Replace GPS with Tablet + software

[seadago]

Originally Posted by Hahser

My GPS has packed up and I remember I had a crew member who brought along a laptop loaded with Navionics software.

It struck me that rather than replace the GPS I could by a tablet.

I note there are brackets and waterproof casings so it could be mounted easily in the right place.

The Navionics was better than my (rather old) Garmin - which was unrepairable.

Cost of replacement about 800 euro cost of Tablet system about 400.
Anyone comment on doing it this way?

Thanks
Hahser

As someone said below, lots of threads in the forum on the topic.

From personal experience of going full circle with the technology:

The total cost of putting together a stand alone and fully ruggerised tablet-based system (that you can take to the cockpit in all weather) will in the end equal and o exceed that of a purpose built medium range 7' chartplotter. It's not only the cost of the HW, but also cost, time, and effort of integrating the system with all other instruments and sensors onboard, charts, etc.

Re tablet HW, many things to consider. A few are: hour battery capacity, screen quality (can you see in full sunlight?), integrated GPS chip, ease of mounting by the wheel/tiller, etc. If you want to integrate with depth sounder, log, wind, AIS, etc, you'll have to enable a dedicated WiFi hotspot onboard.

After going the rounds with this I decanted for:

A 9' commercial chartplotter (also radar display) for the cockpit (relatively expensive). This is plugged on a NMEA 183 network to my old instruments.

A 8' Huawei Android tablet running Navionics, as a redundant backup (relatively inexpensive). The tablet is not ruggerised. I place it on a water proof case. Gives me 6 hours battery hours of continuous use. Double or more with selective use. Enough to get me to harbour in an emergency.

An ancient Panasonic toughbook (these things will survive a bombing raid) with a solid state memory drive, running Windows XP (yes, that ancient!), where I do all my navigation and course plotting (on OCPN), and which I then load on the plotter. This gadget stays below deck.

All three have independent power sources, so have full redundancy.

Not promoting this setup as best solution. It is just the outcome of my own evolution with the technology, and it works for me.

Cheers!

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by moseriw

NavNet - I am sure there is a Navnet to NMEA 0183 or 2000 converter.
Vesper AIS uses NMEA2000 input and 0183 WiFi output.

If not it is Navnet's fault and you should improve it by the roots.

Probably not a "fault" if his NavNET is as old as ours; ours was made before WiFi was invented.



Anyway, probably just takes a WiFi (radio) box somewhere, with NMEA2000 and NMEA0183 inputs from the NavNET... and from anything else that talks.

-Chris

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Exile

As for their mapping, I recently looked on their website and it looked like they only offer C-Maps which may be vector only.

Yes, C-Map is vector, but overall offerings doesn't sound right. Go here https://www.furunousa.com/en/product...chart_plotters and select the Charts icon.

-Chris

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by davenrino

I arrived at the boat today with my iPad's WiFi turned off and left the chart plotter off, actually all electronis turned off. I launched Navionics, iNavx and Pocket Earth on my old iPad Air2 without cellular.. None of them showed my position. I turned on the InReach which auto-paired and showed my position on all three apps. I launched Earthmate and it's charts also showed my position. YMMV

Hey davenrino. I have an Echomap 50 Chartplotter and Garmin Explorer, and I use a USB GPS puck for GPS on my Win10 HP 10T 2 in 1 Tablet with openCPN.
- Does your Explorer connect to tablet via the Explorers USB cord or WiFi?
- Is it simply an alternative for a GPS dongle or are you using the Explorer Earthmate App as a Chartplotter?
- Do you get AIS on you Echomap 50? I have a dAISy AIS receiver that speaks to openCPN on my laptop via USB, but I can't get it to talk to my Echomap with NMEA 0183. The dAISy doesn't talk NMEA 2000.

Thanks in advance for your information.

[muschampblue]

I replaced my chartplotter about 3 years ago as I needed a new depth sounder and wanted to add radar. Went with Raymarine equipment. (It uses wifi to communicate with the radar) I also use an android tablet with Navionics. Now I use the tablet to update my charts and while underway the tablet and plotter will sync the plotter charts and any new routes I might have created on the tablet. In addition I can use the tablet to clone the chartplotter so I can navigate from my lower helm in inclement weather.

[CarinaPDX]

It seems a lot of you like integrating mutiple chart displays. For what is likely the best off-the-shelf implementation buy a Furuno TZ MFD and install MaxSea on a PC. When Furuno wanted to provide a full-function MFD they bought MaxSea, which they ported to their NN3D MFDs (and explains why the NN3D MFDs use Windows CE, for ease of porting). IIRC the newer TZtouch displays are not using CE, but I can't guarantee that. Anyway, Furuno MFDs and MaxSea software integrate very well, to the point of sharing charts as well as waypoints. It is a very slick system. While this is probably best-in-class, the price is the highest too, which explains it not being so common. Great if you can afford it.

@Exile: The "TimeZero" 3D charts for Furuno and MaxSea are prepared by MapMedia, another company in the Furuno fold, from original sources. In the US the NOAA vector and raster are available free, updated annually by MapMedia. They also sell C-map and Navionics vector charts for the US. I was just checking in B.C. Canada and again both C-map and Navionics vector charts are available, as well as a raster that is listed as MapMedia (which I assume is derived under license from official Canadian government sources). In short there is no lack of choice in charts, vector and raster, with the 3D Furuno and MaxSea products.

Greg

Edit: the place to find all of the TimeZero charts is here: https://mytimezero.com/charts-catalog It is a bit awkward to use but has all of the info.

[s/v Jedi]

I have all that, spent all that money, yet just sailed 1,300 nm without switching it on even once. What I’m using all the time: my B&G Triton and Furuno instruments and iSailor on iPad and iPhone. iSailor outperforms NN3D and TimeZero at less than 1% of the cost!

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

It seems a lot of you like integrating mutiple chart displays. For what is likely the best off-the-shelf implementation buy a Furuno TZ MFD and install MaxSea on a PC. When Furuno wanted to provide a full-function MFD they bought MaxSea, which they ported to their NN3D MFDs (and explains why the NN3D MFDs use Windows CE, for ease of porting). IIRC the newer TZtouch displays are not using CE, but I can't guarantee that. Anyway, Furuno MFDs and MaxSea software integrate very well, to the point of sharing charts as well as waypoints. It is a very slick system. While this is probably best-in-class, the price is the highest too, which explains it not being so common. Great if you can afford it.

@Exile: The "TimeZero" 3D charts for Furuno and MaxSea are prepared by MapMedia, another company in the Furuno fold, from original sources. In the US the NOAA vector and raster are available free, updated annually by MapMedia. They also sell C-map and Navionics vector charts for the US. I was just checking in B.C. Canada and again both C-map and Navionics vector charts are available, as well as a raster that is listed as MapMedia (which I assume is derived under license from official Canadian government sources). In short there is no lack of choice in charts, vector and raster, with the 3D Furuno and MaxSea products.

Greg

Edit: the place to find all of the TimeZero charts is here: https://mytimezero.com/charts-catalog It is a bit awkward to use but has all of the info.

[CarinaPDX]

No question it is very hard, even for well-funded cruisers, to justify the Furuno/MaxSea/TimeZero system. I was unaware that other software had caught up with MaxSea but that isn't surprising. MaxSea of old had everything but the kitchen sink, which cluttered things a lot. I think they lost the plot a bit when they migrated from the Mac to the PC - but cashed in. Still, for integration of PC and MFD they are pretty good - espeically because they share charts (legally).

Full disclosure: I have a Furuno MFD8, which I like a lot for its capabilities. No way do I buy MaxSea however - too rich for my blood.

Greg

[yenhg]

I have just replaced my very old Raymarine chartplotter with a 12" Raymarine MFD running Lighthouse 3 software. I run Navionics for charts and find then to be very accurate. I have mounted the MFD on the grab rail of the steering binnacle and this works very well. Regarding using a tablet, I used to do this and whilst that was OK it had a relatively short battery life even when supported with a battery pack. About 7 hours was the max. GPS location consumes batteries. Navionics have 3 apps that can be used to either mimic, control or backup your MFD enabling you to leave it in place and plot your next course plans whilst relaxing over a nice red at the end of the day. I have found this to be a great alternative and very functional solution. Being a MFD also means that you can display all your instruments on the display and set it up as you desire. The screen sizes are not predetermined and multiple screens can be shown simultaneously. Customising your screens is also very easy so critical functions like depth and speed can be shown on multiple displays. And the additional bonus is that you can get rid of a whole heap of wiring that becomes redundant by virtue of Seatalk technology. One power backbone and one information backbone on the same simple quarter turn cable connectors. Super simple.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, muschampblue, and yenhg.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Yes, C-Map is vector, but overall offerings doesn't sound right. Go here https://www.furunousa.com/en/product...chart_plotters and select the Charts icon.

-Chris

Yup, looks like there's a large choice of different available charting, incl. rasters, for most of their models except the two least expensive ones (GP1871F & GP1971F). Those two appear limited to C-Maps, but the website isn't crystal clear so I could be wrong.

Or maybe I'M the one who's not crystal clear. Lots of useful info on this thread for which I'm much obliged. There are just so many options I sometimes have to wait for my head to stop spinning to decipher.

[moseriw]

NEVER TRUST GPS AND ELECTRONIC CHARTS:
WHY: Fehler bei Kartenpositionen - www.moser-willi.at - MITSEGELN in KROATIEN


sorry, in german only but the google translator will make it.

[water addict]

I'm late to the party here, but thought I'd relay this...
I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 2 on deck. I started down the tablet route with the predecessor, Tab Active, 2 years ago which I have now as a backup. Both are waterproof, shock resistant, ruggedized, with good visibility on deck in daylight. Got the tab active used on ebay for $120 and liked it so much I bought the tab active 2 when it came out.

Works great. I use Navionics which can be annoying but works well enough for basic navigation. Also Sailgrib is a great tool for weather routing. Sailflow and Predictwind are good apps for weather. I adapted a gopro chest harness with heavy duty velcro to have the tablet on my chest when I navigate during races on other folk's boats. On my own boat I keep it at the fwd end of the cockpit under the dodger and grab it when I need it. Sure beats having to jump below repeatedly.

[water addict]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

That looks pretty darn rugged. It's a bit pricey at $500, double the price of the 10" Tab A. My concern starts with Samsung's policy of not supporting phones and tablets after the initial release - this tablet is still on Android 7, two generations behind, and likely not had a security patch for a good long while. Buying a new device with obsolete and unsupported firmware stinks. On the more popular devices, like the Tab A, there are up-to-date open-source ROMs available (for the geek), but niche products like the Active2 are a dead end. This only becomes a problem if the apps that are desired no longer support the older OS versions, or if the tablet is on the network and is exposed to malware (not having those security patches can have a cost).


Greg

I've gotten 2 Android system updates on my tab active 2 since I've owned it, currently on android 8.1.0.

Also android 9 is starting to roll out in the tab active 2.
https://www.sammobile.com/2019/06/10...oid-pie-update

[Visarend]

IMHO redudancy is the way to go. I still keep a rather old BW plotter with CMAPS, along with a pc running Linux and OpenCPN, and a rugged waterproof BlackView 9500 P phone with the largest battery (10,000) giving almiost a week in standby, running OpenCpn and Navionics. Oh,and I still keep all the paper charts.