Boat Beacon - AIS Marine Navigation

[goelectric]

I think you're missing the point here - nobody can see you!

I totally agree - you can't be seen on a VHF AIS receiver using Boat Beacon. It is not a replacement for an AIS transponder. Where I sail the big ships I need to avoid probably couldn't do much about avoiding me even if they could see me via AIS.

You can be seen on Internet based AIS systems like marinetraffic.com, ShipFinder and AIS-Hub and the "be seen" part is aimed at Friends and Family "seeing"/"tracking" you, watching a race in the Club house or a group sharing positions in a flotilla or cruise.

I have 3 free vouchers for Boat Beacon available. If anyone would like to try it please pm me

 

[lw395]

I think comparison with a class B transponder is a bit spurious.
There is a lot to be said the yacht knowing where the big vessels are.
The big vessels cannot and will not track dozens of small vessels that make frequent erratic changes of course. They will only worry about those where there is an imminent threat.

Personally I find a simple AIS receiver fed to a plotter or the Nasa AIS 'radar' a very useful aid.
But I don't use either significantly close to shore. I suppose I would more if I were sailing past Dover or similar.

In my view, a simple AIS receiver/display system would have a good chance of helping you avoid an 'Ouzo' running down situation. A system relying on a good mobile internet connection would have a high chance of not doing so. Not to mention that the non-waterproof i-toys get put away as soon as the going gets rough.
Neither of course is a good substitute for keeping a good lookout astern.

 

[YachtAllegro]

Blimey, you guys are giving "goelectric" a hard time! He's been pretty upfront about its limitations, its only £10, and it gives you some of the information that AIS does on your phone. In that sense, its comparable to AIS in the same way as the well known Navionics app is comparable to a chartplotter.

However, everyone I ever speak to about it raves about the Navionics charting app. Sure, no-one (I hope) expects it to be a substitute for a proper chartplotter, but its great fun to get some of the capabilities of a chartplotter for a fraction of the cost on a bit of kit that many people have anyway. Surely the same applies to this - sounds good fun, and if I had an iphone I'd be downloading it and having a play.

Cheers
Patrick

 

[PaulGooch]

Blimey, you guys are giving "goelectric" a hard time! He's been pretty upfront about its limitations, its only £10, and it gives you some of the information that AIS does on your phone. In that sense, its comparable to AIS in the same way as the well known Navionics app is comparable to a chartplotter.

However, everyone I ever speak to about it raves about the Navionics charting app. Sure, no-one (I hope) expects it to be a substitute for a proper chartplotter, but its great fun to get some of the capabilities of a chartplotter for a fraction of the cost on a bit of kit that many people have anyway. Surely the same applies to this - sounds good fun, and if I had an iphone I'd be downloading it and having a play.

Cheers
Patrick

It isn't comparable to the Navionics app at all. The navionics app on an iPad is stand alone, it uses inbuilt GPS, doesn't rely on a phone signal and all the data is as 100% live as a chart plotter would be.

The original post wasn't entirely up front and it implies that the app is better than a Raymarine AIS. It also claims to be suitable for and accurate for collision avoidance. It isn't, IMO.

I'm not saying the app has no use, it probably does. Lazy Kipper is correct in what he says. For $10 it's a cheap toy and should be marketed as such. Definitely not be over-hyped so as to possibly mislead the unwary and cause a false sense of security.

 

[PaulGooch]

I totally agree - you can't be seen on a VHF AIS receiver using Boat Beacon. It is not a replacement for an AIS transponder. Where I sail the big ships I need to avoid probably couldn't do much about avoiding me even if they could see me via AIS.

You can be seen on Internet based AIS systems like marinetraffic.com, ShipFinder and AIS-Hub and the "be seen" part is aimed at Friends and Family "seeing"/"tracking" you, watching a race in the Club house or a group sharing positions in a flotilla or cruise.

I have 3 free vouchers for Boat Beacon available. If anyone would like to try it please pm me

I would take you up on the offer, but my coal powered phone wouldn't be much use

 

[Cookee]

It isn't comparable to the Navionics app at all. The navionics app on an iPad is stand alone, it uses inbuilt GPS, doesn't rely on a phone signal and all the data is as 100% live as a chart plotter would be.

The original post wasn't entirely up front and it implies that the app is better than a Raymarine AIS. It also claims to be suitable for and accurate for collision avoidance. It isn't, IMO.

I'm not saying the app has no use, it probably does. Lazy Kipper is correct in what he says. For $10 it's a cheap toy and should be marketed as such. Definitely not be over-hyped so as to possibly mislead the unwary and cause a false sense of security.

+1!

The thought that people would potentially believe the first post as being gospel and spend £10 or $10 thinking they were getting a full "better than Raymarine" AIS is more than I feel happy leaving alone, especially as I know better - IMHO of course!

 

[goelectric]

I refer to the replies above - you are clearly biased towards this app (commercial connection?) - It cannot replace a tranceiver as it doesn't transmit anything at all - nobody knows you're there! In addition it would have to be very quick with a very good 3G connection to come anywhere near a real AIS system - bring it down to Devon and my boat and put it against my Raymarine AIS and we'll see how good it is!

Edit - I see it is your app! http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300857

aha! in the spirit of full disclosure and bias maybe you should point out that your company, bananashark racing, is sponsored by Raymarine.

 

[goelectric]

It also munches though battery power like a hungry child in a sweet shop

Yes - good point - it's doing a lot of work. If an iPhone is using gps it eats a lot of battery. When I use Navionics at sea on a voyage, a fantastic app by the way, I need to keep the iPhone on a 12v lifeline. Boat Beacon will use more battery than just having Navionics running because of the internet over 2G or 3G usage (2G is sufficient and less power hungry). The data usage is actually quite low and is compressed - around 10 kBytes a minute depending on how many boats are in range. In my test a fully charged iPhone 4, 5 miles out (e.g from a Base station) lasted about 2-3 hours running Boat Beacon. I would only recommend using it at sea continuously for more than half an hour at a time if there is a source of power.

I had a photo the Cowes ferry passing my position at Shepherds, but boatbeacon put it just entering Cowes.

Hi, interesting - did you try tapping refresh on Boat Beacon as it passed by any chance?

Boat Beacon automatically updates (asks the server for ) all boat positions once a minute and interpolates positions between polling, if you hit manual refresh you will get the latest positions that have been received from all the ships (e.g. for a Class A craft travelling at over 23kts, data that was received up to 2s ago). That might explain the discrepancy you observed.

This also gives me an idea how we could improve Boat Beacon - vary the automatic update frequency to ensure that any boats within short range (say 5 miles) are updated from the server more frequently to match the period with which they report.

 

[goelectric]

Originally Posted by snooks
I had a photo the Cowes ferry passing my position at Shepherds, but boatbeacon put it just entering Cowes.

Its been a rough ride in this thread, but I have found some useful feedback and also inspiration to dig deeper into Boat Beacon's accuracy.

Our own shore AIS stations report instantly. However the other feeds were filtering over a 1 minute time window - reporting at a maximum of once a minute (e.g. for a ship travelling fast (over 23kts) transmitting every 2s on Class A we would only see one update a minute and interpolate between).

I have re-negotiated and updated our feed characteristics to remove the time window and the majority of feeds (over 70%) are now reporting as they happen - e.g. for the Solent we are now receiving in real time rather than up to a minute behind. This has increased the data feed rate 5 fold to over 20Mbit/s and we have had to double up on the number of servers to absorb it all in real time!

The current version of Boat Beacon automatically pulls new data from the server every minute and interpolates between. If you want to see the most recent actual reported positions right now then just tap the refresh button on the bottom left.

Boat Beacon is not an alternative to an AIS VHF unit and at less than £7 is hardly a competitor and should not be relied on for Navigation - but I do hope folks will forgive my enthusiasm and as the "Lazy Kipper" says might find it piques their interest in AIS .

 

[elioti]

feel a bit sorry for goelectric, getting a bit of a hard time!

 

[Cookee]

aha! in the spirit of full disclosure and bias maybe you should point out that your company, bananashark racing, is sponsored by Raymarine.

Quite true but I'm not promoting Raymarine. Sorry I haven't replied sooner but we're going round Britain in aid of Children's Hospices right now and internet is sparse!

I learnt two very good lessons a long time ago, both very useful in boating and forums. If you're going to hit something hit it slowly and if you find yourself in a really big hole stop digging!

 

[goelectric]

Still digging

Got all the way to australia - need new shovel
Customer Reviews
All Versions (2) Current Version (1)
Great app for boaties ★★★★★
by Papaindiapapa - Version 2.1 - Jun 29, 2012

I tried a couple of AIS type apps and this is the best. I am 12 NM off shore in the barrier reef, 0115 in the morning, having a lot of fun with it.