NAVLink Blue is a new interfacing product from Digital Yacht, connecting Bluetooth devices such as phones, tablets and sensors to NMEA 2000 networks. It allows app developers for iOS and Android who support Bluetooth to take advantage of data that’s available on the boat’s NMEA 2000 back bone – for instance, GPS, AIS, instrument, engine or electrical information. The gateway is also bi-directional so Bluetooth sensor data can be communicated back to the NMEA 2000 system. This allows an interesting range of 3rd party sensors to connect to boat systems.
NAVLink Blue is self powered from the NMEA 2000 network so fits in seconds. It’s also easy to pair with the other Bluetooth device. For developers, Digital Yacht publish a SDK on their Github site which opens up raw NMEA 2000 data to coders for 3rd party development.
Many boaters may be happy utilising the existing and popular Digital Yacht NAVLink WiFi gateway which works with apps like Navionics, AquaMaps, TZ iBoat etc and provides data for AIS, instrument and GPS overlays. However, Bluetooth brings a new range of low power connectivity options to your on board NMEA2000 network and the ability to integrate interesting sensors too.
The popular NMEA Remote app already supports NAVLink Blue transforming an iPad into a full function, highly configurable instrument display
NAVLink Blue is priced at £195 and is available now.
