Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: The future

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Editors' Blog / The future

Integrated docking cam explainer: Garmin Surround View vs Raymarine DockSense Alert

When Garmin introduced Surround View last fall, it seemed a lot like Raymarine’s existing DockSense Alert. A precisely engineered array of cameras network to a powerful central imaging processor that gives the helmsperson a synthesized bird’s eye view of the maneuvering situation plus individual cam views as needed. However, the underlying technologies are actually quite different, and worth understanding, I think, as Brunswick and others compete in this area…

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Sailing & Racing / The future

Vakaros Atlas 2 RaceSense & the promise of dual-band GPS

RaceSense is such a novel concept that it’s hard to understand at a glance. While that screen looks like a virtual sail racing app that you play with your fingertips, what’s actually virtual are the folks normally needed to run a real event — plus their boats, the marks, the horn, etc. Instead, Vakaros Atlas 2 tablet-style instruments on each of the real sailboats form a meshed wireless network, and a built-in feature called RaceSense uses distributed artificial intelligence to create the course, call penalties, and name winners. Wow…

What's wrong with this picture? 67

LiFePO4 / Electrical & Engines / The future / Monitoring & Tracking

Lost Bens? Nope, we’re in the lithium mines, finding gold!

The caption is serious, because right in front of your eyes is the most basic — and possibly dangerous — mistake anyone could make while setting up and bench testing a fully integrated lithium-powered marine electric power system. And it’s a mistake I made even though it was truly right in front of my eyes during the many hours I spent trying to figure out why Victron’s brand new and quite amazing Lynx Smart BMS would not power up. So if…

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Editors' Blog / Wireless & Apps / Communications / The future

KVH’s TracPhone V30 announcement includes more affordable mini-VSAT service plans

It’s certainly noteworthy that KVH now offers a smaller, simpler, and less expensive VSAT antenna, but the TracPhone V30 announcement also mentioned new service rates of potential interest to those cruising and working on slimmer budgets. Although the more affordable plans only include small amounts of high-speed data, they also offer unlimited low-speed data. Is it fast enough to make working by satellite a reality at a reasonable cost? Depending on how you use the KVH mini-VSAT broadband service, it just might work for you.

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Press Releases / Electrical & Engines / The future

Volvo Penta Launches Industry’s First Fully Integrated Assisted Docking System

Volvo Penta today announced the commercial availability of the industry’s first fully integrated Assisted Docking system. The system gives the captain better control when docking a boat by automating his or her intentions, compensating for some dynamic variables, such as wind and current, and helping the vessel stay on its intended course…

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Editors' Blog / Safety & SAR / The future

EPIRB and PLB Return Link Service, what’s the holdup?

Over 15 months ago, I got excited about the first PLB with Return Link Service (RLS), a Cospas-Sarsat system improvement that would let a boater know that their distress signal had been received ashore along with their location. And it was supposed to be operational in early 2020, at least for some regions, and RLS capable EPIRBs would soon follow. But you still can’t purchase Orolia’s FastFind ReturnLink or any other RLS beacon in the USA and some of the countries that do permit them only allow RLS PLBs while others only allow RLS EPIRBs. What happened?…

New Boat Network feature seen on iPad and Android phone versions of Cortex Onboard apps 134

Communications / AIS / The future / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K / Monitoring & Tracking

Vesper Cortex update: Boat Networks, squashing bugs & more

Vesper Marine’s Cortex AIS, VHF, and monitoring system is the most innovative marine electronics product I’ve tested in a long time. But Cortex is also a serious challenge to review properly because it has so many useful capabilities — some of which look and feel strikingly different from their antecedents — and it’s also a system designed to evolve. That’s the justification for this update, even though…

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Press Releases / Network & control / The future / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

NMEA Releases OneNet Ethernet Standard

The National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) has released its latest protocol, the NMEA OneNet Standard, Version 1.000. This is an open industry standard based on Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) and the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Local Area Network. The standard brings together years of committee efforts and is designed for standardized IP networking of marine electronic devices on and off the vessel…