Any good alternatives to Navionics

[bcn]

The Explorer Charts for Bahamas are now available for OpenCPN.

Plus more raster charts from Imray.
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2983797

Hubert

[magentawave]

I was just looking at the ratings for the iSailor and iNavX apps on the Apple App Store.

iNavX has 4.7 stars from 5800 users and iSailor has only 2.5 stars from 100 users and iSailor is charging for a subscription now too.

So, a couple questions, please...

1) Are you guys that liked iSailor still happy with it in spite of having to pay for it? If not, what do you recommend now?

2) Things change over time so any idea why there are so few ratings for iSailor and that those ratings are so low compared to iNavX?

Thanks

[Tillsbury]

I see that Navionics are now advertising that they can display AIS data in the magazines. Anyone tried this yet? It does at least remove one hard no from the app.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

I see that Navionics are now advertising that they can display AIS data in the magazines. Anyone tried this yet? It does at least remove one hard no from the app.

Navionics charge one time and you can use the charts indefinitely locally after the subscription without fresh updates. But then AIS and downloads of your tracks are no longer possible. AIS iis less reliabble than a real AIS transceiver on board, you need a permanent Interner connection and the data received may be inaccurate or outdated. You can connect the Navionics app to your chart plotter and buy chart updates for it, but I am not sure if you can share live data with the app.

[Tillsbury]

Wow, you mean they're talking about ais from marinetraffic? That's useless. I thought they meant ais days from your own transceiver, like a real chartplotter app does. Opencpn and SeaIQ have always had this, it's not complicated

[Wayne hoath]

The ais on navionics come from having a WiFi enabled ais receiver on your boat. It doesn’t come from marine traffic. This is a relatively new feature available in navionics. A nice and much over due addition in my opinion.

[dgmultimedia]

Originally Posted by Wayne hoath

The ais on navionics come from having a WiFi enabled ais receiver on your boat. It doesn’t come from marine traffic. This is a relatively new feature available in navionics. A nice and much over due addition in my opinion.

The latest consolidation release from Garmin/Navionics does now interface with WiFi AIS Data “BUT” the release is not stable, there is no menu to control the vessel presentation as in iNavX. If other NMEA data is present in the feed, such as depth it is displayed as well.
They have a way to go to get this right!

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by magentawave

I was just looking at the ratings for the iSailor and iNavX apps on the Apple App Store.

iNavX has 4.7 stars from 5800 users and iSailor has only 2.5 stars from 100 users and iSailor is charging for a subscription now too.

So, a couple questions, please...

1) Are you guys that liked iSailor still happy with it in spite of having to pay for it? If not, what do you recommend now?

2) Things change over time so any idea why there are so few ratings for iSailor and that those ratings are so low compared to iNavX?

Thanks

iSailor got slammed a while ago due to changing from forever-free updates for purchased charts to annual subscriptions for updates. It brings them in line with all other apps, but was wildly unpopular.

I’ve used iSailor for 3 years and I’m very happy with it. I can’t see anything that iNavx has got that would make me switch.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

AIS iis less reliabble than a real AIS transceiver on board, you need a permanent Internet connection and the data received may be inaccurate or outdated.

So if you're crossing an ocean where there's no permanent internet connection than the AIS on the Navionics app using an iPad is useless. Right?

[fxykty]

Can Navionics intake NMEA data? If not then it’s AIS data and anything else coming from the Internet is not present when out of data connection. If it can, or if it’s on its product roadmap, then it becomes more usable.

[dgmultimedia]

Originally Posted by magentawave

So if you're crossing an ocean where there's no permanent internet connection than the AIS on the Navionics app using an iPad is useless. Right?

Wrong see post 51 &52

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by magentawave

So if you're crossing an ocean where there's no permanent internet connection than the AIS on the Navionics app using an iPad is useless. Right?

No, that’s how it used to be, using fake ais data from the internet. Less than useless.

The new update allows it to show actual ais information, but from the post above it seems it needs a while yet to get it up to scratch.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

The new update allows it to show actual ais information, but from the post above it seems it needs a while yet to get it up to scratch.

One issue is that the Navionics app (like most apps) wants to use whichever network connection has internet connectivity. In other words, even if your cell phone or tablet is connected to your internal WiFi from your AIS source, Navionics will instead use your cellular data conection.

To get data from my Vesper into Navionics, I have to disable my cellular data connection. But of course, that makes other apps unusable.

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

One issue is that the Navionics app (like most apps) wants to use whichever network connection has internet connectivity. In other words, even if your cell phone or tablet is connected to your internal WiFi from your AIS source, Navionics will instead use your cellular data conection.

To get data from my Vesper into Navionics, I have to disable my cellular data connection. But of course, that makes other apps unusable.

Always best to use an internal router of some kind on the boat. All my devices (iPad, vesper, computer etc) are permanently connected to the router. They can’t see the internet unless I enable external wifi (from a marina) or cell data. The phone is connected too, hence it uses wifi when available, but if that’s not the case it will use cellular data. This is how to make everything work together without needing to reconfigure every time.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

Always best to use an internal router of some kind on the boat. All my devices (iPad, vesper, computer etc) are permanently connected to the router. They can’t see the internet unless I enable external wifi (from a marina) or cell data. The phone is connected too, hence it uses wifi when available, but if that’s not the case it will use cellular data. This is how to make everything work together without needing to reconfigure every time.

This is a very good point, and probably not really off topic, because it's important when deciding on apps.

For me, it would require extra hardware. On board we already have a laptop or two, a tablet, at least two cell phones. All have WiFi capability, and the phones have cellular data available (in range.)

To set up an internet-connected WiFi LAN network on board, I'd need a router capable of both cellular and external WiFi. And a SIM card and service plan for the router. Of course, once everything's connected to that (MFD, AIS, NMEA 2000, etc.) it would be relatively simple to enable different internet connections, and all devices would get all the data (internal and external) over one network.

Or, app designers could simply allow me to select which network my phone or tablet is connected to has AIS or NMEA data, and which has internet.