That screen above makes me so happy! I had been reluctant to give up on Gizmo's standalone tank monitoring system but circumstances forced a change. Had I realized how easy and relatively inexpensive it was to switch the tank senders over to BEP CZone NMEA 2000 monitoring -- and how accurate and flexible the output would be, even to the point of custom (and juvenile) tank labels -- I would have made the leap a long time ago...
I believe that this gentleman -- Durval Tavares, the founder and president of Aquabotix -- earned that grin the hard way. It's no surprise that getting something as complex as a "remote controlled underwater camera vehicle" with an iPad interface to market would be a challenge, but when I visited the company HQ on Tuesday I was impressed with just how many details and disciplines are in play behind the scenes. I was also impressed with the cheerful, collaborative work environment Tavares and his team have created and I quite enjoyed taking my first HydroView driving lesson in the factory test pool (video example here)...
While I once again found IBEX rich with interesting people and products, it was a mere light fixture that may have sparked the moment of maximum excitement! Please check out my April entry about perfect LED interior lighting before we take a gander at the new Lumitec Touch Dome seen above, plus a report on the LED's already in use on Gizmo...
Switching Gizmo's interior lighting to LEDs seems like a no-brainer, especially given the horridly inefficient incandescent lighting she came with. For instance, I ran that either/or dual dome light comparison at lower left all last season and it was hard to tell the difference between the light outputs of the two bulbs, except that the $30 Imtra "Tower" LED replacement bulb is slightly warmer in color and draws only about 2 Watts (.23 amps at 12.4v) while the freaking filament bulb draws 15! But though there are more and more choices in replacement bulbs and fixtures -- with prices down and LED light output up -- there are still numerous issues to consider and I don't think that boats like mine have seen the perfect LED choice yet...
It's hard not play Panbo hooky during this superfine Spring in Maine, but I have been doing some testing even as I get Gizmo ready for a full season of it. You may recall my September entry about the new underwater cam company AquaBotix; well, above is their AquaLens boat hook cam at work in Camden Harbor. Click on the thumbnail above for a better look at the running gear of the able work and passenger vessel Harvest Moon. With the little LCD screen strapped to my wrist and the cam/LED control box clipped to my belt, I could move around and handle the boat hook fairly easily (as long as I didn't trip on the cable). And, while the water isn't always this clear here, I was able to inspect the hull pretty thoroughly, and even found a foot-long section of missing bottom paint, or worse, that Capt. Rob didn't know about...
EEL purportedly stands for Easily Engaged Locking system but perhaps more to the point are the strong and sleek eel-like jaws of Marinco's new shorepower connector. It's designed to work with existing screw-on-ring inlets -- like Marinco's own 30 and 50 amp models -- except that now you can easily and quickly make the connection with one hand. The EEL even has a built-in LED light for orienting the blades, but just grabbing the jaws tends to orient the plug correctly anyway, so hooking up is just a matter of a little twist and then letting the jaws grab the inlet threads. There's also a secondary lock though the product manager at Marinco's Miami press conference suggested that it was more about peace of mind than necessity. Those jaws are apparently moray eel strong, but is the EEL a sufficient response to the Smart Plug challenge?...
This entry is inspired by Edson's Miami introduction of a Manual Radar Leveling Kit that looks neat to me. I've seen pole mounts like this before--either custom fabricated or made by less familiar companies like Garhauer--and they struck me as a simple and economical way to deal with the issue of decreased radar performance due to boat heel. But before discussing the merits of manual (or electric) leveling mechanisms versus the many self-leveling mounts, I probably ought to address the fact that some sailors reject the whole notion of radar leveling as hokum!...
Another area of boating that may benefit from ever smaller and cheaper wireless computing components is video cameras used for monitoring and just plain fun. It may seem crazy to put a baby product on Panbo but not when you check out the specs of the Withing Smart Baby Monitor. That's a remotely controlled hi-res pan/tilt/zoom camera in that ipodish box seen above and it can connect to multiple iThing viewer/controllers via Bluetooth, local WiFi, or the Internet. It also has stereo microphones and a temperature/humidity sensor, and it can detect motion and noise anomalies. And if any of these multiple remote monitoring features lead you to think that your boat is unhappy, you can transmit a little sweet talk or play it a lullaby!...
The surprise of the annual FLIR/Raymarine Miami Show dinner-and-demo cruise was the introduction of a higher-end M-Series camera with two-axis gyro stabilization and other enhancements. You can download the M-618CS brochure here, and also see a video illustrating how well it corrects the camera for pitch and yaw (but not roll). I saw it in action on the otherwise calm-water cruise thanks to a clever motion-simulating mount FLIR engineers came up with, and the stabilization seemed quite effective. The M-618CS -- along with its sibling, the Raymarine T470SC -- also has a color low-light camera with 10x optical zoom. Plus its 640x480 resolution thermal sensor has a 18°x14° field of view that differs from existing M-Series models, and is purportedly able to detect a person overboard at 4,000 feet. Though even the online discounter prices are north of $33,000, I'm pretty sure that the M-618CS is the least expensive stabilized thermal camera ever...
I'd already gotten some details on the several interesting new products Garmin is announcing today -- and was excited about sharing them -- but it wasn't until late last night that I had any inkling about Garmin's acquisition of Interphase Technologies, a pioneer in phase array forward looking sonar (FLS). Wow! The deal means that Garmin will soon have a new and unique arrow in its quiver of MFD network sensors and that FLS for fishing and navigation will get some of the attention I think it's always deserved. It's not just that Garmin will market the Interphase technology better, but that the technology will no doubt be easier to use and to afford when integrated with Garmin displays. It will probably work better too...
