IPad with Android on board????

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

I have an iPad Pro. In terms of the boat, and general travel I should have got an android tablet instead.

Much more freedom, and more crucially, OpenCPN

It is a shame opencpn isn't available for iPad, but the general plan is that iPad apps are not community designed. However, I find that SeaIQ is pretty good, fast, and works well as my primary chart plotter getting nav and ais data over wifi from the xb8000. I have a raymarine chartplotter as a backup, running lighthouse 2, but the resolution of the iPad makes normal chartplotters look awful. And, as mentioned above, having all your documentation immediately available is great, not to mention all my yachting mags through Readly 😀

Mixing android and iPad is likely to be disappointing. If you're all apple you get used to seamless integration of data /mail /messages and handing off between computers, iPads, iPhone, and watch. Having a device that doesn't fit into your ecosystem in the same way won't be as convenient by miles. It'd be like the old days when your devices didn't talk to each other much. You'll also have to buy any apps you have again, as your Android purchases won't work on iOS devices

[Tillsbury]

Just as a separate matter, that unofficially "refurbished" iPad mini is somewhat overpriced. The new iPad is only us$329, and a far more powerful device. To save money, look for refurbished devices on the apple store, which are effectively as new machines. I would definitely avoid buying such an out of date iPad from Amazon.

[johnjuliano]

We have had great success with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

It has been a great device, waterproof and visible in direct light. We mount it with suction mount on the cockpit table.

We don’t use a formal chart plotter. We use OpenCPN and Navionics. We have five other android devices and two Mac Laptops, so we have many levels of hardware backup.

We set up an Iridium Go as a router and then connect our Vesper AIS to it over Wifi. We use the Vesper’s GPS with OpenCPN, it is much more reliable than the internal GPS in the Samsung, which momentarily loses it’s GPS lock occasionally.

With OpenCPN, we overlay AIS targets from the Vesper. We’ve had excellent success with this.

Using the Iridium Go, we download multiple GRIB files, which can be overlayed on OpenCPN, or PredictWind’s GRIB files in their app.

We bought the tablet for $457 in March of 2018.

[katoema]

I have an Android phone and an Acer tablet both with GPS. Both have licensed Admiralty Charts on them working off Marine Navigator. I use a Windows 10 laptop with both OpenCPN and qtvlm to display the same licensed Admiralty charts using a GPS puck.

As a professional insured delivery skipper, I am obliged to have an independent navigation system on any boat I am delivering, should the on-board electronics fail, etc.

As I am now in my 50th year of delivering, even new boats suffer electronic failures, but many owners are using tablets (Android and I-Pads) for monitoring their systems, while using Navionics, but Navionics should not be used for navigation, but regarded as a recreational game.

[mjscottinnc]

I use both IPads and Galaxy Tab as primary and backup. I spent about 6 months researching and testing and settled on using 2 - IPad Air 2s as my primary navigation and a Galaxy Tab as the backup. When I made my decision iSailor was only available for the IPad, now I'm told is on Android too. That might have made a difference, Android Tabs are much less expensive then IPads.

I use 2 IPads so that I can zoom in on one of them and still keep a route over view on the other, which I found as a necessity when transiting the ICW especially while snaking through Southern South Carolina and Georgia.

Nav programs and charts: I found iSailor as the overall best navigation program and it had the best charts for the Bahamas, where I used it exclusively. I used Garmin Bluechart and Navtronics in US waters, offshore and inshore (ICW). In bad weather or offshore overnights having 2 - IPads allowed normal navigation on one and Furuno Radar overlay on Nobeltec TimeZero Nav Program on the other. That came in very handy on numerous occasions of reduced visibility.

I entered all the Explorer Chart waypoints into one Nav tablet and then shared them with the other. I found that iSailor was the easiest to create, store, and edit routes. I'd lay in my bunk at night planning my next route, get accurate travel times and easily adjust departure/arrival times to accommodate tides.

The down side of the IPads: They will not last an entire day on a single charge, especially on a bright day when the display is trying to be brighter then the ambient light. So I built in a charging station at the helm. Also on really bright days my sun glasses were polarized one way and the IPads were polarized another way so that I could not see the screen with my sun glasses on. The polarization was less of an issue with the Galaxy Tab.

The Galaxy Tab was a good backup for US navigation and I used it a number of times when my first charging station failed before installing a new one.

On wet and bad weather transits, I'd slide a gallon ziploc bag over the Tab for water proofing, never ever had an issue with water or moisture.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by mjscottinnc

I use both IPads and Galaxy Tab as primary and backup. I spent about 6 months researching and testing and settled on using 2 - IPad Air 2s as my primary navigation and a Galaxy Tab as the backup. When I made my decision iSailor was only available for the IPad, now I'm told is on Android too. That might have made a difference, Android Tabs are much less expensive then IPads.

I use 2 IPads so that I can zoom in on one of them and still keep a route over view on the other, which I found as a necessity when transiting the ICW especially while snaking through Southern South Carolina and Georgia.

Nav programs and charts: I found iSailor as the overall best navigation program and it had the best charts for the Bahamas, where I used it exclusively. I used Garmin Bluechart and Navtronics in US waters, offshore and inshore (ICW). In bad weather or offshore overnights having 2 - IPads allowed normal navigation on one and Furuno Radar overlay on Nobeltec TimeZero Nav Program on the other. That came in very handy on numerous occasions of reduced visibility.

I entered all the Explorer Chart waypoints into one Nav tablet and then shared them with the other. I found that iSailor was the easiest to create, store, and edit routes. I'd lay in my bunk at night planning my next route, get accurate travel times and easily adjust departure/arrival times to accommodate tides.

The down side of the IPads: They will not last an entire day on a single charge, especially on a bright day when the display is trying to be brighter then the ambient light. So I built in a charging station at the helm. Also on really bright days my sun glasses were polarized one way and the IPads were polarized another way so that I could not see the screen with my sun glasses on. The polarization was less of an issue with the Galaxy Tab.

The Galaxy Tab was a good backup for US navigation and I used it a number of times when my first charging station failed before installing a new one.

On wet and bad weather transits, I'd slide a gallon ziploc bag over the Tab for water proofing, never ever had an issue with water or moisture.

I have a problem with the Galaxy Tab A when exposed to the sun for a while it turns off because of overheating.

[mjscottinnc]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

I have a problem with the Galaxy Tab A when exposed to the sun for a while it turns off because of overheating.

I use a Galaxy Tab S2, attached to the top of the binnacle at the helm using a RAM mount with a Bimini overhead, I don't ever remember any overheating when the sun hit it even while charging.


Sorry I can be of much help.

[mjscottinnc]

Originally Posted by katoema

As I am now in my 50th year of delivering, even new boats suffer electronic failures, but many owners are using tablets (Android and I-Pads) for monitoring their systems, while using Navionics, but Navionics should not be used for navigation, but regarded as a recreational game.

On my last trip to the Bahamas I wanted to test that theory, that tables and apps are not real navigation tools, they are toys. I've been an electronics design and production engineer for over 45 years and I've been sailing longer then that, so I felt qualified to do the evaluation.

I used tablet navigation for 6 months inshore, coastal, and offshore. The technology inside a dedicated chart plotter is no different then what is in a tablet. The only difference is that a dedicated chart plotter has only a single application program running and the tablet can be many things. For the same 3 - 5 thousand US dollars your would spend on a dedicated chart plotter, you can have multiple tablet based devices with the added benefit of duplicate displays, computing, and GPS receivers.

You are right that electronics do fail and the best way to find out if you are getting false reading from a device is to compare it to another doing the same thing. That is something that is intuitive with multiple tablets and generally impossible with dedicated chart plotters. That is the reason I carried three Nav tablets with me. If they did not all agree, then I would trust the majority in an emergency. That is also why I used both IPads and Android devices, two different ways of doing the same thing.

In 6 months of daily use, outside in the elements, baking heat, 12 hours of sunshine, torrential downpours, thunder showers, and tropical storms... not a single tablet failure, not a single navigation failure.

Sorry, but I think your view is out of date.

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

It is a shame opencpn isn't available for iPad, but the general plan is that iPad apps are not community designed. However, I find that SeaIQ is pretty good, fast, and works well as my primary chart plotter getting nav and ais data over wifi from the xb8000. I have a raymarine chartplotter as a backup, running lighthouse 2, but the resolution of the iPad makes normal chartplotters look awful.

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

You are right that electronics do fail....

But much less so than mechanical components, so I hear exactly what you are saying.

I recently had a super tech savvy crew member, and for the life of them, they never did get to grips with the Simrad chartplotter (NSS8). It just wasn't intuitive for them, and was dog slow at scrolling or doing much of anything when AIS of other important details were being shown at the same time. Navionics on the iPAD (ok it was going less) was super fast and slick by comparison.

[CatNewBee]

They are toys, because the Apps are not good enough yet.

I have the Navionics Boating HD on Android wit charts for the Med, When sailing i use it to document my track, so I hit the start button and let it do its magic.

I sailed for 5 weeks with over night passages and each trip I used to record with the app. On two longer sails it just drops the track because no Network available and the app was re-starting I guess from an internal failure, the track recording was lost irreversible. Also the data is stored somewhere in the Navionics cloud, and you cannot download your tracks / points etc. to store them somewhere or use them in your plotter.

So yes, navigation works even offline, but it is a toy. You cannot seriously depend on it and the data collected, it is simply not reliable. It worked on the sea without shore network connection, because I used to download the whole maps before sailing upfront, there are limits on selecting area sizes for the downloads, it is a PITA to make overlapping selecions until you get the complete map, also very unprofessional.

I would expect a menu to download the whole shebang on request instead of fiddling around.

Next thing is the Update map feature, it refuses to work and claims not enough storage for 360MB on SD - I have 128GB storage and there is enough for 100 times the charts size.

As a backup system - it is Ok, very detailed and more recent than the chart on the plotter, also clean and nice UI - but I would not bet on it my life. There is no AIS, collision warning, Radar, Sonar etc, all delivered by the Plotter, there is no Autopilot steering, no instruments, no Sailsteer, no currents and tides...

The Navionics App is simply not a replacement for an onboard navigation system - but you cannot expect it to be for 50€ either. The map is worth it.

[mjscottinnc]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

They are toys, because the Apps are not good enough yet.

I have the Navionics Boating HD on Android wit charts for the Med, When sailing i use it to document my track, so I hit the start button and let it do its magic.

Navtronics is not the only Nav App around, nor is Android the only tablet OS. I evaluated them all before I made my choice.

How well it works and how it interacts with you as the user is solely based on how well the App (program) is written. Like all things in life, there is good and bad as well as personal preference. Personally I selected iSailor and found it to meet all of my needs and then some.

To label all tables used for navigation as toys I believe is not correct.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by mjscottinnc

Navtronics is not the only Nav App around, nor is Android the only tablets OS. I evaluated them all before I made my choice.

How well it works and how it interacts with you as the user is solely based on how well the App (program) is written. Like all things in life, there is good and bad as well as personal preference. Personally I selected iSailor and found it to meet all of my needs and then some.

To label all tables used for navigation as toys I believe is not correct.

They are toys, they are not built for a rugged environment, they cannot connect to all the sensors on board and they are simply not built for navigation on sea. They are OK as mirror-displays, as displays for second chart sources or whatever, but not to steer a boat.

I am not saying they are not helpful, but I would not use them as a replacement of an integrated marine navigation system, they are good add-ons.

[mjscottinnc]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

They are toys, they are not built for a rugged environment, they cannot connect to all the sensors on board and they are simply not built for navigation on sea. They are OK as mirror-displays, as displays for second chart sources or whatever, but not to steer a boat.

I am not saying they are not helpful, but I would not use them as a replacement of an integrated marine navigation system, they are good add-ons.

I'm not going to get into an argument about this. The fact that your sensors don't interface to newer connection methods (WiFi, Bluetooth) doesn't mean they can't connect to tablets, it just means that 'your' boat sensors can not connect to Navtronics.

I use tablets in the marine environment to steer the boat. While displaying charts, radar overlays, AIS, wind speed and direction, etc. etc. all at the same time. I'm still alive. My experience has been that they are valuable marine grade tools.


When I was a young boy in the 50s I saw Dick Tracy talk into his wrist watch like a telephone and I heard grown-ups say it was complete fantasy. Not so much anymore, things change.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

They are toys, they are not built for a rugged environment, they cannot connect to all the sensors on board and they are simply not built for navigation on sea. They are OK as mirror-displays, as displays for second chart sources or whatever, but not to steer a boat.

I am not saying they are not helpful, but I would not use them as a replacement of an integrated marine navigation system, they are good add-ons.

If theres one thing ive seen rapidly change in recent years its the use of PC's and tablets as core navigation devices. A large number of cruisers have gone this way. More and more are finding it hard to justify the costs of upgrading their plotters when tablets and phones etc provide the same charts with much redundancy.

I have two built in raytheon plotters. State of the art at the time. When i went to buy chips for them i was told by jepperson not to waste my money, one chip cost what a decent tablet cost and i needed 10+ chips.

Buying new plotters and implementing them into my system was very expensive, thus ive gone the tablet & Pc route. Currently between the two of us and our crew Dave we have 10+ phone,tablet,pc's etc onboard, thats massive redundancy.

I probably will upgrade my plotter in the cockpit at some stage BUT to say using tablets and pc's is inadequate because they are toys just isnt correct, many , many world cruisers have gone that way successfully.

Also ,if you believe marine chartplotters dont break you are mistaken. Generally they are very good BUT they can and do break, i know this through personal experience, fortunately at the time i had a pc with opencpn on it which allowed me to continue.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

They are toys, they are not built for a rugged environment, they cannot connect to all the sensors on board and they are simply not built for navigation on sea. They are OK as mirror-displays, as displays for second chart sources or whatever, but not to steer a boat.

I am not saying they are not helpful, but I would not use them as a replacement of an integrated marine navigation system, they are good add-ons.

_Your_ tablet may not be able to connect to _your_ sensors.

If you had a decent NMEA wifi gateway you could use sensor data: wind, depth, speed, AIS, boat GPS, etc. Basically everything except most radars (there is a Wifi one for the Ipad though).


I used both a Windows PC onboard with OpenCPN (years ago) which never failed me. And in more recent years Android tablets & phones with several different programs. Navionics works well, and I never ever had it drop out for any reason.


To me the problem is tablet hardware hardware is not made for marine environment. Many recent phones & tablets are waterproof, but reading the fineprint says they are not fit for use in seawater, and most screens don't work with wet fingers.
Also I find it very akward to use fixed mounted touchscreens when conditions get rough.

So for me tablets are only for inside & fine weather use, which makes it a very nice thing to play with but that you can't rely on in bad weather.