A wonderful substitute for the $550 Victron GX
For Victron VE.Direct isolated WiFi/MQTT module
Victron makes great products, everyone knows this. They know this too, and upcharge everything by 500%.
I still bit the bullet and bought several of their products for my solar generator that I built piece by piece as a hobby, just figuring it out as I went.
At some point I realized I wanted a centralized controller, and went to look up what could connect to all the components.
I about fell out of my chair when I saw the price Victron wants for their monitor/controller... and decided I would just settle for an old ipad to run bluetooth to monitor the SmartShunt and other Victron products.
That wasn't optimal, as it was only local access w BT, and very limited for data tracking and analysis.
Fast forward to about a month ago, I dove into the world of Home Assistant, and have been spending a couple hours every morning before work exploring integrations for my hundred or so smart devices here at my home.
I was absolutely delighted to find this store and their Renogy Solar Controller wifi controller, and then even MORE delighted to see they made one for Victron as well!
I quickly ordered, shipping was fast, and it took less than two hours this morning to set everything up... and it only took that long because I've never played around with a Pico W (I had to order the board without the Pico and buy one separately off Amazon). It really was simple, the only part that I got hung up on was the Victron source code... where was it? It said it was sent with the order. I looked in my email and then finally woke up to check on this site and found it in my messages. It was still 0500 in the morning.
Now, between the Renogy Controller integration, and this controller, I have a TON of data for my solar generator system, all pleasantly organized on my Home Assistant dashboard.
Thank you so much to The West Labs for creating this extraordinarily helpful product.
