The short version
Both let you watch a Pylontech battery. Pylon-Monitor is finished and it is yours: €59, firmware v3.4.2 in production, a screen on the box, a dashboard on your own LAN, a local JSON API, MQTT auto-discovery, Home Assistant working today, and a cloud you can switch on or leave off. PylonCheck is about three times the price — 4 400 CZK — and its own comparison page marks the local dashboard, the local API, MQTT, BYOH, BMS Control and signed updates as Planned, Home Assistant as Canary — not active yet, and the product itself as “a working beta”. Those are their words, on their page, next to a price about three times ours. A screen-free Pylon-Monitor V2 Lite is also available, from €49, for anyone who does not need the on-box display.
Compared on September 7, 2026 from information published on pyloncheck.com, including their own comparison page. A competitor's product changes; if anything below is out of date, tell us and we will correct it — as we did with two rows on 7 September.
Criteria compared70
Pylon-Monitor ahead55
Equal15
PylonCheck ahead0
| Criterion | Pylon-Monitor | PylonCheck |
|---|---|---|
| Independence — what you actually own | ||
| Keeps working if the vendor disappears | Yes — it never needed us | No — the box is a client of their cloud |
| Where your battery data lives | On your device. Cloud is opt-in, off by default | "Customers today use the cloud view" |
| Cell balancing | Smart Balance — a guided balancing session from the dashboard, with any inverter, every cell followed live | "Force Balance" — a two-hour session |
| Can a third party act on your battery remotely? | No — impossible by design | Yes — "after approval" |
| Effect on your Pylontech warranty | None — balancing is done by your battery's own BMS, as Pylontech designed it | Their own feature writes to the BMS |
| Usable with no account and no sign-up | Yes | No |
| Runs entirely on your own network | Yes | Planned — their own status |
| Price and commitment | ||
| Device price | 59 € | ≈ €180 (4 400 CZK incl. VAT; 3 400 CZK launch offer on their first 5 units) |
| What the same LV monitoring costs you | 1× | ≈ 3× more |
| Subscription | None | None |
| Cloud history | Included, free | Included, free |
| How far back the history goes | 3 years (7 d raw, 90 d 5-min, 3 y hourly) | Not specified |
| The price you actually pay | 59 € all-in — no VAT to add | 4 400 CZK, 21% Czech VAT included |
| Warranty on the device | 2 years | 2 years |
| 14-day right of withdrawal (EU) | Yes — written into the terms | Not advertised |
| Delivery and what is in the box | Shipped from Europe, tracked, RJ45 + USB cables included | Not advertised |
| Software-only license for your own hardware (BYOH) | Not offered — hardware and firmware are one product, nothing extra to buy or configure | 500 CZK, one-time — runs on your own Raspberry Pi, notebook or Linux PC |
| Short-term rental | Not offered — one flat price, the device is yours to keep | 7 days, 990 CZK incl. VAT, plus a 4,000 CZK refundable deposit — Czech Republic and Slovakia only, 2 units available |
| Hooking it up | ||
| Battery port used | CONSOLE (RS-232) | CONSOLE (RS-232) |
| Link to your network | WiFi — no cable to run | Wired Ethernet on the standard box |
| WiFi | Built in, captive portal | "Optional WiFi", by arrangement |
| Power | Any 5 V USB source | 230 V mains adapter |
| Setup time | Under 2 minutes | Not advertised |
| What you need to install | Nothing — a browser | Not advertised |
| Who installs it | You do. Plug and play | "A controlled installation" — their words |
| Batteries supported | ||
| Low-voltage models supported | US5000 / US5000C / US5000-1C, US3000C, US3000, US2000C, US2000B+, UP2500, Force-L1 | 3 verified: US2000C, US3000C, US5000 |
| Batteries in one stack | Up to 16, mixed models allowed | Not specified |
| Compatibility claim | Any LV Pylontech with a Console port at 115200 baud | "We do not claim universal compatibility with every revision" |
| High-voltage packs (Force H2, H48050) | Yes — generation 2, firmware 2.8 (beta) | Yes |
| What you see | ||
| Screen on the device | 1.8" colour IPS TFT | None — "the standard Box has no TFT" |
| Choose what the screen shows | Yes, with a live preview | No screen to configure |
| Dashboard without internet | Yes — it lives on the device | Planned — their own status |
| Dashboard from anywhere | Yes, optional | Yes |
| Charge, voltage, current, power, temperature | Yes | Yes |
| Per-cell voltages | Yes | Yes |
| BMS alarms | Yes | Yes |
| Per-battery detail | Yes, all 16 batteries | Yes, in supported installations |
| SOH, cycles, imbalance | Yes | Yes |
| Energy in kWh, charged and discharged per day | Yes — every day, 14 days back | Not advertised |
| Cell imbalance judged against that pack's own normal | Yes — against its own recent normal | Not advertised |
| CSV export | Yes — locally and in the cloud | Yes |
| Raw console replies, for diagnosis | Yes | Not advertised |
| Event log and boot history that survive a crash | Yes | Not advertised |
| WiFi signal history and gateway test | Yes | Not advertised |
| Live refresh rate | Every ~4 seconds | Not specified |
| Alerts | ||
| Email alert when the device goes silent | Yes — email after 6 h of silence, in your language | Not advertised |
| Push alerts to your phone | Yes — Pushover, with a test button | Not advertised |
| Your own SOC and temperature thresholds | Yes, with hysteresis | Not advertised |
| What the alerts cost | Included, free | Not advertised |
| What happens when the cells drift apart | Smart Balance: every full charge measured automatically, a balance score, the weak cell named with its serial number — and a guided 2-hour session with your inverter, followed live, with a before/after report cell by cell. | "Force Balance" — a two-hour session on the stack. "On LV it acts on the whole stack, not an individual slot; we do not claim universal support for every model." |
| Integration | ||
| Local JSON API | Yes — GET /api.json, one call, everything | Planned — their own status |
| MQTT auto-discovery | Yes — 10 sensors, zero YAML | Planned — their own status |
| Home Assistant | Working today — MQTT auto-discovery or REST | Canary — "not active yet" |
| Jeedom, Node-RED, Domoticz, openHAB | Yes — all four read the same endpoint | Not advertised |
| Your own scripts | Yes | Not advertised |
| Works with no internet at all | Yes | Planned — their own status |
| Integration documentation | Published on the site | Not advertised |
| The device itself | ||
| Hardware | Own board and firmware, assembled and tested in France | Off-the-shelf micro PC, "model varies with stock" |
| Firmware updates | Signed OTA, one click, free for life | Planned — their own status |
| Maturity of what ships today | v3.4.2, in production | "A working beta" — their words |
| Public changelog | Published on the site | Not advertised |
| Power draw | Under 0.5 W | Not advertised |
| Moving parts | None — no fan, no SD card | Not advertised |
| Locked out or moved house | 3 taps on the button — no support ticket | Not advertised |
| How hard the console port is polled | One command every 10 s, deliberately paced | Not specified |
| Service and reach | ||
| Support | 7 days a week, answered within 24 h | "Almost 24/7" — their words |
| Who answers you | The person who wrote the firmware | "A real person with hands-on experience" |
| Installer fleet view | Yes — live today | "Installer roles are not finished yet" |
| Install guide after delivery | Yes — sent automatically, in your country's language | Not advertised |
| Languages | 6 | 2 |
What PylonCheck says about PylonCheck
Not our assessment — their own status badges, on their own comparison page, on 6 September 2026. Six of the features they compare against us are not released.
Local dashboard without internetPlanned
Local JSON API / MQTTPlanned
Home AssistantCanary — “not active yet”
Customer's own hardware (BYOH)Planned
BMS ControlPlanned
Signed updates and recoveryPlanned
Screen on the device“The standard PylonCheck Box has no TFT”
Installer roles“Not finished yet”
The product itself“A working beta”
Every one of those six is shipping, documented and in production on a Pylon-Monitor today, for about a third of the price.
Twenty-five reasons the answer is usually ours
- About three times cheaper€59 against roughly 180 € (4 400 CZK incl. VAT). Same job on a low-voltage Pylontech stack, and no subscription on either side.
- It is finishedFirmware v3.4.2, in production, public changelog. Their own page calls the current product “a working beta”.
- Smart Balance includedEvery full charge measured, a balance score for your pack and the weak cell named — and a guided balancing session with your inverter, followed cell by cell, with a before/after report.
- Nobody but you can reach itThere is no remote path into your battery to approve, revoke or trust. Theirs has one, opened “after approval by the PylonCheck owner”.
- It survives usIf this company vanished tonight, your screen, your dashboard, your API and your Home Assistant sensors would carry on exactly as before. A box that is a client of a cloud does not have that property.
- A screen on the boxGlance at it: charge, voltage, current, health, cycles, temperature. No phone, no login, no network. Theirs has no display at all.
- A dashboard that does not need the internetIt is served by the device itself at http://pylon-monitor.local. Router down, ISP down, us gone — you still see your battery. Their local dashboard is marked Planned.
- A real local APIGET /api.json returns the entire battery state in one call, on your LAN, with no account. Theirs: “not been released yet”.
- Home Assistant that works todayTwo supported routes — MQTT auto-discovery or REST — documented on /home-assistant. Theirs is in canary, with production tokens not active.
- Ten sensors, zero YAMLFill in your broker and ten entities appear under one device card, with an online/offline availability signal.
- Jeedom, Node-RED, Domoticz, openHABAll four read the same endpoint. So does a two-line shell script, and so will whatever you use in five years.
- Energy in kWh, not just instantaneous powerHow many kWh went in and out today, and every day for a fortnight. No single reading can answer that.
- Cell imbalance judged against its own historyNot a fixed threshold: the imbalance is compared with that pack's own 30-day normal, which is how a slow drift gets caught before it is an alarm.
- It tells you when it stops reportingA box that lost power cannot announce it. Ours is watched from our side: six hours of silence and you get an email, in your language, with what to check first.
- Push alerts on your own thresholdsYour SOC and temperature limits, with hysteresis so one noisy reading cannot spam you, straight to your phone via Pushover — and a test button to prove it works.
- Three years of history, includedEvery push kept raw for 7 days, averaged to 5-minute samples for 90 days and hourly for 3 years. No subscription, no tier, no upsell.
- Up to sixteen batteries, models mixedSixteen US5000 (≈76.8 kWh), sixteen US2000, or any mix — each one reported individually, with a selector to switch between the whole stack and any single battery.
- Purpose-built hardwareOur own board, our own firmware, assembled and tested in France. Theirs is an off-the-shelf micro PC whose “model varies with stock”.
- Signed updates, free for lifeEvery published image is HMAC-signed and the device refuses anything altered. One click, thirty seconds, settings preserved. Their signed-update system is marked Planned.
- Under half a watt, from any USB portA phone charger, a spare port on your inverter, a power bank. Theirs ships with a 230 V mains adapter.
- Two minutes, no app, no installerCaptive portal: connect your phone to the box, pick your WiFi, done. No app to install, no command line, no “controlled installation”.
- Locked out? Three taps.Three quick presses on the reset button wipe the settings and reopen setup, where you create a new password. No ticket, no waiting, no remote session into your home.
- A fleet view for installers, todayEvery customer site on one screen, worst first. Their delegated installer roles are “not finished yet”.
- Support seven days a weekAnswered within 24 hours by the person who wrote the firmware — not a queue, not a bot, and not a session that needs access to your battery.
- Six languages, and the paperwork to matchSite, firmware, guides and support in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian; 2-year warranty; 14-day EU right of withdrawal written into the terms; shipped from Europe with both cables in the box.
Ready to decide?
One device, one price, no subscription, and everything above included — shipping today, not planned.
Order now — €59One-time purchase, €59 total — no VAT, no subscription.
Source for the PylonCheck column: pyloncheck.com, consulted September 7, 2026. Quoted phrases are theirs.