Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Wireless & Apps

Navico WR10 Wireless Pilot Controller & BT-1 Bluetooth-to-N2K gateway 32

Wireless & Apps / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Navico WR10 Wireless Pilot Controller & BT-1 Bluetooth-to-N2K gateway

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Last week Navico introduced a Wireless Pilot Controller that can be added to B&G, Simrad, and Lowrance autopilots that connect to their control heads (and/or MFD controls) via NMEA 2000. It can do more than the keys indicate — like tack a sailboat that’s being steered in wind mode — and it will retail at $349 with a BT-1 Bluetooth Base Station. The WR10 remote will also be available by itself for $150 as four can work with one BT-1 at once, and eventually the remote may be able to work directly with the Bluetooth built into displays like the recently introduced Lowrance HDS Gen3 or the new Simrad Go7 / B&G Vulcan V7 twins…

Apple Watch boat applets, Pocket Mariner is raring to go 9

Wireless & Apps / Gadgets / AIS

Apple Watch boat applets, Pocket Mariner is raring to go

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I find the Apple Watch fascinating, even if I have no plans to own one myself, and I encourage anyone else with an interest to read David Pierce’s Iphone Killer: The secret history of the Apple Watch at Wired.com for a deep look at what the obsessed designers were up to. The first hands-on reviews are coming out now, pre-orders start late tonight, and at least one boating apps developer will be ready to go when the watches release to the public on April 24…

Onboard WiFi and cell booster strategies, the diagrams 32

Wireless & Apps / Communications

Onboard WiFi and cell booster strategies, the diagrams

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I’ve given numerous seminars about what modern mobile communications can do on boats these days and I’ll be presenting the latest version at TrawlerFest’s new Essex, Connecticut, location in early June. Aside from guidance about useful apps and the neat ways phones, tablets, and the Internet are integrating with marine electronics, boaters want to know how to improve their WiFi and/or cell connections with shore. But when I start talking about typical methods of installing wireless boosters, confusion sometimes follows! So, I’m working on a series of diagrams that Panbo readers might also find useful…

Wemar Nautipad, why not e-paper instrument displays? 13

Wireless & Apps / PC & peripheral / The Trade

Wemar Nautipad, why not e-paper instrument displays?

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They look like excellent instrument displays, especially when you realize that they’re portable, wireless, waterproof, touchscreen tablets that rarely need charging and shouldn’t be wicked expensive. Unfortunately, though, they’re not currently available. I hesitate to write about a discontinued product, but the seemingly well-developed Wemar Nautipad system above could come back on the market if another company wants to give it a go, and e-paper screens seem like an interesting idea for boats anyway…

Wireless autopilot controls: Madman for Raymarine, Si-Tex SRS-100 for any brand 13

Wireless & Apps / Gadgets

Wireless autopilot controls: Madman for Raymarine, Si-Tex SRS-100 for any brand

Madman_ap_control_for_Raymarine_cPanbo.jpgSome people think it’s crazy to run an autopilot with a smartphone, so maybe it’s fitting that a company called Madman Marine is the first to make this possible with Raymarine pilots. But then again Madman’s AP-WRC3iF comes with two fobs that run on a separate wireless frequency and that can also make course changes, initiate autotacks and change pilot modes. And it only costs about $235 U.S. plus shipping from Australia (with the fob-only model at about $190)…

Vexilar T-Box WiFi fishfinder & Navionics SonarChart Live wow 15

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps

Vexilar T-Box WiFi fishfinder & Navionics SonarChart Live wow

Navionics_Vexilar_SonarChart_Live_skinny_water_cPanbo.jpgThis mid-January screenshot represents a very pleasing experience in marine electronics testing. Thanks to a Vexilar SonarPhone T-Box SP200 and the Navionics Boating app I’m cruising around in my 9-foot dinghy with more than just charting and a fishfinder. I have access to three different chart formats plus a live SonarChart being created as I move along, and the data I’m collecting will be available to my fellow cruisers a week or two later. It sounds exotic, but the total cost was about $250 (iPad mini excepted), installation was fairly trivial, and it all worked quite well right out of the box.

Furuno TZtouch2 and FI-70, back in the game! 19

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps / Navigation / The Trade

Furuno TZtouch2 and FI-70, back in the game!

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Sorry for the blown out screens, but the point of this photo is Furuno USA marketing manager Dean Kurutz, who co-delivered the NavNet TZtouch2 introduction with senior product manager Eric Kunz just like they did with the original NavNet in 2001 — when I was just getting into electronics writing — and every NavNet update since. The dynamic duo have been coming to Miami with the company since well into the last century and a lot of their colleagues have similar histories. If you go Furuno you get remarkable management consistency and institutional memory, but that doesn’t mean they’re old school…

Garmin Panoptix All-Seeing Sonar, GPSmap 7×16, and BlueChart Mobile 2.0 15

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps / Navigation

Garmin Panoptix All-Seeing Sonar, GPSmap 7×16, and BlueChart Mobile 2.0

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The Garmin Panoptix “All-Seeing” sonar announced this morning sounds fascinating, but be aware that it’s meant for smaller boat fishing, at least at first. The $1,500 rectangular “multi-beam transducer that utilizes a phased-array scanning sonar technology” will come in two styles, with the tilted Panoptix Forward model oriented vertically on a trolling motor or transom mount and the Down Transducer with its horizontal orientation only available for transom installs. Neither one looks easy to transform into a thru-hull fitting but judging from the screenshots a lot of bigger boat owners will be hoping that’s possible…

Simple marine cell boosting: Wilson Sleek 4G (weBoost Drive 4G) and Digital Antenna Bullet 30

Wireless & Apps / Communications

Simple marine cell boosting: Wilson Sleek 4G (weBoost Drive 4G) and Digital Antenna Bullet

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New FCC regulations have caused turmoil in the world of cell boosters and now leading manufacturer Wilson Electronics has changed its name to weBoost. Thus, the Wilson Sleek 4G (460107) above, one of the very first new breed boosters last April, has just morphed into the weBoost Dash 4G-S (470107). Adding to the confusion is the boater’s need to replace that wimpy car top antenna with a possibly illegal marine model — I’m happily using a Digital Antenna 1285 Bullet in my testing — but the whole package ends up relatively simple to install and effective for its cost.

GoFree goes online & Insight Genesis Social Mapping goes free 22

Wireless & Apps

GoFree goes online & Insight Genesis Social Mapping goes free

GoFree_gets_online_cPanbo.jpgThe 2015 Navico writers event was in the same Florida Keys location as last year’s spectacular, which only seemed to highlight the rapid development pace we witnessed. For instance, fishing in a now familiar place and style with the new Lowrance HDS Gen3 multifunction display really showed off the phenomenal variety and quality of functions built in. It may even qualify as a “revolutionary” MFD feature set, despite my earlier skepticism, and it wasn’t even mentioned at the 2014 event. But that story will have to wait. Last fall Navico also announced a plan to get their MFDs online and, as suggested on the screen above, I got to see the software update in action. It’s only the beginning of what the GoFree online connection can be, but it’s an impressive beginning…