A question for everyone offgrid with solar

Hi folks!

Being a bit techie and offgrid with solar, I installed a simple solution to log all the data that my inverter outputs on a 15min basis (pv production, power load, battery voltage/capacity).

Because my wife doesnt deal with the inverter, I made a simple webapp where the data is displayed "live" (15min delay at max), along with records of the last hour and a chart that allows you to see everything on any day you choose. This is pretty cool, but not polished since its just for us.

I was wondering if others might see value in a simple solution like this. I was thinking of setting up a small online service for a symbolic fee(5$ a month or so) to host the data for everyone else and then have a nice but simple interface to check live data and charts.

Is this something interesting? Will it have an audience? I know that some brands already have their own cloud offering, this would be for all the other inverters that, like mine, are not that "smart" ;)

(tech notes: in order to upload the data, I bought a simple raspberry pi zero that connects to the inverter via usb, and via a script periodically sends the data to my webapp. this part will always have to be solved by each person individually according to equipment, etc..)

I think it's a great idea for smaller systems using less well known inverter and controller manufacturers. Outback, schneider, magnum, midnite solar, all offer web based tracking free with purchase of equipment So the fee for service angle might be a hard sell.  There is a monitoring company whose name escapes me right now who offer a plug and play service. Again they cover their costs through equipment sales with free cloud based monitoring. I'd love to see what you've put together though.
Cheers,   David

I'm not sure what level of interest others might have but as an off-solar person I've never gotten into all that complex data monitoring.  I've been tempted sometime to run a line from the barn where all the equipment is to the house so I can see what the battery level is at during long periods of cloudy days, but instead just hike out and look figuring I could use the exercise.  I personally have little interest in connecting my system to the internet.  I have no idea what virus and stuff could be caught out there!  ;)  It seems like a more secure system if I keep it isolated.

David Huang wrote:I'm not sure what level of interest others might have but as an off-solar person I've never gotten into all that complex data monitoring.  I've been tempted sometime to run a line from the barn where all the equipment is to the house so I can see what the battery level is at during long periods of cloudy days, but instead just hike out and look figuring I could use the exercise.  I personally have little interest in connecting my system to the internet.  I have no idea what virus and stuff could be caught out there!  ;)  It seems like a more secure system if I keep it isolated.

David, most of the systems mentioned above will either report to a web based platform or to a offline network to your computer. Something else to consider for the system you are designing Nuno; make sure it can work offline also with an on board browser of some sort since many off grid locations either dont have internet or dont want to share their data...