Category: Wireless & Apps
I find Steve Dashew’s latest FPB 78 long-range powerboat design so intriguing that I won’t link to it until the end of this entry for fear of losing you! The relevant detail in the rendering above is Steve’s plan to occasionally use that giant 65-inch 4K resolution TV monitor so he can still see his radar and Maretron N2KView monitoring info as he moves about the vessel’s giant main cabin while underway. I got to spend time with the Dashews on their original FPB Windhorse, and it’s one heck of an equipment endorsement to be chosen for the next one. I also know that Steve’s expert evaluation of Maretron’s hardware and software systems came before the major and excellent-sounding N2KView product changes I’m about to outline…
It’s good to start the year with a project and I’ve got one to share. I’m convinced that a new boating service called BoatLogger has a terrific concept for collecting log data, cruise photos, equipment manuals, and much more to a personal boat website they’ve made very easy to set up. But what the developers need right now is a hardy band of beta testers to create their own sites, try every feature possible, and report problems. That’s how I spent much of 1/1/2014 as you can see at www.boatlogger/gizmo. I’ll explain what I’ve learned after the break, and also detail an incentive available to the first 50 beta testers…
Getting True Wind to my wrist was actually easy and inexpensive, especially considering the complex path it traveled. The raw Apparent Wind readings originated in a Maretron WSO100 on Gizmo’s masthead and then went to a Simrad NSS8 MFD via NMEA 2000, where it was combined with other N2K data like COG, SOG, Heading and/or STW (depending on which True Wind ;-). The NSS8 then sent the data out using the NMEA 0183 tier of GoFree over WiFi, where it was captured by the SeaNav 2.0 charting app running on an iPad, which then passed it along to my Pebble watch over Bluetooth! It sounds crazy but when everything is working right, it’s as simple as turning on the boat system and opening SeaNav, which has many other features to appreciate…
This is different! While the new Argonaut A615 Smart Monitor has several of the marine display features the company is known for, it can also serve as a large Android tablet. So with its 360° waterproof enclosure, bonded Tflex transflective LED-backlit LCD, and Quad Core ARM processor you can have fast standalone chart plotting on a 15-inch screen in your cockpit or on your flying bridge using only 20 Watts of 12 or 24 volt DC power. And of course that’s not all…
At METS this morning, Simrad announced an evo2 update to the NSS Series and quite an update it is. The new multi-touch wide screen models will come in 7-, 9-, 12- and 16-inch sizes and since they are close family in every way to the recently discussed NSO evo2, a boater will be able to mix and match bright, glass-bridge-style displays from 7 to 24-inches. And while NSS evo2 can network with Simrad’s radars, sonars, SonicHub audio, WiFi 1 etc., all four sizes come with “embedded CHIRP enabled Broadband sounder and StructureScan” (which can probably network out to the whole family)…
The test scene is admittedly messy, but having the Wilson AG Pro Quint cell booster out at the helm made it easier to read and photograph. I could also monitor the screen on the Medusa Power Analyzer that the 12v feed is running through (the Quint pulled about 11 watts with two of its amps turned up to about 70db and the other two at about 50 and 55). The best part, though, is how real the testing was. Gizmo is anchored in a wicked cell hole that also happens to be beautiful (mapped here via the test DeLorme InReach SE mounted to the windshield) and only about 11 miles from Camden. Heck, a Verizon call with my wife failed abruptedly about two miles from the anchorage and I couldn’t even get a text out!
I ended my entry about Vesper Marine’s excellent AIS collision avoidance software with tentative enthusiasm about the company’s next generation WatchMate Vision transponder. Well, a test unit has been installed on Gizmo’s dash since mid-July and, frankly, it’s spectacular. While it certainly offers the AIS target filtering and alerting genius previously discussed, now these talented developers have put maximum AIS utility into a 5.7-inch touchscreen while also creating what could the central WiFi link between a boat’s fixed sensors and a boater’s mobile apps…
Yesterday Garmin big-footed into a new niche with new VIRB action cameras — VIRB as in verb, as in action (I think). It’s not a boat camera per se, but I expect that one will be useful and fun around a boat, and it’s also another indication of the company’s product ‘ecosystem’ stradegy. Garmin was just getting into dedicated marine electronics when I began covering the subject in depth over a decade ago, but nonetheless the major players almost unanimously cited the big Kansas complex full of engineers (with its own factory in Taiwan) as their biggest competitive fear. I suspect it was capablities like this that caused the concern. VIRB is not an assault on any marine companies but CNet’s sharp analysis is aptly titled “Garmin gets up in GoPro’s grill with VIRB HD cameras“…
After Raymarine and Furuno introduced multifunction displays with WiFi built-in and apps that could mirror and even control the MFD screen on an iPad or Android tablet — a great idea that caught on quickly — I was frankly a dite dubious when various Navico folks said that they had an even better idea. Eventually, though, we got to discuss the WiFi1, their MFD network hotspot, and then the whole multi-tier GoFree concept. It’s a complicated concept largely because it’s so ambitious — for instance supporting both Navico screen control apps and multiple third party apps like the ones seen above — but it seems to me that GoFree is now doing even more than Navico promised, and there’s virtually no limit to where it’s headed…
The first Smart Chart AIS app, a result of the very interesting U.S. government-funded Class E AIS project discussed here last August, is looking fo 100 Panbo beta testers. Volunteers need to have an Android smartphone or tablet and should be boating in U.S. waters or at least spending time on the coast. Here’s the Smart Chart web site and here’s the beta sign up site. Beta feedback will happen on the SC forum, not in this entry’s comments, please. I’ve been in the test program for a few weeks and will illustrate some of the app’s features below. I’ll warn you, however, that there’s a major dissappointment which has nothing to do with Smart Chart’s developers…
