DVCC on Venus OS with VE.Smart as backup?

Been wrestling with this on my motorhome setup and wondering if others have gone down a similar path.

Running Venus OS on a Raspberry Pi 4, connected via USB VE.Direct to a Victron SmartShunt and a pair of SmartSolar MPPTs. DVCC is enabled and everything talks nicely through the GX layer — no complaints there.

Here's my question though: if the Pi goes down (power dropout, SD card corruption, whatever), the VE.Smart network should theoretically take over and keep the Smartsolars synced to the shunt data directly, peer-to-peer over Bluetooth. But I've never actually tested this failover in anger.

Has anyone deliberately pulled the GX device out of the equation to verify VE.Smart carries on working as a proper backup? A few things I'm uncertain about:

• Does DVCC being previously active leave any lingering config on the MPPTs that might conflict when the GX disappears?
• Will the SmartSolars automatically revert to taking shunt data via VE.Smart, or do they just fall back to their own defaults?
• Is there any charge current limiting still in effect without the GX coordinating things?

I've got a Fogstar 200Ah lithium battery that I'd rather not stress with uncoordinated charging if the failover isn't as clean as I'm assuming it is.

Seems like this would be particularly relevant for anyone doing longer UK road trips where you can't easily pull over and reboot a Pi without losing a full day's solar.

Anyone done proper testing on this, or know how Victron's documentation actually defines the expected behaviour here?

@BevJackson64 mate, DVCC + VE.Smart networking is basically the "belt AND braces AND a bit of string" approach to BMS comms — my Cerbo GX happily lets VE.Smart handle temperature-compensated charging whilst DVCC keeps the overall orchestration, so your Pi setup should behave identically as long as Venus OS is ≥2.90 and you've not accidentally enabled SVS/STS on conflicting devices, which on my motorhome caused the MultiPlus to have what I can only describe as an existential crisis at a Tesco car park in Swindon.

@BevJackson64 ooh this is relevant to me — I've got a similar setup on my narrowboat with a SmartShunt talking to Venus OS via VE.Direct. One thing I kept tripping over was making sure the Shared Voltage Sense in VE.Smart was actually being used by DVCC and not just sitting there being ignored. Worth double-checking in the DVCC menu on Venus OS that it's showing "external sensor" for voltage rather than defaulting to the MPPT's own measurement. Is your Pi running a recent Venus OS build? I had some oddities on an older version where VE.Smart data wasn't being handed off properly. @FET_Fan's point about belt-and-braces is fair but I actually think it's worth it for peace of mind on a live-aboard setup where you can't just pop back to check things!

@BevJackson64 ran almost exactly this on my boat last summer — Venus OS on a Pi 4 with DVCC enabled, SmartShunt on VE.Direct, and VE.Smart networking as the fallback layer for temperature-compensated charging.

The key thing I learned the hard way: make sure your SVS (Shared Voltage Sense) is actually being used by DVCC and not silently ignored. Check the DVCC page on Venus — it'll tell you the active voltage source. If it's showing "SmartShunt" rather than your MPPT's internal sense, you're golden.

@LindaClark90 narrowboat setups are great for this because the battery-to-charger cable runs tend to be long enough that voltage drop actually matters — SVS earns its keep there.

One gotcha: if Venus loses USB connection mid-charge, VE.Smart takes over seamlessly. Took a few weeks before I even noticed it had happened.

@BevJackson64 the gotcha nobody mentions: with DVCC enabled, Venus OS becomes the single source of truth for charge current limiting — so if your Pi drops off (SD card corruption, dodgy USB power, the usual Pi nonsense), VE.Smart networking on the SmartShunt will fall back to peer-to-peer mode automatically, but your DVCC overrides obviously vanish with it, leaving your charger running on its own internal profile. Worth setting sensible standalone charge parameters on your Victron kit directly rather than relying purely on DVCC-pushed values — treat VE.Smart as genuine backup, not just theoretical backup. Running this exact config in my motorhome; also switched to a proper industrial SD card after my third corruption incident.