Monitoring
What Swallow can tell us about herself when we are aboard—and when we are not.
Monitoring overlaps the electrical system, but it is not confined to it. Battery state and shore power are only the beginning. Location, cabin temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, bilge activity and other alarms all belong here too.
The first installation
The electrical rebuild includes a Victron Energy Cerbo GX in the battery compartment, a SmartShunt watching every amp in and out of the house battery, and a cellular modem so the boat can report in when nobody is aboard.
That went live on 28 August 2026. The Cerbo publishes to Victron's VRM portal over its own mobile connection, and VRM will share an installation as a read-only dashboard — which is what appears below.
The Cerbo also has five digital inputs, none of them yet used. One will go to a high-water float switch in the bilge, so that my phone can report that Swallow is taking on water while nobody is aboard. Another will monitor cabin temperature, which will also tell us when the air conditioning has stopped. Those arrive on the same dashboard once they are wired, so this page grows as the boat does — as other measurements prove useful rather than merely possible.
- Monitor
- Cerbo GX MK2
- Display
- GX Touch 50
- Battery metering
- Victron SmartShunt
- Connectivity
- Victron GX LTE 4G-A
- Portal
- Victron VRM