We were contacted today by a Dutch customer having a new 15m motor yacht equipped with a Raymarine plotter and radar system but wanting to integrate it with a PC and iPad. Even though Raymarine’s latest E series products have a wifi repeater capability through an Apple app, there are some limitations. At the moment, the app only allows a “repeat” of what’s on the E series display and doesn’t allow you to use and of the real time navigation data for other apps such as iNavX or IOnBoard. More and more apps will become available so it’s a big limitation not to have real time NMEA data transferred across the wifi link.
Digital Yacht have got a canny and competitive solution – using their AIT2000 Class B transponder and the WLN10HS wifi interface. Our AIT2000 has a very attractive price tag and will still connect to a Raymarine system using its NMEA2000 output. All that’s required is a simple NMEA2000 to SeaTalk NG adaptor cable which is readily available.
The NMEA 0183 output can be connected to our WLN10HS and then AIS, NMEA and GPS data will all be available for the iPad/Phone and we even offer a free app called iAIS. As a bonus there’s a NMEA0183 4800 baud GPS output for a DSC VHF and a integrated USB connection for PC/Mac users. We think this is a pretty powerful solution and one that will save you money too. Have a look at the sketch below and feel free to post some feedback
