ESP32 Gateway for Victron Solar — No App Needed, Fully Self-Hosted

If you’ve ever used Victron Energy gear for your solar setup, you know the pain: you need the VictronConnect app, Bluetooth pairing, and you can only monitor from one device at a time.

So I built Victron Remote Gateway — an ESP32-S3 gateway that gives you a live dashboard, MQTT integration, and full control from any browser.

What It Does

• Real-time monitoring of all Victron Energy devices (BMV, MPPT, Inverter, etc.)
• MQTT integration — connect to Home Assistant, Node-RED, or any MQTT client
• Control — adjust charging parameters, load output, and more from any device
• No cloud dependency — everything runs locally on the ESP32-S3
• Web dashboard — live UI accessible from any device on your network

Why I Built This

I have a small off-grid solar setup with a Victron BMV-712 and SmartSolar MPPT. The VictronConnect app works fine, but:

1. You can only connect one device at a time via Bluetooth
2. No way to monitor from a different room or building
3. No integration with my Home Assistant setup
4. No historical data without the Victron VRM portal (cloud)

The ESP32-S3 gateway solves all of these. It connects to the Victron devices via Bluetooth LE and exposes all data via MQTT and a web dashboard.

Tech Stack

• ESP32-S3 with Arduino/PlatformIO
• BLE communication with Victron devices
• Async web server for the dashboard
• MQTT client for Home Assistant integration
• WebSocket for real-time dashboard updates

Getting Started

git clone https://gitlab.com/schaefer-services/victron-remote.git
pio run -t upload
# Configure WiFi and MQTT via the web interface

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Open Source

Everything is open source: GitLab

Try it: victron-remote.schaefer.zone

Would love feedback from the self-hosting and IoT communities!

Also check out my other projects: Synapse — persistent memory for AI agents, Shopping Journal — smart shopping list with map integration