Connecting Victron to Home Assistant using MQTT

Hi Everyone, In this video, I show you how to locally connect your Victron device (such as the Cerbo GX) to home assistant using MQTT. This way you can control and monitor your Victron devices and use home assistant for automation and creating better dashboards.
touch victron.conf file:
connection victron
address 192.1CHANGE THIS
topic N/# in 0 victron/
topic R/# out 0 victron/
MQTT Topic (9:17):
victron/R/48e7da85ccd9/system/0/Serial
Code Github Page (12:10)
gist.github.com/KidA001/dc558...
Other Resources:
www.imval.tech/index.php/blog...

[@JMX246]

well explained - new to both of these - thanks for posting ! (using it with VenusOS on the Victron side) - RPI3B and on the HA side - new RPI4-4gb

[@sweetlifeadventure7]

Wow! Exceptionally clear and I am now convinced that I will be doing this. You got me from "wow that's a thing?" to "I'm doing this with my new build". I can see that the monitoring side will be great to have, PLEASE make a part 2 showing what we can do or control!

[@Marstepan]

check your venuos firmware release on your cerbo and if you have anything after 3.30 you please replace the payload for keepalive with: victron/R//keepalive

[@benschaefer6858]

Amazing video - it's so fulfilling to see my Victron data on HA. I struggled a bit and now I will never forget this mosquitto has 2 T'S! 🙂

[@JMX246]

would be great if you could do a PART-II on how to integrate this into HA dashboards

[@PatrickDanforth]

Thanks! Very helpful, it took me two tries but it is up and running now!

[@juanpierredutoit4293]

Thanks so much, learnt a ton today! Thank so much for all the time you put into this!

[@remimunteanu]

You can also add "topic W/# out 0 victron/" to the mqtt config file and it will alow you to change some settings also (write topics). Great video !

[@bwebman]

Amazing, thank you! Now I can set up some automations to efficiently use any excess power I might have!

[@Marstepan]

topic W/# out 0 victron/ examples of controls please! ;) thank you for clear and 'end to end' approach! great work. looking forward for 'controls' part 2!

[@DannyCsaszar]

thanks for posting this, got mine setup now. One thing that had this old man stumped is that the "!" is what I missed in your video at time 12:51. Once I added it then the mqtt started working

[@Alex-jw9xx]

really, really well explained, thank you so much!

[@dougle03]

This really is a great video. However, This can also be done with the 'HACS' Add-on using the 'Victron GX modbusTCP integration'. It passes through all possible data and is far easier to install and configure.

[@francoisdupreez9754]

Great stuff, got mine working. Thanks for sharing!

[@ruidias9622]

Thank you! Worked without issues!

[@soucraven]

Excellent!!! This is fully superb job

[@VincentArdolino]

Wow, mind blown 🤯 This is an amazing crash course in MQTT and Victron and Home Assistant. I have all these systems living on islands because I’ve never had any luck with setting up the MQTT broker. This was a high speed crash course that delivers so much information into a highly compressed timeline. Great job.

[@Nogodsnomasterz]

Great video! Really appreciate you taking the time.

[@kellyjsanders86]

How much does the recent Victron implementation of FlashMQ (from Mosquitto) change your approach? thx

[@timlucas4014]

Thanks for this but I had to add address 192.1CHANGE THIS :1883 ( the :1883 ) Also active: true folder: mosquitto and my HA IP address rather than core-mosquitto For any one else having problems

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

Glad you got it to work.

[@rodneyhrytsak3407]

Hello! At 4:29 it does not bring me straight to that page. Where do you enter the samba credentials that were setup in samba share in home assistant?

[@remimunteanu]

If you are runnig Venus OS 3.20 or later you can avoid message flood by publishing '{ "keepalive-options" : ["suppress-republish"] }' on 'victron/R/YOUR-SERIAL-NUMBER/keepalive' using a periodic timer, and to get all topics (like first connection) you can publish to the same 'keepalive' topic but with no message and it will query all topics. Hope this helps :)

[@toukevable]

I'd like to be able to toggle my converter switch, is it possible ? Any explanation about it somwhere ?

[@scottmurphy1146]

FANTASTIC I'm gonna build one Any thoughts on getting a Growatt AIO Inverter into Venus OS via RS485/CAN via Modbus/MQTT ? I'M looking WOW I found you Thank You !

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

Hmmm, not sure. Its not something I am familiar with

I managed to integrate Victron VRM into home assistant, but with a small problem: the data is only available when I connect with my VRM application on my phone. As soon as I am no longer connected via my application, the data is no longer updated in home assistant. How to fix this problem ?

[@HaithamAbouBakr]

Hi thanks for posting this. i wonder whether you had a chance to have cerbo GX integrated with Fibaro HC3. let me know if you did this before

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

Unfortunately, I have not.

[@timtaylor8557]

So this won't work with just a Smartsolar MPPT controller?

[@patrickruiz6764]

merci pour ce tuto que j'ai eu du mal a comprendre je me serre de duckdns pour acceder a hom-assistant je n'arrive pas !!!! peut tu m'aider merci

[@Przedzik]

great Video !!! I like to add more entities, start with one grid power I copy all exactly as loads just change values too much my mqtt but can't get them visible in the HA :( # AC Grid - state_topic: "victron/N/my id /system/0/Ac/Grid/L1/Power" name: "AC Grid" unique_id: "ac_grid" device_class: power value_template: '{{ value_json.value }}' unit_of_measurement: "W" icon: mdi:power-socket-uk am I missing some step?

[@MOKPT3]

Thank you so much. I have 2 Cerbos. How can I get data from both?

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

Hmmmm. I'm not entirely sure, I bet you would have to add both to the victron.conf file. But would probably have to use different variables for the topics (N and R). Then you would probably have to add another path to the keep Alive automation using the new variables for the second cerbo.

[@didierv3069]

Great job but I'm block at minute 11:15 when you connect Home Assistant Hurrican. I receved a disconnected server message. What's wrong? Thanks

[@Wirelessinfopuntbe]

My to, I receved also a disconnected server message.

[@marekmelena1913]

Problem here.. I was successful. Up to automation. I see mqtt messages in mqtt eplorer - cerbo. But i dont see it in HA mqtt explorer. Any clue? Id is correct.

[@marekmelena1913]

fixed! i totally missed to change FALSE to TRUE in mosquitto broker.. :)

[@toukevable]

Hi, thank you for your vid but I'm stuck at 4:29. I put credentials in samba share but I don't have home assistant poping in network (except my link to home assistant web browser) , what should I do ?

[@juanpierredutoit4293]

Just pop in your homeassistant IP into explorer "If you are on Windows you use \\\, if you are on MacOS you use smb:// to connect to the shares." Thats where you enter the Samba creds you made.

[@rodneyhrytsak3407]

Same! Did you find a solution?

[@toukevable]

@@rodneyhrytsak3407 sorry did not see your com. I actually managed to do it but I don't remember at all how since the time. Because I tried to access it today but did not work as it should.

[@francoisdupreez9754]

Open file explorer- when on 'This PC", there's 3 dots at the top, click 'add network location', then type homeassistent.

[@ppi57]

On a Mac, I can't make a file with .conf as the suffix... it defaults to .rtf

[@ppi57]

Ok, I rounded up an old laptop but when I click on Homeassistant under "Networks" it sends me right to the home assistant instance webpage... what am I missing?

[@AdiMock]

That‘s my problem too.

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

sorry for the late response, it sounds like home assistant is only showing up under "other devices" on the network page in file explorer. It should be showing up under the "computer" section. On my laptop I couldn't get it to show up properly using samba share either, so I had to map network drive. Here is the resources I used. community.home-assistant.io/t/samba-share-not-accessible-through-windows-10/352134/2 I got it to work using the info posted by francis, and I entered the credentials set in the samba share addon. Hope this helps!

[@thomasengel5387]

Victron has switched to "FlashMQ". Unfortunately, your instructions no longer work.

[@amieXchen]

Really?

[@francoisdupreez9754]

I'm new to HAand want to use it with my system, any pointers?

[@digitalmarketersouravbd]

Hey there, I watched your video and it's amazing. Your content is very great. But some problem is found in your channel, so your videos are not reaching the right audience. Due to this, the video is getting enough views. As a result, your watch time is not increasing. if you want I can talk about it.

[@aaronsingmaster1936]

FYI 'touch.Victron.conf' is not the name of the file you want to create (of course, you can if you want). "touch" is a linux command that creates an empty file, thus "touch Victron.conf' creates a file, 'Victron.conf'.

[@melonmonkeygarage7735]

that makes more sense! ha

[@ondrejcervik4724]

Hello Please could you give me hint. I stuck on creating config file in shares. Can I do it in file editor? And how it should be named please?