I'm a big fan of the open nature of Victron's platform - both the API and the data itself. We've been using this to great effect in our RV, using the rich, real-time data from our Victron CCGX not just for monitoring but also to integrate into our home automation system.
One such use case is bringing the data into Home Assistant. I'm using MQTT via an intermediary MQTT broker so that I can have multiple consumers without increasing the load on the CCGX itself. This has been running flawlessly for almost 2 years now.
Here's an example of the data I'm pulling into Home Assistant and how it appears:
The real power, however, comes from not just displaying the data but using it to make physical changes via automations.
For example, most of the time we have our inverter turned off due to the background power draw which is significant in our modest RV setup (600W solar + 300Ah lithium batteries). When dry camping and all our power is coming from solar, we have it set up to automatically turn on the inverter when the batteries hit 90%. The fridge switches from propane to AC at 95%, and at 98% the electric water heater turns on. There is hysteresis configured to turn each toggle off at lower SoCs too.
We're planning to spend this winter in a very cold climate (northern Vermont where temperatures could reach 0°F). Our RV has a 30A main breaker, which is easily exceeded if we run too many appliances - e.g. water heater, space heater, Instant Pot. I'm planning another automation which will automatically and temporarily turn off the water heater and / or space heater if we're at risk of exceeding the capacity of either our main breaker or MultiPlus output (computed in real-time based on shore power connectivity).
Having the data from the Victron system integrated alongside the data from our other home automation system (10+ environmental sensors, contact sensors, GPS, lights, appliances, media, networking data etc) is an incredibly powerful platform that is helping to make our RV more secure, more efficient and most importantly, more comfortable for us to live in.
As I said earlier, the Victron data is being ingested via MQTT but I'm hoping to find some time this winter to work on a native integration with Home Assistant. If anyone from Victron is interested in being involved in that process, please let me know!
Again, hope this inspires people with a few ideas, and thank you again to the team at Victron for making all this possible!
