I just got myself in a bit of a pickle trying to repurpose a 3 phase Grid Meter virtual device to track several values in watts because I didn’t realise it was going to integrate with everything else in VRM and hijack my actual grid readings. There are definitely use cases for entirely independent inputs modelling independent hardware or data sources that do not need to alter basic VRM functionality but that can still have an indirect impact on the Victron system.
You can use virtual acloads. Just being a bunch of power values is their exact purpose 
But based on my experience with the grid meter that will integrate and start affecting measurements and trying to turn my system into 3-phase just because I’m recording different line values when it’s actually single phase…or does the implementation in this case not do those things and the grid meter was a special case?
Good idea, I am also trying to implement a few devices that for the moment are using the wrong device-type with the wrong units.
Yes, a (virtual) gridmeter triggers some automated usages of the reported values.
An acload doesn’t do that.
OK…good to know…for me it doesn’t take away the potential value of a totally generic device too though…