Sentinel is a remote-support tool for engineers and installers who work on GivEnergy solar-and-battery systems. It lets an approved installer pair to a customer's inverter, see it live, and diagnose faults remotely. It is not a consumer monitoring app — the audience is the person holding the spanner, not the homeowner.
Sentinel
For approved installers — and for their customersRemote access to GivEnergy systems.
Built for the engineers who fix them.
The engineers’ app.
Pair to a customer’s inverter with a six-character code, read it live in your browser, and diagnose faults without a site visit. Read-only by default — any change needs the customer’s on-device consent.
Sent here by your installer? You don’t need an account and there is nothing to pay. Download the app, open it, and read them the six-character code it shows you.
- Single-phase GivEnergy systems · three-phase not yet supported
- Read-only by default
- Built by the engineers behind Solar Tech Support
Why application-only?
A tool this powerful only works if you can trust who’s holding it.
“Sentinel gives an engineer remote reach into a stranger’s home battery system. We give it free — but only to installers who are consistently rated 5★. Engineers sign in with an approved work email, I approve or disable every account, and access is a badge of trust that can be withdrawn if standards slip.”
“It stays read-only by default. Any change to a live inverter needs the customer’s permission, given on their own device: a change window they open while the engineer is on the phone, or 48-hour access they grant one named engineer and, from the 1.2.0 app, RVTC’s administrator if the customer agrees, and can cancel at any time — and every write is recorded to a permanent, tamper-evident log, tied to the engineer who made it, before it reaches the inverter.”
Application-only access Free to 5★ installers Read-only by default Every write logged before it lands
The dashboard you get
A live picture of every watt, as it happens.
When you pair to a customer’s system this is your view: real-time power flow, live numbers, every register the inverter exposes. Below is a synthetic demo so you can explore without an inverter — numbers move on a fake half-sine, but the layout is identical to your live dashboard.
sentinelapp.solar/dashboard/quick/DEMO67
Connected
Demo data — not your real system. Numbers move on a synthetic half-sine.
Four steps. Five minutes. Then you’re looking at a live inverter.
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Install The customer opens Sentinel
Your customer downloads Sentinel and opens it on any computer on the same network as the inverter — no command line, no router changes, nothing to leave running. They open it for the session and close it when you're done.
A few minutes
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Pair Pair with a six-character code
The agent shows a six-character code; the customer reads it to you. Sentinel opens an encrypted outbound connection through a Cloudflare relay to your browser dashboard — nothing to port-forward.
About 30 seconds
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Diagnose Read the system live
Power flow, battery, solar, grid, EMS state, per-cell voltages and every exposed register — live in your browser, on mobile too. Read-only by default.
From the moment it pairs
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Act safely Make a change only with consent
Need to change a setting? You can, while the customer's permission covers it: a change window they open on their own device during the call, or 48-hour access they have granted you. Every write is recorded to a permanent, tamper-evident log before it reaches the inverter — no engineer can alter or delete it.
Only when needed · always logged
Getting access
Free, but earned.
Sentinel is free to approved installers. Access is by application — we prioritise installers with a consistent 5★ track record. Apply, get approved, sign in.
Common questions
No. Sentinel is built and run by RVTC LTD (parent of Solar Tech Support) and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or linked to GivEnergy Ltd or GivEnergy Software Ltd. It talks to the inverter over its existing local network connection — no GivEnergy cloud account required.
Nothing. Sentinel is free to approved installers. There are no tiers, no subscriptions and no per-use charges. It's given free to installers who are consistently rated 5★ — access is a mark of trust, and it can be withdrawn if standards slip.
Access is by application, not open signup. Apply and, once you're approved, you sign in with your work email — secured by Cloudflare Access — and Sentinel is tied to that identity. Ron approves each installer and can disable access at any time from an admin console. We prioritise installers with a consistent 5★ track record. Apply from the 'Apply for access' page.
Not instantly — it's application-only by design, so there's a review step. The desktop Mac and Windows apps are available to approved installers today (in beta). The iOS app is live on the App Store and the Android app is coming; you can apply now for early access.
The Mac and Windows desktop apps are the current way engineers run Sentinel. They're beta builds, ad-hoc signed, so on first launch you'll approve them manually — on Mac, System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway; on Windows, More info → Run anyway at the SmartScreen prompt. The iOS app is live on the App Store; Android is coming, and we'll email approved installers when it lands.
A tiny local agent runs on the customer's network (or you start a one-off session from the desktop app) and shows a six-character pairing code. The customer reads you the code; Sentinel establishes an encrypted outbound connection through a Cloudflare relay to your browser dashboard. Nothing to port-forward, no inbound firewall holes.
Sentinel is read-only by default. You can change a setting only while the customer's permission covers it: a change window they open on their own device during a call, which closes itself after one hour, or 48-hour access they grant you from their own device, which covers changes as well as reads and which they can cancel at any time. Before the command reaches the inverter it is recorded to a permanent, tamper-evident audit log — hash-chained, append-only, and tied to the signed-in engineer and the system; if it can't be logged, the write is refused. The customer always stays in control of who has access; that safety invariant is deliberate and non-negotiable.
No — and that's on purpose. Sentinel is a tool for engineers who already know GivEnergy kit; it isn't a how-to for working on one, and we won't tell you what to change on a customer's system. That's your judgement and your responsibility. If you're not certain what you're doing, don't guess on live hardware — that's exactly what Solar Tech Support is for: hands-on diagnostics and repair, as a paid service. It's because the app puts real reach into someone's home that we only release it to trusted, application-approved engineers. What we're absolutely here for is the app itself: if you find a bug, a rough edge, or something you'd do differently, tell us — that feedback is genuinely welcome.
Single-phase GivEnergy systems: GIV-AC, GIV-HY 3.0 / 3.6 / 5.0, GIV-HY3 (Gen 3) and GIV-AIO. Firmware D0.300+ is confirmed; older firmware usually works — tell us if you hit one that doesn't. Three-phase inverters are not yet supported: Sentinel has never connected to one, it would not show their live data, and some settings changes on them are refused. A site with three single-phase inverters, one per phase, is fine. On a high-voltage battery other than the All-in-One, the battery is shown from the inverter's own figures; its individual modules are not listed yet.
The local agent keeps reading the inverter over the LAN regardless. Remote access, alerts and the browser dashboard need the customer's connection up, because the relay runs over the internet — but nothing depends on a GivEnergy cloud account.
Yes. Access is a badge of trust tied to your approved installer account and your rating. If standards slip, access can be withdrawn. That's the deal that keeps the network trustworthy for the customers whose systems you're touching.
Yes — and we're upfront about it. Sentinel is built with a lot of AI assistance, but it's developed and overseen by an electronic engineer who studied software engineering as part of his degree — so the person signing off on every change understands both the hardware and the code. We're deliberately not rushing: the registers and the app in general are verified as we go, on real GivEnergy hardware, before anything reaches you. That caution is the whole reason Sentinel is application-only and read-only by default. If you ever spot a problem or have guidance for us, please get in touch — we'd genuinely rather hear it than not.
Every product change is recorded on the public Changelog at /changelog/ — new features, fixes and safety-relevant changes. We build in the open.
Apply for access
Free to approved installers. Desktop and iOS apps today, Android coming.
Apply for access, sign in with your approved work email (secured by Cloudflare Access), and pair to a customer's system with a six-character code. Read-only by default — changes need the customer's permission, given on their own device, and every write is logged before it reaches the inverter.
- No GivEnergy cloud account required
- Read-only by default — customer stays in control
- Six-character pairing over an encrypted relay
- Built by Solar Tech Support engineers