When Electronics and NAV Instruments Get Commoditized

[David M]

It works for me and that's all that matters.

[PamlicoTraveler]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Get real, Laptops as chart plotters please, I can hardly Keep Windoze going at home , dont mind on a boat, and cheap "splashproof " montors at the helm, well that will survive the first big wave " sure".....Thats BECAUSE THE IPHONE IS CRAP as a nav device, flimsy, very easy to break and essentially a toy

Sounds like you have your mind made up, but I have found Navigating by laptop to be much easier than using my chartplotter on longer trips. I don't have the latest chartplotter though.

As for reliability, of course the laptop stays at the Nav station and is strapped in. I've used it offshore and it works for me. The biggest problem is that it uses alot of power, so I have to put it to sleep for long sailing treks. The only data I can't have repeat on the computer is radar data.

As for the iPhone being crap etc... I don't know, it has a much better display than my Garmin 76csx - It's many times better. I don't really see it as a toy as much as I do a backup. Again, to each his own.

I would really to like to have the Raymarine E series....

[goboatingnow]

As for reliability, of course the laptop stays at the Nav station and is strapped in. I've used it offshore and it works for me. The biggest problem is that it uses alot of power, so I have to put it to sleep for long sailing treks. The only data I can't have repeat on the computer is radar data.

Yep , its a dog the laptop, power hungry, no radar, no integration ....next

As for the iPhone being crap etc... I don't know, it has a much better
display than my Garmin 76csx - It's many times better.

Try this little test, take a pint of salt water, throw it over your Iphone, do the same with a 76Cs. Visit apple store to buy new iphone......Next.

I would really to like to have the Raymarine E series

The light finally breaks thru...

[bewitched]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

No they will not, and it would take billions of users and billons of spot depths to duplicate the existing charts not to mention drawing in the navaids etc.

Are you sure about that? Google has already mapped all the land and taken photos of all the streets and all for free. What makes you think they wouldn't be interested in mapping the ocean or even just the coastlines if there was a simple means of doing so?

The US charts may be accurate - but many areas are not. Try navigating with C-map into Puerta Princessa in the Philippines for example. If I had access to the type of technology, the bay could be mapped in a couple of afternoons.

Get real, Laptops as chart plotters please, I can hardly Keep Windoze going at home , dont mind on a boat, and cheap "splashproof " montors at the helm, well that will survive the first big wave " sure".

I've been using a laptop for navigation for about 3 years - it's never crashed. And my LCD monitor is IP67, the same standard as the Raymarine chart plotters (but without that leaky little slot where you put in the expensive charts - oh, and about 30% of the price)

Marine lesiure electronics are cheap, you can get a radar and chart plotter for about $2500 sometime even less. Thats good given the tiny market.

Then add the wind instrument, readers for the depth instrument and the speed, the interfacing unit so that SeaTalk can interface with NMEA, the charts etc and it's not looking so cheap

As to charts, well " charts falling off teh back of a lorry" is nonsense. increasing charts are going digital and included in that is extensive security measures

The security measures don't seem to be working very well

Sure Navionics on an iphone is cheap , Thats BECAUSE THE IPHONE IS CRAP as a nav device, flimsy, very easy to break and essentially a toy ( not to mention GPS startup issues and accuracy).

I don't have an I-phone, so I wouldn't know, but I don't think you can write of the developing technology on the basis of one single product. A product that wasn't designed to be a navigation tool by incidentally

AS to open marine networking , never going to happen, its simply isnt in the manufacturers interest and the user community is to smallt to force its hand. NMEA 2K as has been pointed out, is too late, too poor and is essentially a closed sytem as it was designed by the industry.

It's not in the interest of the likes of Raymarine et al. But I think they are soon to be eclipsed by more forward looking organisations

You speak nonsense, my open source friends

Well I guess only time will tell.....

Do you want to buy multiple units, each of which only compute a narrow range of information, which are strung together by a system that will not talk to another brand unless you buy yet another unit and uses charts that were produced long before the age of GPS?

or

Would you like one unit to do all the computing and one unit to show all the information and use charts that have things like islands and coastlines in the right place?