Panbo

The Marine Technology Hub

Panbo News and Reviews

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Network & control / Gadgets / How-to / The future / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

$50 and four hours: an AI-built NMEA 2000 display

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about artificial intelligence’s role in home-built marine electronics for the better part of a year, and I still don’t have a clean answer. I’m going to write it anyway. Here’s what I’ve learned about what AI can actually do for you, where it falls down, and what happens when it doesn’t. The opportunity is real; you can finally build your instrumentation and navigation electronics exactly the way you want it. But so are the potential pitfalls. AI will happily put someone with limited knowledge deep in the bowels of their own navigation electronics. On a boat, that can get dangerous.

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LiFePO4 / Electrical & Engines / The future / The Trade

Solid-state lithium-ion batteries, the future of energy storage onboard?

I sat down to write my initial review and findings of Safiery’s 48-volt, solid state lithium ion battery. But, before I get into the meat of the battery’s performance, I feel I need to dive into solid state lithium batteries in general as well as the differences among the products available in the marketplace today. So, what follows will be a primer on the technology in general and why we likely all care about the development of solid-state batteries. Following this entry, I’ll share my experience with Safiery’s battery.

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Wireless & Apps / Network & control / Communications

Starlink 2026: Same as it ever was — always changing

It’s been more than a year since I last wrote about Starlink. You might assume that silence means nothing has changed. You’d be wrong. Maybe I’ve just run out of clichés for how the pace of change never slows with Starlink — but regardless, the changes keep coming, and they’re often frustrating for the nomadic subscribers who’ve come to rely on it for connectivity. Changes include new equipment, price hikes, international roaming tweaks, and new ID requirements.

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Electrical & Engines / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K / Monitoring & Tracking

Digital Yacht veLink: Victron to NMEA 2000, Without a GX

Victron makes an impressive line of electrical products for boats, RVs and off-grid systems. They offer a similarly broad — and maybe even dizzying — array of connectivity options. But, despite those options, there is a big gap between a simple Victron setup with just a few devices connected to your cell phone via Bluetooth and a full-blown GX system with a Cerbo, Ekrano, or other control hardware. Digital Yacht aims to fill that void with the veLink, a Victron Bluetooth to NMEA 2000 converter.

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Network & control / Electrical & Engines / Monitoring & Tracking

Victron announces Nucleo GX, a lower cost, higher performing GX option but is it for marine?

Victron just announced the Nucleo GX, another option in the GX family of devices joining the Cerbo GX, Ekrano GX, and Venus GX. The Nucleo is positioned as a higher performing, lower cost option than the Cerbo GX. I’ll be honest, I sat down to write this entry thinking I was going to write about a great new option for marine use. My conversations with Victron representatives helped me better understand Nucleo GX and the market it serves. Spoiler alert: Nucleo will be best leveraged managing off-grid and battery backup systems, not systems on boats. The better news for boaters came from my conversations with Victron: a much more powerful Cerbo is coming this year.

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Electrical & Engines

Arco Marine announces Zeus Omega distributed alternator regulation

Arco Marine introduced the Zeus Omega, a product family they are calling an Alternator Control System. Zeus Omega builds on the original Arco Zeus regulator while promising easier installations, greater scale, and operational improvements. In a call with Arco’s CEO Ben Stoddard and their head of engineering, Nick Ernst, Arco walked me through the benefits of Omega and how it incorporates many improvements Arco discovered through the original Zeus.

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Navigation / What's on board... / Charts / Monitoring & Tracking

The Q Experience from Next Four, A fresh take on chart plotters

Rarely do I have the opportunity to review a truly new chart plotter. For as long as I have been reviewing equipment, chart plotters come from Furuno, Garmin, Navico, or Raymarine. So, it is pretty exciting for me to get my hands on a truly new line of chart plotters. Although NextFour’s Q Experience is new to me and Panbo readers, Q is not as new as you might think. The company just marked ten years of building chart plotters designed to feel as natural as a smartphone. Panboat has spent the past several weeks running around with a dual-display unit suction-cupped to the helm, and I’m ready to share my early impressions. Is Q really as natural to use as your phone? Let’s find out.

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LiFePO4 / Electrical & Engines

Safiery Solid State battery – testing begins

Over the last few months, I’ve been hearing some rumbling about Safiery’s new solid state batteries and the sublime specs they offer. So, it was a bit of good fortune when I ran into Bruce Loxton, the man behind Safiery’s impressive mix of products, at the Palm Beach International Boat Show. A short conversation with Bruce left me excited about what the batteries offer and his promise to send me a battery got my wheels spinning. How would I test this battery and just what is it capable of delivering?

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Communications / AIS / The future

Garmin announces Signal VHF radios, Vesper’s DNA lives on

I’ve been waiting for this announcement for a long time. Ordinarily, VHF announcements from major marine manufacturers aren’t that exciting. Manufacturers often rely on third parties to design and build their radios. Those radios frequently just complete the line and ensure a brand matching helm. But, Garmin bought Vesper, an AIS specialist, in January of 2022. My piece covering that acquisition asked if Vesper’s innovation would continue. We’ve had to wait more than four years, but the pictures of the Signal series radios look promising.

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Cabin & deck gear / Safety & SAR / Electrical & Engines

Garmin OnBoard, slick wireless man overboard system for Garmin equipped boats

Have you ever used a traditional engine cut-off tether, forgot you were wearing it and strayed just a bit too far from the switch? I have, and it always ends the same way. The engines shut down, the boat, if it’s in gear, lurches and you’re left dead in the water. A wireless tether provides a longer and less tangle prone virtual leash to replace the physical one. Garmin is not the first company to offer a wireless tether or man overboard system, but theirs works extremely well and integrates beautifully with Garmin MFDs. So, if you have a boat with Garmin displays, this system might be for you.