Monitoring your solar production without the cloud: why and how

Your inverter sends your data to the other side of the world just to show it back to you. There is a simpler way — and a safer one.

You fit solar panels to become more self-sufficient... and then the monitoring app depends on a server on the other side of the world. There is a way out of that contradiction.

What is wrong with cloud apps

Most inverters (Deye among many others) come with an app of the Solarman type: your production data goes up to the manufacturer's servers, then comes back down to your phone. The consequences:

• Their servers or your internet go down, and monitoring stops — sometimes the settings with it
• Your consumption data — which tells the story of your life: when you are in, when you are away, what you run — sits with a third party
• The manufacturer can close the door: some have already restricted local access, or once-free features, from one day to the next
• Latency, accounts, passwords, and subscriptions that appear over time

The answer: read the inverter locally

Inverters speak a standard, documented protocol: Modbus, usually over an RS485 port. Connecting straight to it gives you everything — production, battery, grid, consumption — without going through the internet at all. That data then feeds a local dashboard, and the open Home Assistant ecosystem is ideal for the job.

What it changes day to day

• Real-time monitoring (seconds, not minutes) on a tablet, a phone or a wall display
• It works without an internet connection — and it keeps working, whatever becomes of the manufacturer
• Automations: run the water heater when production passes a threshold, warn you when the battery runs low
• Unlimited history, kept at your place. No account, no subscription

And for a complete installation?

Our turnkey solar installations come with this local monitoring built in: tablet included, production, battery and household use live, no cloud and no subscription. It is what we stand for: your energy, your data, at your place.