Seasmart WiFi connects NMEA network 2000 to your iPad

March, the SeaSmart WiFi, presented by iTabNav.fr at the Nautic de Paris last week, allows a WiFi connection to iPad , iPhone or other computer over WiFi to a NMEA network 2000.

Designed by Chetco Digital Instruments, Brookings, Oregon (USA), SeaSmart is a wireless transmitter NMEA2000 and NMEA0183 compatible consists of an USB/serial gateway, a WiFi transmitter 802.11 b/g and an embedded CGI/AJAX web server. Compatible with web browsers on most smartphones, like iPhone, iPad or Android, SeaSmart.Net translates NMEA 2000 (PGNs) messages through an open protocol in HTML pages updated in real time and sent streaming to web server. The transfer is bi-directional. In addition, NMEA 0183 connector allows to interface instruments that use this protocol, like an AIS, their data being multiplexed and added to the flow of data powered by SeaSmart.net.

This allows multi-user sharing of NMEA data 2000 and NMEA 0183 from any browser, or any compatible application. CDI offers an open protocol to developers, freely allowing them to customize any application to display data received from navigation sensors (weather station, motorization, batteries, fuel tanks, centrale de navigation, etc,).

Compared to the iMux or Digital Yacht devices, SeaSmart WiFi has the advantage of both connections :

• Ad-hoc network : 1 server -> 1 only client
• Existing wireless multi connections network

This allows NMEA data to be shared across multiple devices, computers, tablets and smartphones.

The version 3.5 of iNavX brings support for SeaSmart WiFi. The data from the NMEA 2000 instruments are now displayed in iNavX, with both iPad/iPhone.

Be careful though, iNavX currently can not send data to Seasmart in order to drive autopilot to an active waypoint (or route) .. This will certainly be subject to further development..

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