Monitoring & Control Apps: InteliSea & Maretron
Ah, so there you are stretched out in a teak chaise on the skydeck of your mega, but are you bored and/or uncomfortably out of touch? Hell no, not with an iPad full of books, videos, games, work tools, internet connectivity, and even an app that connects you directly into your elaborate InteliSea vessel monitoring and control system. There’s a nice demo of their existing $99 iPhone app at the InteliSea site, and I can tell you from on-phone testing that it manages complexities like those mimic screens above better than demoed, but won’t this app shine on the iPad? And if you’re a geek, or the yacht’s engineer…
Apparently, as shown in the screen below, you’ll be able to design new InteliSea iPad display pages with touches and swipes right on its screen. Mind you, though, that this may just be a mock-up of an app so far, created at least partially in response to my iPad ruminations a few weeks, just like we got a peek at what Active Captain might look like on this platform. (The April Yachting column I was trying to illustrate should be out very soon.) I haven’t spoken with Palladium Technologies recently, but given their early iSiMON app, and their general enthusiasm for sexy tech, I’ll bet they have an iPad app near ready to go. And Maretron is about to arrive on the M&C apps scene, too…
Maretron hasn’t yet announced the app that will go with its N2KView PC software system, but judging from a demo I’ve been trying (screens below), it’s almost ready to go. I don’t see mimic screens in it yet, but we know that N2KView can handle them. Remember, too, that the Basic edition of the software is only $500, and hence can scale to less than megaboats. But screen one below shows all the chapters available to a Platinum user, and the dots at the bottom of the other screens show multiple pages within a chapter. Incidentally, Maretron’s digital switching system is due out soon too. Note too the “Download Config File” button on final Setting screen. Apparently you can design all these screens from within the N2KView application on a PC, which makes good sense. All these illustrations can be clicked to larger versions, by the way. Will Maretron (and Krill and ???) iPad apps be far behind?
Very cool. I pre-ordered my Ipad today (3 more weeks!) Even though it’s just a mock-up, the InteliSea app looks ridiculously cool and functional (bonus!), I’ll be all over that. Thanks for the update, Ben – keep us updated on the progress of these apps please.
Keep in mind only the iPad 3G has a GPS receiver. So worth the extra few week wait while Apple gets FCC approval.
Does the IPad have a GPS function? Someone commented on another site that even the 3G only has aGPS and if you are not near a cell tower it is useless. Here is a comparison. Any expert care to comment about how useful the IPad will be for navigation use?
http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/gps_vs_agps_a_quick_tutorial.html
Thanks
Hi Jack, It’s true that only the 3G iPads will have an internal GPS, but I’m hoping that Apple will enable Bluetooth GPS. I’m 95% sure that the aGPS in the latest iPhone and in the iPad can work alone if out of cellular range (there are several levels of aGPS as your link explains), but at the iPhone 3G and 3Gs seem quite sensitive to sky obstructions. I haven’t had much luck with them inside by boat or home.
Maybe the slickest way to get accurate GPS on a boat is via WiFi to the boat’s sensor system. iNavX is the only charting program that supports this so far, but it’s also possible to get wind, depth, AIS, etc., which makes a navigation program more complete. All the apps mentioned in this entry are also connect via WiFi or cellular to a vessel’s GPS and other systems. So, yes, an iPad will be able to do navigation, in several ways, with several levels of sophistication.
It is my understanding that iPhone uses Skyhook Wireless for the assisted GPS. My experience is iPhone 3G[S] does take longer (sometimes several minutes to acquire a position) outside of cell range, but it does eventually get an accurate position. Of course in cell range its almost instant.
http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/
The nice thing about a WiFi connection to the boat data (GPS, AIS, Wind, Speed, Depth), is it is a many to one connection. That is several applications on many different devices can be connected to the data stream.