Victron VE Smart Networking (1 Viewer)

[Carpmart]

Hello - is there anyway to get anymore consolidated stats other than just current amalgamated network Watts being produced?

Is there an alternate app (non Victron maybe) which can give total network Amps, Amps total, peak W and configurable history over day/week/month/lifetime etc etc?

 

[Steve and Denise]

I use a shunt

 

[Raul]

A GX device, or home assistant. I don't now much about home assistant, others here do, but a GX will be my choice as its part of victron integration, and you can keep history up to one year on victron portal.

 

[Ditcha]

As above GX or Raspi you can go back a full year and set up widgets to display all kinds.

 

[Steve and Denise]

Thought so

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[Carpmart]

Thanks all for the replies. GX is a little overkill for me..

I was hoping for a third party app that just tracks and records the parameters in a configurable dashboard…

 

[Raul]

Thanks all for the replies. GX is a little overkill for me..

I was hoping for a third party app that just tracks and records the parameters in a configurable dashboard…

You can pick up a venus gx used on ebay for good money compared to new.
Also batterymegastore have some amazing deals on victron gear, hard to beat even with discounts from elsewhere.

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

Thanks all for the replies. GX is a little overkill for me..

I was hoping for a third party app that just tracks and records the parameters in a configurable dashboard…

You will need a shunt then the GX on a RasPi is very easy to set up, works well and uploads the data to Victron. I am using a Pi2 which has been rock solid running continuously in the MoHo for over three months. You can probably get one on eBay for about £10 or £15 for a Pi3 as everybody wants the new faster ones. Then buy an Isolated 4 port USB to TTL UART FTD from DuPPa in italy with the cables and you are set up to monitor 4 Victron devices. Don't worry about a display as any old Android phone or tablet connected to the network can show the GX screen. If you use the Chrome browser it can also be expanded to view at full screen.
If you only want to monitor just the shunt then you can make up a single cable very cheaply or buy an expensive isolated Victron one but the Duppa just connects to the Pi with a USB C lead which can be as long as you need, I bought a 5mtr one.
Here are a couple of screenshots of mine on my Android phone;

Then touching the centre of the Battery symbol gets this:

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

I was hoping for a third party app that just tracks and records the parameters in a configurable dashboard…

Sorry, I meant to say in my reply above that you can do exactly what you want in HomeAssistant but that is a much steeper learning curve and a very deep and addictive rabbit hole to descend into and you may need two RasPi's, one for HomeAssistant and one for the GX to collect the info but I am still working on that so can't be sure.
The RasPi GX solution I mentioned, once you have the bits takes about an hour to set up and about half an hour to install depending on your MoHo. I am used to working on HomeAssistant and RasPi's so it took me about 20 minutes to get my GX working initially then I had to buy the other bits to do the full install and run the cables.

 

[Carpmart]

Again, Raul and OldAgeTravellers thanks for the detailed replies and ideas.

I was just hoping that someone had developed an app, linked to an API or integration point on the Victron platform which could give me a configurable GUI or even a standard dashboard with a little more information available.

I guess it’s not in Victrons interest to provide developer interfaces else they wouldn’t sell their shunts or GX’s.

Hey ho, will make do!

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[OldAgeTravellers]

Again, Raul and OldAgeTravellers thanks for the detailed replies and ideas.

I was just hoping that someone had developed an app, linked to an API or integration point on the Victron platform which could give me a configurable GUI or even a standard dashboard with a little more information available.

I guess it’s not in Victrons interest to provide developer interfaces else they wouldn’t sell their shunts or GX’s.

Hey ho, will make do!

That is exactly what the GX is. You have to have something which can collect the info from the various Victron devices to be viewed locally and/or be online to transmit it to the Victron VRM to be viewed on a browser from anywhere in the world. Victron have actually been very generous to release the Venus OS which is what is run on the RasPi or use their CerboGX which Just runs Venus OS which cost about £170 plus cables. It would be pointless building that capability into every device.
There is a possibility that HomeAssistant can collect the Bluetooth Data from devices that have it like the Smart Shunt directly and then display it in whatever form you want. That is what I am researching at the moment. It just needs someone very much cleverer than me to write the HA integration to collect the data by bluetooth. If they have then it will be a doddle but will still need a computer such as the RasPi to do the work. The other way is just to have a Smart Shunt and view the data locally with Victron Connect on your phone. But that of course is just instantaneous data for display.
Or have I completely misunderstood what you are looking for?

 

[Raul]

Have you looked at github? There are various contributors there for venus OS functions.

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

Have you looked at github? There are various contributors there for venus OS functions.

Yes just looked again after my post and found this Video which shows the use of an integration on GitHub that with an ESP mini and RasPi HomeAssistant all the data from any of the shunts with a Victron Direct socket can be imported. So there's my next project. Unfortunately the RasPi2 is not powerfull enough for HomeAssistant so it will have to be the 3b which I have spare.

The available numeric sensors are:

• instantaneous_power
• time_to_go
• state_of_charge
• consumed_amp_hours
• min_battery_voltage
• max_battery_voltage
• amount_of_charged
• last_full_charge
• deepest_discharge
• last_discharge
• discharged_energy
• number_of_full_dis
• number_of_charge_cycles
• discharged_energy

The available text sensors are:

• bmv_alarm_text
• bmv_text
• charger_text
• error_text
• alarm_reason_text
• tracker_text
• fw_version
• pid