Category: Wireless & Apps
Interesting! Digital Yacht’s BOATraNET — just being introduced at the London Boat Show — is a low-amperage 12v Linux server designed expressly to deliver all sorts of NMEA 0183 and/or 2000 boat data, plus centrally stored info and media, via WiFi to whatever assemblage of smart phones, tablets, and PCs are on board your boat. And you won’t need a special app but rather just a new generation browser running HTML 5. You can also connect a high power WiFi transceiver to BOATraNET so that all your devices can get online via the boat’s own hot spot when you’re in port. Can anyone argue with Digital Yacht’s characterization of this concept as “revolutionary”?…
Yes indeed, if you’re already wowed about how Globalstar’s new SPOT Connect might help you communicate when you wander beyond cellular, you’ll likely mumble multiple wows once you understand the abilities of the somewhat similar Iridium-powered...
Yes indeed, that is an Android app serving as the extended front end of yet another iteration of the good old SPOT satellite messenger. It’s called SPOT Connect, and it’s a close relative of the Delorme joint product announced at this time last year. The SPOT hardware is again an independent, waterproof communicator that can send out a distress message by itself, but now its third internal wireless component — after GPS and Globalstar short burst messenging — is Bluetooth. Which means that a SPOT app on most any sort of mobile device can be used to send canned “Help” or “Check-in” emails/texts, or to turn on tracking, or — and this was the big new feature on the Delorme PN60W — write a custom 41 character message. Another Connect difference is that the actual shipping date will apparently come much sooner after the announcement…
At first glance Standard Horizon’s new CPN may look like a fairly standard multifunction display, but note the “turn page” screen graphic at lower right, the small (but purportedly powerful sounding) stereo speakers, and the “Multimedia Chart Plotter” designation. The 7- and 10-inch CPNs have touch screens not only to help manage charting, optional radar, and so forth but also to select audio and video entertainment stored on front or back connected USB sources, or streaming over WiFi. And, yes, there is a Web browser in there too!
This is going to confuse people! Navionics has refreshed all its mobile apps, but in two different ways, and they’re not done yet. The iPhone versions seen in the top panel are marked NEW!...
Hurray for the Bad Elf GPS! While it’s simply a high-performance GPS receiver that fits into the data/power port of any Apple iThing, it means that an iPod Touch can finally run mapping and charting apps like an iPhone 3Gs can, perhaps even better given the Elf’s high specs. Ditto for older iPhones with their crummy internal GPS receivers and for WiFi-only iPads which — like Touch’s — don’t contain any sort of GPS. I’m sure that there will eventually be all sorts of ways to get GPS, and even other boat sensor data, into iDevices, but the Bad Elf seems to be an easy solution, and it can be had at Amazon for $100
right now. Here’s hoping that it will also help some boaters untangle the confusion around iThing GPS, and data plans, which recently got worse…
Once again — and a nice contrast to my various METS ramblings — the good Kees Verrujit kindly wrote up his impressions of the huge Amsterdam marine equipment trade show:
Today I visited METS for the fourth year in a row. This year the show was even bigger than last year, by about 20%. Anyone who still claims they can do all halls and booths on one day is a close relation of Baron Münchhausen. I visited some booths as a NMEA 2000 enthusiast, some in my role of technologist for a yard, but most in my role as a delegated Panbo blogger. This year that was a lot easier than last, as more and more people seem to read Panbo or at least know Ben’s name — most vividly portrayed by a huge quote sign in the Fusion Marine Audio booth {like this one, only bigger!}. The major themes I noticed were: Pads (and iOS apps) were everywhere; AIS is taking off in a major way; Chinese electronics are coming; and
NMEA 2000 is here to stay…
Given how many active cruisers rely on WiFi, the advent of Firesheep — which apparently makes it super easy to break into people’s web accounts when they are on the same WiFi network —...
Wasn’t it telling that three DAME awards went to iPad apps yesterday (even though only two were entered)? I can’t find the full award text online yet, but the judges explained their Marine Related...
The press release characterizes the new (little ‘e’) echo series fishfinders — six models in all, with the $450 550c above at the high end, and an $80 echo 100 at the low —...
