The Marine Technology Hub
If you ever messed with celestial navigation, you probably understand why even a perfectly installed sundial can be off by more than 15 minutes at some times of the year. But let’s recap on this shortest and darkest of days — in the Northern Hemisphere, that is — and I’ll also discuss how my old celestial nav skills recently helped with some very modern technology…
The “Internet of Things” (IoT) concept has not excited me so far. For instance, the oft-repeated example — a wireless sensor/software system by which my ‘smart’ refrigerator will monitor a ‘smart’ milk carton’s level...
Back in April Garmin announced that the Navionics apps would be getting ActiveCaptain Community (ACC) support by the end of 2018. With not too many days left in 2018, it appeared time might be...
Yesterday Gizmo became the rare vessel equipped with four different solid-state Doppler radars. With the Simrad Halo24 announced in October, and the Raymarine Quantum 2 last February, all four major brands now offer this valuable technology. And while the timing isn’t ideal, I’m excited about adding the two new radomes to the Garmin Fantom 24 and Furuno DRS4D-NXT Doppler models already being tested…
In late September Amazon announced a slew of new hardware in time for the holiday season. Included was the Fire TV Recast, a clever network-based TV tuner and DVR (digital video recorder). The Recast announcement immediately piqued my interest for use on a boat. Could this be an easy and cost-effective way to record over-the-air TV on, or for, the boat? I bought one to find out and so far I’m cautiously optimistic.
When I went down to visit Gizmo this morning, the cold rain had pretty much eliminated the ice, snow, and slush that helped make the Thanksgiving holiday such a joy. But that composite float...
A few days ago Ben Ellison posted a link from the Mobile Internet Resource Center announcing Verizon updated their unlimited offerings adding a $65 / month truly unlimited option. Every change to plans from the...
While the functionality of multifunction marine displays has obviously been moving rapidly beyond navigation to include most any boat system that has (or can have) a digital interface, the pace is actually quickening. In fact, I’m pretty sure that next year we’ll finally see boats nearly as easy and pleasurable to use as a modern automobile, or least showing off significantly greater system integration. This entry covers a hodgepodge of integration developments I’m aware of, but be forewarned that I often have more questions than answers…
At the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show I got to take a demo cruise with SiOnyx to see their Aurora night vision camera in action. What I saw during our trip along the New River and Intracoastal Waterway was impressive, but also illustrated some limitations…
Garmin is bringing lots of good news to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS) tomorrow. The powerful operating system behind their premium GPSMap 8600 Series 17-, 22-, and 24-inch MFDs is coming to more affordable 10-, 12-, and 16-inch displays; new BlueChart g3 cartography with Navionics data integration and Auto Guidance will be preloaded in the new plotters; the inReach Mini satellite messenger will get integration with many Garmin MFDs; and…
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