Electronics

FLIR’s New Quantum 2 Radar is Most Advanced Yet. Uses Colors to Identify Moving Targets

By Peter Janssen on February 19, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

FLIR just announced its most advanced and user-friendly solid-state radar yet at the Miami Show. It even color codes targets so you can see whether they’re moving closer, or farther away, from your boat. The new Quantum 2 uses Doppler target identification technology, and works with Raymarine’s award-winning Axiom MFDs. It enhances situational awareness by identifying both moving and static images at long and short range. It even uses color codes to moving targets. Red means the target is getting closer, green means it’s moving farther away. Quantum 2 also has a new Safety Sector feature that highlights and color…

Volvo’s New Easy Connect Lets You See All Your Engine and Boat Data on Your Smartphone or Tablet

By Peter Janssen on February 7, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

Volvo Penta is certainly working hard to make our lives easier on board. Now, Volvo has developed Easy Connect, a platform that uses a Bluetooth interface with the boat’s engines and sensors to display all that information on your smart phone or tablet. The free Easy Connect app gives instant live access while you’re on board; you can see the engine and vessel data with a swipe of your fingers. At home, you can review the information you’ve saved. Volvo will be showcasing Easy Connect on their boats at the Miami Boat Show. Easy Connect starts with a simple and…

Digital Gateways: The On Board Translators that Connect All Your Electronics

By Peter Janssen on February 7, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

More and more, it seems, all the various pieces of electronics on our boats are interconnected; just take a look at the helm of a well-equipped contemporary cruiser and you can see the basic nav functions on the chartplotter and autopilot, but also digital info on engine, genset and even transmission functions all on the display in front of you. But how do all these separate pieces of digital information all come together? Here’s a great introduction to new digital gateways that connect all the electronics on board from the Marine Electronics Journal. It used to be that NMEA 0183…

Mazu Now Offering Navionics Charts for Fast, Seamless Navigation and Weather Routing

By Peter Janssen on January 28, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

In a move to make navigation easier and more seamless, mazu just announced at the Seattle boat show that it is now offering Navionics charts on its dashboard for more precise navigation, weather routing, trip planning and more. Users can choose between NOAA and other raster charts and Navionics’ detailed vector charts in the mazu app. Navionics charts open directly in mazu, although you need a Navionics subscription in the Navionics boating app first. Mazu gives cruising boat owners an easy and affordable way to stay connected via satellite wherever they go. Mazu is an iPad app that acts as…

New Icom Fixed-Mount VHF/DSC: Everything You Need in a Slim, Compact Package

By Peter Janssen on January 15, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

Icom just announced its new compact IC-M33OGE fixed-mount VHF/DSC radio at the London boat show. The new radio, with a display about the size of a smartphone, is one of the smallest in the world, and it’s designed to be installed in any area of your boat where space is limited. Despite its size, the new IC-M33OGE has the same interface and performance as Icom’s larger radios, with intuitive, easy-to-use soft keys for fast access to all its functions. And its new speaker delivers distortion-free audio even at full volume. The new VHF includes an integral GPS, which provides your…

Simrad Launches New Six-Panel Integrated Display for Cruising Boats

By Peter Janssen on January 9, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

Take a look at the new Simrad Yachting integrated display above. If you can’t see it there, it’s probably not worth seeing. The six-panel, split-screen touchscreen display on the new NSO evo3 is designed to be the premiere integrated display for larger cruising boats, and it’s made to be easy to see from any viewing angle (even if you’re wearing polarized sun glasses). The idea is to connect the NSO evo3 to other Simrad network modules and add GPS, autopilot, keypad controllers and other accessories to create a vessel-wide system. The high-definition (1920 x 1080) display puts you in total…

Worried about Losing Your Electronics While Offshore? Try a Davis Sextant

By Peter Janssen on January 7, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics, Gear

Even with all our electronics, sextants – dating to 1759 – are making a comeback. The Navy, for example, has reinstituted its celestial navigation and sextant training because of fears about jammed GPS satellite signals. Whether you’re on a warship or a 65-foot blue-water cruiser, if you lose your electronics, for whatever reason, in the middle of the ocean, it certainly would help to have at least a working knowledge of celestial and a sextant. As Davis Instruments points out, with a wristwatch, a copy of The Nautical Almanac and a chart, you could find your way back home using…

Autopilots 101: A User’s Guide

By Peter Janssen on January 2, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

An autopilot is not exactly a necessity for a cruising boat, but it certainly makes life a lot easier. If you’re just doing local or occasional coastal cruising, you may not feel that you need one. If you’re starting the Great Loop, though, an autopilot would help on a lot of it – crossing Lake Michigan, for example, or heading outside in the ocean for major stretches of Florida, where staying inside, traveling along the Waterway, can mean major delays for bridge openings or slowdowns in manatee zones. Autopilots can vary greatly, as they need to match the boat’s individual…

New GOST Apparition: A Cutting-Edge Monitoring and Security System for Your Boat

By Peter Janssen on November 29, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

GOST just launched a new, cutting-edge touchscreen monitoring and security system so you can know what’s going on inside and outside your boat, called Apparition. You control it with interactive 5- and 7-inch touchscreen keypads installed throughout the boat, as well as through an app that works with smartphones and tablets. You can install as many as 16 Apparition touchscreens throughout the boat and they work with up to 192 sensors, monitoring everything from a locked liquor cabinet or the door to a guest cabin to high-water alarms in the engine room. When an alarm sounds, you touch the flashing…

Innovative CrewWatcher MOB System Wins International Award

By Peter Janssen on November 20, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

CrewWatcher, the app-based man-overboard alarm system from Weems & Plath, just won the prestigious DAME award at the METS boating trade show in Amsterdam. When we first wrote about CrewWatcher last month, we said it was so good it “seems like a no-brainer.” The system consists of an app-based smartphone or tablet alarm and a small beacon that fits in your pocket. In giving the award, the DAME jury said, “CrewWatcher should be the winner because of the particularly simply and intuitive user interface of its smartphone app and the way in which it seemed easy to use right out…

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