Anyone else using a Victron Cerbo GX with non-Victron kit — how are you handling the gaps?

I've had my Cerbo GX running for about six months now and overall it's brilliant for keeping tabs on the system. I've got it connected to a Victron Multiplus II 3kVA, a SmartSolar MPPT 150/45, and a pair of 200Ah Pylontech US2000C batteries via VE.Bus and VE.Can. The dashboard on VRM is genuinely useful and the SOC figures from the BMS are solid. No complaints there.

The issue is my backup Honda EU22i generator. I've wired a simple AC current transformer to one of the Cerbo's analog inputs to at least see when it's running and roughly how much it's pulling, but it feels like a bodge. There's no clean integration — no run-hour logging, no automatic start/stop triggers based on SOC. I've seen people mention the Fischer Panda AGT module but that's clearly priced for the superyacht crowd. Has anyone found a sensible middle-ground solution for generator monitoring and ideally some basic automation on a budget? Even just reliable run-hour tracking would be a start.

Also curious whether anyone's pulling data out via MQTT to something like Home Assistant or Node-RED to fill in the gaps. I had a brief play with the MQTT broker on the Cerbo but got a bit lost with the topic structure — the Victron documentation is decent but there's a lot to wade through.

@RelayAdventure curious what non-Victron kit you're trying to integrate — are you talking battery BMS data specifically? That's where I'm hitting a wall with my setup.

I've got a Fogstar Drift 200Ah and the Cerbo just sees it as a generic battery with no BMS comms. I'm using the built-in voltage/current sensing which is fine but I'm losing all the cell-level data I actually want.

Has anyone managed to get a Fogstar or similar LiFePO4 talking properly to the Cerbo via the VE.Can port, or is the only real solution going with something like a Daly BMS that has a known integration path?

Also wondering whether the Venus OS Large firmware with Node-RED is worth the faff for patching in custom data sources — seems like a rabbit hole but possibly the right one?

@RelayAdventure I'm in a similar boat with my static caravan setup — Cerbo GX paired with a Fogstar Drift 200Ah battery. The BMS data doesn't come through natively which is a bit frustrating when you're trying to get a full picture of what's happening.

I've seen people use a Victron GX Touch or even just VRM portal workarounds, but honestly I'm still scratching my head about the best approach.

A few questions:

• Are you using a RS485 or CAN bus connection for any of your non-Victron bits?
• Has anyone had luck pulling BMS data through via a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS alongside the Cerbo?

Wondering if there's a cleaner solution that doesn't involve bodging multiple adaptors together. What non-Victron kit are you specifically trying to get talking to it?

@RelayAdventure I've got a fairly similar mix here — Cerbo GX talking nicely to Victron kit but the third-party bits are always the faff. I'm using a Pylontech battery bank and that communicates over CAN bus which the Cerbo handles reasonably well, but I've also got a Solis inverter for grid-tie that basically gets ignored by the whole ecosystem.

My workaround for the Solis has been running a Raspberry Pi alongside with Node-RED and pulling data via Modbus TCP, then pushing it into VRM through MQTT. It's a bit Heath Robinson but it works a treat once you've got it stable.

@PanelPaula worth checking whether your Fogstar Drift exposes any BMS data — some do via Bluetooth which you can potentially bridge across.

What non-Victron kit are you specifically struggling with @RelayAdventure? Might be able to point you in the right direction.

@RelayAdventure Running a similar hybrid setup at my cabin — Cerbo GX talking nicely to the Victron kit but the gaps appear fast once you bring in third-party gear.

The biggest headache I've found is BMS data from non-Victron lithium batteries. Unless it speaks Victron's VE.Can or has a supported CAN profile, the Cerbo just sees a dumb battery. You can bodge around this with a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS or Node-RED pulling serial data from the BMS and feeding dummy MQTT values back — works, but it's fiddly to maintain.

@PanelPaula with the Fogstar Drift specifically — worth checking whether yours has a UART port on the BMS. Some batches do, and there are community-written scripts that'll pipe cell-level data through to VRM reasonably cleanly.

The other gap I'd flag is non-Victron inverters — if you're not on VE.Bus, you're essentially blind to AC output detail.

@RelayAdventure the non-Victron gap that kills me is battery comms. Running a Fogstar Drift 200Ah on my narrowboat and without proper BMS-to-Cerbo integration via VE.Can or a supported RS485 adaptor, your SOC figures are basically educated guesswork dressed up in a nice GUI.

Worth looking at whether your third-party battery supports Victron's Generic Modbus TCP path or if you can bodge a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS as a middleman to translate. I've also seen people successfully using the Batrium BMS which has native Cerbo support — pricey but the data is actually trustworthy.

The dirty workaround most people end up on is letting the Cerbo calculate SOC from a BMV-712 shunt independently of whatever the battery is claiming. Not perfect, but at least both lies are consistent lies.

Same situation with my garden office setup — Cerbo talks perfectly to the Victron stack but my non-Victron bits are basically invisible without workarounds.

What I ended up doing was running a Raspberry Pi alongside it with VRM data pulled via the API, then using Node-RED to stitch in readings from my non-Victron BMS over MQTT. Bit fiddly to set up but it works a treat now.

The VE.Can vs VE.Direct distinction catches people out too — some third-party kit claims compatibility but only partly integrates. Worth checking exactly which parameters actually show up in VRM rather than assuming full visibility.

@QMC_Camper curious what gaps you're seeing at the cabin specifically — battery state or load side?

@Renogy_Pro the Fogstar Drift comms issue is real — I had the same on my static caravan. Ended up fitting a Victron SmartShunt as a workaround, which at least gives the Cerbo proper SOC data via VE.Direct even if it's not true BMS integration. Not perfect but it stopped the Cerbo making daft decisions based on voltage alone.

The other gap I haven't seen mentioned yet is non-Victron inverter loads — if you've got a dumb inverter or a generator on a non-Victron charger, the Cerbo's energy dashboard just has a blind spot. I bodged it with a CT clamp energy meter on a Modbus adapter but it took some fiddling.