Touchscreen Tablet / Computer for cockpit

[mcon12000]

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Don't want to buy a MFD, would rather either run Navionics or OpenCpn as my chartplotter. But I need it in the cockpit where I can see it and use it. I want to mount it and be able to use its touchscreen.

What are current 'hardened' devices that can be used? There was an old thread about rugged computers for OpenCpn, but these are headless I would think.

Or should I just buy a MFD, given that they are a rugged touchscreen display w computer specifically built for marine use.

Ok having used multiple tablets and phones with Navionics I’m back with a full Axiom setup. Tablets are toys that are not suitable for primary navigation and mine are still in play as planners and backups. Like I said I tried this while debating the value like yourself of a complete system.

1. Anyone who tells you they’re fine at night or in direct sunlight hasn’t sailed much.

2. You need an external GPS antenna like a Garmin Glo to rely on accurate positioning. Here comes the nay sayers..

3. Keeping a quality tablet running in direct sunlight will not only overheat it at the most inconvenient time but few charging sources can keep up. So your charger will only make headway at night or in low light conditions.

4. Salt air and the charging port is a huge problem. Plan on going through a cable every few weeks.

5. Radar. So yes you can wirelessly stream radar information to a tablet. My argument is this “Radar is essential and after spending $2500 on a radar that is compatible with a tablet why would you not get a $800 MFD?”

My buddy just left with a setup that consists of every sub $500 piece of kit that will sort of communicate. He’s been gone a week and found it’s not really working like the internet experts told him it would. Day sailing will not reveal the issues and think about it if these tablets as beautiful as they are could truly replace an mfd then why are all of us sailers who actually travel still buying full systems from the majors for thousands of dollars? Experience that’s why and I’m certain you’ll get over the expense the first time your tablet dies in a storm or won’t fire up on the morning of departure.

Look everything is doable so take off with a tablet if you don’t believe us “How bad could it be?” and I guarantee you’ll be in a full Garmin, Raymarine or B&G kit in a year max.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by ItDepends

Some people will jump all over me, but I’ll give you my opinion anyway.

I have a tablet that I use for some navigation purposes, and for some things it is great. But as the sole navigation tool on an actively sailed boat it sucks. Totally.

You can’t see the display in full sun. In full sun it will over heat and shut down. Interacting with a touchscreen only interface is just about impossible in an active seaway, at least for me.

If I had to give up one or the other, the tablet would be gone in a heartbeat over the MFD.

I am not a fan OpenCPN. I have tried it a number of times over the years, but find the interface to be overly complex and fussy, but I appreciate that that’s a personal preference thing. The availability of good charts is a serious weakness for a world voyager. I use Navionics on the tablet, but would not want it as as the only navigation tool aboard. Just about any MFD will do a better job. At displaying more data in a more user friendly fashion.

Good advice here. I note your boat is not large, probably not a weatherproofed cockpit. Unless you navigate only close to home I would have to discourage you from not having a marinized plotter. We sail and live aboard in the Caribbean. We started in Muskegon, Michigan and sailed out past Prince Edward Island and down the east coast to the Chesapeake and on to Antigua. We have an IPAD in the cockpit for planning purposes but the primary is a Simrad NSE-8 below with repeater topside including a local remote. Sea water will disable your touch screen and it will forever be demanding a charge. We used a nice hand held Dakota for a while but it turned out to be too fragile. Having back-up Navionics on a pad and cell phone is good policy for lightening, major power loss etc.

[clongcor59]

My experience with using a tablet (10" iPad) was very similar to what is described in the reply from ItDepends. I find touch screens don't function well for me in rough weather.

After our first 300 NM cruise, we added a MFD at the helm.

[themediadoctor]

Without discounting any of the prior comments, my experience is this: I use an iPad Pro in a weatherproof housing. Battery capacity is an issue, so I have it connected to a 50ah portable power pack. I have a backup for that plus a 65w a/c charger that will pump the iPad from zero to usable in less than 15 minutes. I am using it in a covered flybridge on a 63' MY and have a short-range Furuno radar that overlays on TZ iBoat software (in 3D) via Bluetooth. I have a Garmin Glo external gps receiver, but rarely need it. I'm under good shade, so overheating hasn't been a problem. Ditto with reading the screen. For precise movements, I keep a Bluetooth mouse connected and nearby. I get some salt spray in a heavy sea and the housing keeps it off the gear. It works as well as any chartplotter I've ever owned. If the weather gets bad, I can move to the lower helm inside the pilot house. Having said that, I do think if you're in an open sailboat cockpit, you may have issues. There are plenty of waterproof housings that will keep your gear dry and allow you to use the touchscreen, but if the protector over the screen gets wet, it'll be hard/impossible to use the touchscreen. The mouse will help, but I think being heeled over in a tall sea would make that difficult. Soaking a mouse in salt water is no bueno. Your gear should fit your circumstances and usage, so think through the cockpit environment and the kinds of sailing you're likely to do. Personally, I really like the TZ interface, level of detail and ease of use. But if I were steering from a wet cockpit, I'd probably prefer a dedicated chart plotter. Also, you're not going to save a ton of money; a new iPad Pro is a grand, plus housing, external GPS puck, battery banks, which puts it on par with a decent chartplotter.

[OS2Dude]

I will always prefer an MFD to a tablet for marine use in the cockpit. Tablets are not built to be used in a way that exposes them to sun, wind, rain and temperature extremes. If you have a small fair-weather day-sailor a tablet may work OK, but I'm not going to risk my vessel and crew to one.

[TPG]

I've run an iPad side by side with my Raymarine MFD under a bimini on my Hunter 380 and never had any issues seeing either of them.

My biggest complaint against the iPad is no built-in GPS but I solved that with a Garmin GLO 2. Dead on accurate in the Intracoastal in GA and FL and sometimes better than the Raymarine system onboard.

[MHTinkler]

I use a Garmin chatplotter (built - in, came with boat) with both my Android phone and cheapest 10" tablet with gps I could find (Walmart - around $100) at helm station. This is on a 2011 Gemini 105Mc sailing catamaran. I run both Aquamaps and Navionics on both. Aquamaps for Active Captain info and Navionics for bottom contour info. Neither are in direct sunlight accept when early or late sun can get to the helm. If it rains, i just put them both in ziplock bags to keep dry (touch screens work thru plastic).
Works great 99% of time. Occasionally have to move them behind window, inside, because of midsummer Florida heat and direct sun causing overheating, but this is a rare case. Overall, this has been a cheap and effective way to gets lots of info available close at hand. I like the Aquamaps info but I LOVE the depth and contour info from Navionics. This feature has kept me out of trouble MANY times.

[BuenaOnda]

Check the SailProof tablet, it's rugged, IP67 and have a 1000 nits screen. It was tested in the September issue of Yachting World magazine: https://www.yachtingworld.com/reviews/gear-reviews/tested-sailproof-android-tablet

[dan104]

The topic is very personal, so I can only share what has worked for me and what my next actions will be (I take over my new to me boat in Nov).

I use 2 – Raspberry Pi 4 based systems running the openplotter distro (This includes OpenCpn, and SignialK – a “broker” that accepts almost any traffic and shares it with all the devices on the net in their native language (183, seatalk, 2K))
And they are down below decks, but I do have a drop down 16” usb powered screen that can be seen from cockpit linked to one of them.

Both systems have remote desktop access (VNC) and I have a handful of pads with VNC on them (old Ipads, Samsung 10.3, even $29 androids). I find them cheaply or free and if they fall over board no big deal, they are just displays.

They all share a network using a 12V wireless router (off the shelf standard, just picked on that had 12V wall wart so I could skip all the power conversions), I do have it linked to a long range wireless for pickup (Bullet).

The OpenPlotter lets me construct Web based displays as well MFD’s outputs that I can pull up anytime.

I do my planning down below and build a plan that I can follow, I rely on the displays for keeping me on course as well as wind and AIS. For the fun part of their jobs the PI’s have SSD based big time storage (1TB), with movies, books, music to cover down time using the drop down screen or just streaming to devices (of course copy of Capt Ron).

My new2me boat has built in wireless network connecting to 2K and a nice Nav Station and every comm device you can think of other than starlink. It will also get the PI’s and nice USB display on a swing out arm that can be turned around for core boat visibility. There is a MFD and a B&G touch screen at helm. I will still bring the pads along as workstations along with the long range WIFI. I also keep paper charts of the region I am in along with the NOAA chart booklets you can down load and print on photo (waterproof) paper.

I am an engineer so everything has to be redundant, because things fail!

BTW: Raspberry 4’s drive two screens vi HDMI, so I will add a TV style monitor in the 32-36 range which can show movies or act as big chart plotter display. And yes I have big battery bank, solar and wind generators.

[Mattzilla]

10 inch Sailproof is ruggedised and daylight readable.
I use the Android version with navionics, also remote desktop to laptop for open cpn and Expedition.

[Shaneesprit]

I use a cheap Time2 Open Source tablet a Small chartplotter with Navionics and a RM MFD with Lighthouse.
I prefer
1 Tablet to see when I am going to arrive.
2 The small plotter for speed and general use.
3 MFD has the best overview, and controls the Auto Pilot - can use in the rain or with wet fingers ( mines inside ) don’t like the RM much though.

To my point.
There is a big difference between mounting a tablet outside and using a phone outside,
You look at your phone and then put it back in your pocket, where as a tablet if mounted could remain in direct sunlight.
In general a phone won’t work for long if left in direct sunlight. I doubt a tablet could either.
In any case even if it did work the heat will slowly or possibly quickly destroy the battery.

[CaptainMarkS]

Originally Posted by themediadoctor

Without discounting any of the prior comments, my experience is this: I use an iPad Pro in a weatherproof housing. Battery capacity is an issue, so I have it connected to a 50ah portable power pack. I have a backup for that plus a 65w a/c charger that will pump the iPad from zero to usable in less than 15 minutes. I am using it in a covered flybridge on a 63' MY and have a short-range Furuno radar that overlays on TZ iBoat software (in 3D) via Bluetooth. I have a Garmin Glo external gps receiver, but rarely need it. I'm under good shade, so overheating hasn't been a problem. Ditto with reading the screen. For precise movements, I keep a Bluetooth mouse connected and nearby. I get some salt spray in a heavy sea and the housing keeps it off the gear. It works as well as any chartplotter I've ever owned. If the weather gets bad, I can move to the lower helm inside the pilot house. Having said that, I do think if you're in an open sailboat cockpit, you may have issues. There are plenty of waterproof housings that will keep your gear dry and allow you to use the touchscreen, but if the protector over the screen gets wet, it'll be hard/impossible to use the touchscreen. The mouse will help, but I think being heeled over in a tall sea would make that difficult. Soaking a mouse in salt water is no bueno. Your gear should fit your circumstances and usage, so think through the cockpit environment and the kinds of sailing you're likely to do. Personally, I really like the TZ interface, level of detail and ease of use. But if I were steering from a wet cockpit, I'd probably prefer a dedicated chart plotter. Also, you're not going to save a ton of money; a new iPad Pro is a grand, plus housing, external GPS puck, battery banks, which puts it on par with a decent chartplotter.

I completely agree: it depends on the cockpit environment. We are well protected against sun and spray, and have transitioned to using Navionics on our 10" iPad as primary chartplotter, running in parallel with dual Furuno 3D displays. At night, we use one Furuno display for radar. The chart accuracy of Navionics is better in our part of the world (Pacific Mexico and Sea of Cortez). We love the flexibility of route planning not needing to be tethered to the helm (read: at a beachside bar enjoying Margaritas). No issues with glare, charging, or saltwater corrosion requiring cable replacement. And, the tracks and routes automatically sync with all other iOS devices, so we have redundancy and ability to use Navionics on our PC (with more limited features), iPhones, other iPad, etc... The best solution is one that fits your specific environment and sailing grounds.

[philiosophy]

I have finally made it to the end of this very informative thread.1st of all I am in Ambon Indonesia, having left SeattlevWashington in 2010 to slowly cruise the world. 2nd of all, and more importantly I strongly advocate Voyage Planning. As a retired Offshore Tugman we learned about and were required to make a voyage plan for every trip. This was all brought on by the Accident iInvestigators and Insurance people to Stop The Error Chain. As Cruisers, sailors, motor boaters etc. We can all end up dealing with the Insurance People if we get that peskyverror chain going, just because we are either ignorant or too lazy to make a voyage plan and then utilise it, So there is that.
About Tablets as a sole double of Navigation. I personally know a couple whose very nice sailboat is sitting on the bottom in Fiji. They proudly stated to me some months before " Its all we need. That type of thinking is a poor attitude and one that ended badly. 12 years up thecruising road I see many Cruisers who wouldn't think of making a voyage plan. They don't even consider the tide when leaving their marina berth. Just what time they want to leave. Tide, BTW is at the very beginning of a Voyage plan,
I don't carry charts anymore. To expensive and cumbersome in today's modern electronic world. Let's not get bogged down in that discussion.
Actually Open CPN with Google Earth CAP charts and SAS Planet are the main reason I am responding to this thread. WOW, I thought Fiji was bad for its out of date and very poor charting. Indonesiavis if anything worse.. Wouldn't matter a whit how many Charts,Chartplotters, Tablets, Raspberry Pies or what ever you have in these waters. I say the best navigation tool you could have here is SAS Planet and Open CPN with the KAP overlays. There is just no replacement for a Sattelite Photo with a GPS Dongle telling you where you really are.
I have a Tablet, a Raymarine Chart Plotter, and a couple year old gaming static drive laptop I can see where I change course from the cockpit. One last thing.nI always have channelv16 on so if another vessel tries to call me they can. More importantly by far...If someone makes a distress call, I can hear it and help. Cheers

[Happ]

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Don't want to buy a MFD, would rather either run Navionics or OpenCpn as my chartplotter. But I need it in the cockpit where I can see it and use it. I want to mount it and be able to use its touchscreen.

What are current 'hardened' devices that can be used? There was an old thread about rugged computers for OpenCpn, but these are headless I would think.

Or should I just buy a MFD, given that they are a rugged touchscreen display w computer specifically built for marine use.

Harming owns Navionics. That solves your problem.

[Happ]

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Don't want to buy a MFD, would rather either run Navionics or OpenCpn as my chartplotter. But I need it in the cockpit where I can see it and use it. I want to mount it and be able to use its touchscreen.

What are current 'hardened' devices that can be used? There was an old thread about rugged computers for OpenCpn, but these are headless I would think.

Or should I just buy a MFD, given that they are a rugged touchscreen display w computer specifically built for marine use.

Garmin owns Navionics. That solves your problem.