is at any given time.

I've been looking at adding a Victron Smart Shunt on the battery negative to catch everything going in and out, which should at least give me a proper SOC reading and show total consumption rather than just what the solar is producing. A 500A/50mV shunt is about £40-50, which seems reasonable. Has anyone gone down this route and does the Cerbo pick up the shunt data cleanly over VE.Direct without any faffing about?

Longer term I'd love proper inverter monitoring but I can't justify swapping out to a Multiplus just for the data — the Giandel works fine. Wondering if anyone's bodged something together with a Sonoff POW or similar feeding into Node-RED or Home Assistant to at least get wattage on a dashboard alongside the Victron data.

Hey @Carl1987, nice build! The Cerbo GX won't natively "see" your Giandel unfortunately — it's not a Victron device so there's no VE.Bus or VE.Direct integration.

What I'd suggest is picking up a Victron Energy Meter (the ET112 or ET340) on the AC side, which will at least give you consumption data visible in VRM. It's not perfect but it's something.

Alternatively, some folks wire a Victron BMV-712 to monitor the battery bank holistically, so you get a proper SOC reading regardless of what's doing the inverting.

The Cerbo will still give you solid visibility on your SmartSolar data which is genuinely useful. For a horsebox system that's probably your most critical bit anyway.

What are you primarily wanting to monitor — battery state, AC loads, or solar yield? Might help narrow down the best approach for your setup. 👍

Really nice horsebox build @Carl1987! To add to what @Thommo40 said — one workaround worth considering is picking up a Victron Energy Meter (the ET112 or ET340) and fitting it on the AC output of your Giandel. The Cerbo will then see your inverter's load consumption via the meter even though it can't communicate with the inverter directly. It's not perfect — you won't get inverter efficiency data or fault states — but your VRM dashboard will at least show meaningful AC load figures.

Alternatively if you're handy with a Raspberry Pi, Node-RED can pull data from a cheap clamp meter and push it into the Cerbo via MQTT. A bit more faff to set up but very flexible. Might be overkill for a horsebox though! What's your primary use case — weekend trips or longer off-grid stays?

Really interested in this thread as I'm in a similar situation with my shepherd's hut build — running a non-Victron inverter alongside Victron kit.

One thing worth flagging that nobody's mentioned yet: if you're pulling inverter data into the Cerbo via a workaround, double-check what happens to your SOC calculations. My experience is that the Cerbo can get confused about actual load draw if the inverter isn't reporting cleanly, which knocks the battery percentage estimates off over time.

Have you considered adding a Victron SmartShunt inline? It'll give the Cerbo accurate current data regardless of what the inverter is doing — essentially bypasses the whole communication problem at the battery level. Fogstar cells paired with a SmartShunt gave me much cleaner SOC tracking in my setup.

What's your current shunt situation @Carl1987?