Anyone with the Vesper Watchmate ?

[CAELESTIS]

I am considering AIS and like the Watchmate due to its low power consumption and stand alone capacity.

Any users of the Vesper Marine Watchmate out there that can provide feedback?

[witzgall]

I don't have one, but Gretchen and I spent over a half hour with them at the Annapolis Sailboat show, and came away very impressed. We are going to get one, just deciding if we are going to get the transponder model they have forthcoming, or the receive only unit.

The biggies for us were the remote buzzer (mount unit at nav station, buzzer in cockpit) and the prioritization of "threats". Basically, I want an AIS unit that bugs me when I need to be bugged, but other than that does not require the crew to actively monitor at all. This fits the bill MUCH better then the integrated units with chartplotter for this reason, and it also uses MUCH less power. So the idea is it gets left on, just does it's thing.

The runner up was the Digital Yacht unit, which is also a very nifty 5" plotter. If you want chartplotter backup, and a receiver only AIS solution, or a small low power charting solution, this was very nice. THe resolution on the screen was only 320x240, if I recall, though.

Chris

[Mike10]

I'd be happy to put you in touch with a local user of WatchMate if that was useful?

Regards,
Mike Ogle - Vesper Marine

[witzgall]

Mike;
You probably already have thought of this, but here is a suggestion to make your product more useful to the power conscious sailor - integrate an anchor alarm into your transponder. Since it already has a GPS, this would make for a great, low power option. Right now, for instance, we keep our chartplotter on. You could of course put some thinking into the solution, and come up with ways to reduce false alarms, etc, making a smart anchor alarm - there were some good discussions here on Cruisersform awhile back.

Chris

[Mike10]

Thanks Chris,

Yes an Anchor Alarm is a new feature of our soon to be available WatchMate 850 Transponder product, you heard it hear first ;-)

Mike

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Mike10

Thanks Chris,

Yes an Anchor Alarm is a new feature of our soon to be available WatchMate 850 Transponder product, you heard it hear first ;-)

Mike

Mike,
Tell us more. A low power anchor alarm would make it a pretty compelling device.

Paul L

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike10

... Mike Ogle - Vesper Marine

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Mike10.

[witzgall]

Mike;

This is great news. I hope you are taking the approach you did with AIS, that is not to copy what others are doign with alarms, but make a better mousetrap. Here is a thread on the subject discussed here a few months back:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...arm-37136.html

Chris

Originally Posted by Mike10

Thanks Chris,

Yes an Anchor Alarm is a new feature of our soon to be available WatchMate 850 Transponder product, you heard it hear first ;-)

Mike

[Mike10]

Thanks Chris for that thread...

Paul,,, The new AIS WatchMate 850 Transponder's Anchor Watch feature is easy to use. It has simple graphics, showing your boats location relative to the anchor, alarms are set, enabled and disabled using the four buttons on the WatchMate. The whole device consumes very little power (3Watts). We are on track to release this new version of WatchMate late November.

Hope this is of info is useful....Mike

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Mike10

Thanks Chris for that thread...

Paul,,, The new AIS WatchMate 850 Transponder's Anchor Watch feature is easy to use. It has simple graphics, showing your boats location relative to the anchor, alarms are set, enabled and disabled using the four buttons on the WatchMate. The whole device consumes very little power (3Watts). We are on track to release this new version of WatchMate late November.

Hope this is of info is useful....Mike

Mike,
I'm real interested in this for low-power AIS and the anchor alarm. I hope the anchor alarm lets me adjust the position after the fact. In other words I want to be able to set the alarm after I have dropped the hook and set it. So I'd want to take the current position and set the anchor alarm at 150 ft in front of the boat. I'm OK with manually entering the heading or graphically doing the offset. There's to much going on when we set the hook to run below punch a button at the drop site.

Paul L

[CAELESTIS]

Mike10, I sent you a PM.

[Mike10]

Paul, that's what we are working toward, can't promise that exact functionality in the first release but we are aware of the need.

Mike

[CAELESTIS]

Mike10, anyone in the Seattle area with your product?

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by CAELESTIS

Mike10, anyone in the Seattle area with your product?

You might try calling Milltech Marine. They are based "in the Puget Sound area" and carry the Vesper unit. The owner, Doug Miller, is a good guy.

[chrisferro]

Will Vesper Marine be exhibiting at the Annapolis shows this October? I'd love to see one of these in person - the 850 looks like a really smart unit.

Chris Ferro
Electrosense