Boat Command Connect! Experience

[TheWingman]

My boat is in a marina about 1.5 hours away. I have been looking for a affordable monitor system so I can query it and ensure the boat is ok. I found the Boat Command Connect! product and it looks reasonably priced and it specs seem to cover what I am looking for. They claim to monitor: Water leaks, Unauthorized entry, Low battery voltage, Anchor drift, Low or high interior temperatures, and Unintended shore power disconnections. They also have the ability to activate three relays remotely. This is all done from a cell phone application. The price is $299 with a $8.99/month fee for the connection.

There are very few reviews on this product and it appears the company is new as of summer of 2014. Has anyone used this product? Can you share your experience with it. Are there any other products that have similar capabilities that you have had a good experience with?

Thanks for your help.

https://boatcommand.com/how/

[SailFastTri]

I recently bought one at a local boat show and installed it yesterday. Initial impressions are very positive. Easy to install, nice app for the iPhone (they also have Android) and great phone support. It's a small family business and they seem to have a great product.

I can sit in my living-room and can view boat position and position tracking history overlaid on a map, battery voltage, ambient temperature, bilge pump history counter for two bilge pumps, and sensor status (you can buy optional sensors and there are plenty of inputs).

I bought the motion detector for the interior cabin. I'm thinking about adding a hatch magnetic proximity contact sensor but am reluctant because there's no way to install it (on my boat) without a wire showing over the interior woodwork. It would be nice to have because in my experience with home/office alarms; motion sensors are prone to false alarm, and I would ignore a motion alert without hatch alert. For the time being I'll just use the motion sensor.

Through the app you can enable/disable alerts, set alert thresholds, etc. For example, you set a bilge pump alert for x cycles in y days, and/or if bilge pump runs longer than xx minutes.

The geofencing feature is a simple radius setting in yards from current position. It will also alert if unable to get a valid GPS reading.

You can add read-only users for text/email alerts, which is nice if you have someone else watching your boat when away, or a marina/boat club employee who's willing to check when needed. They can also download the app if they wish.

[Davidasailor]

Off hand the price seems pretty reasonable. I built a similar solution myself with a Raspberry Pi, SIM card adapter for connectivity, and some sensors. The SIM card connectivity costs me $9 / month, and I must be in for about $200 in parts. I've enjoyed the project and I can customize the functionality for whatever I want, but if done properly yours does seem like an interesting solution.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[d4raffy]

I use a Yacht Sentinel - been very pleased with product and the company.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[jimbarnebee]

Are you still using Boat Command and do you still like it 5 years later?

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by jimbarnebee

Are you still using Boat Command and do you still like it 5 years later?

Yes, still using it. It's not perfect.

The motion detector produced enough false alarms to cause me to disable it.

One thing that irks me though, is the "anchor alarm". I put it in quotes, because it's not very usable as an anchor alarm because (last time I checked) they have made the minimum setting 35 yards. They did this without notice (it was 25 yards when I bought the unit) and I only found out because I called tech support when it wasn't working. So apparently, everyone who had the lower setting was effectively disabled by the company without notice.
I complained to the tech support guy at the time, because my home mooring is close to granite reefs and 40 yards drift in the wrong direction could have my boat aground on jagged rocks, and I'd never know about it. He said they were getting too many false alarms and most of their customers use it like a theft alarm.
That said, I do like the other features and I don't know of any other solution that comes close, in the same price ballpark.

One other thing -- they disabled the iOS app, but the web interface is "responsive" and mobile-friendly.