getting data from local network. for dummies if possible!

hi all, i would like to buy, steal or if i'm forced to make a standalone display for my givenergy battery just to show current state of charge (start with one feature first before feature creep sets in, i understand from a bit of reading some communication via IP addresses is possible.
Im thinking ideally PicoW or ESP, and an eink or LCD display. trying to avoid using a Raspberry PI SBC as i'm more comfortable programing micros that linux.
before i start down with rabbit hole! has anyone done anything similar that i can steal info from you?
what would be great is a completed project that i can just copy (then i can tell all my friends i did it all by myself...)

near real time access to data from the inverter is possible via a modbus interface. The implementations I am aware of are all running on PIs / NUCs.... The base layer is typically Modbus Givenergy project https://github.com/dewet22/givenergy-modbus that provides a python library for accessing the data on the inverter. There are then various projects that use this library like giv tcp https://github.com/britkat1980/giv_tcp which gets the data, publishs over MQTT, stores in influxdb and makes available to smart home projects like Home Assistant and node-red. Home assistant provides dashboarding and automation capability.

I also use esphome https://esphome.io/ which makes it simple to program esp* devices to both send and receive data. For instance adding an e-ink or oled screen to an esp device to display data. As far as I am aware there is nothing out of the box to read the giv inverter data from an ESP device. Esphome integrates cleanly with Home assistant so could be used to build the display portion of your project with the other projects used to source the data.

I guess if you just want a 1 box display that shows you basic things that don’t move that fast (like SOC) then you could just use the ESP to send a http GET request to the Givenergy API?
The API is still hamstrung by 5min updates like the portal but I guess for things other than instant load power / grid in-out then it’s not too much of an issue.

hoggy most certainly the simplest option- the projects I listed take a little setting up, having an ESP* call the cloud service is most definitely the simplest option, he only difference being rather than second granularity from local access it'll be 5 or 10 mins from the cloud

thanks all for the reply's some interesting options here. and given me ideas. maybe looking at a pi and learning all the docker stuff. (iv never used MQTT so could be an interesting project to learn.) but for now i think the API could be the better way to get something working hopefully on a PicoW as there easier to get hold of right now.

Home Assistant and givTCP. Live like under 5s refresh

Or use the GE App itself in local mode.
I have either or, on an old iPhone SE stuck on the wall.

May soon upgrade to a tablet as I get more data available to see

I have an Amazon Fire 7 with the GivEnergy App showing my data on the standard 10 second refresh, didn't feel the need for much more than that unless you want more frequent data logging.