convert laptop to chart plotter

@jamie N I would love to see how your chromebook gives position out on the water. I recon the GPS in our tablet used for navigation could get us onto our pontoon without looking over the side of the boat. I doubt your phone signal derived position could do that?

P.S being pedantic to the Op you are not "converting" your pc to a chart plotter, you will be adding a chart plotter program and your PC will continue doing all it did before.

We like the tablet, a Samsung one chose for having the brightest screen we could find. Works well, long battery life but the tablet battery is kept topped up by the boat battery when we are using it.

I have Open CPN on my phone as well for a backup if the tablet fails. Then there are the paper charts. Even if the tablet and phone fail, I can read our position from the DSC VHF that has it's own GPS receiver.
 
ProDave said:
@jamie N I would love to see how your chromebook gives position out on the water. I recon the GPS in our tablet used for navigation could get us onto our pontoon without looking over the side of the boat. I doubt your phone signal derived position could do that?
Click to expand...
You've actually got me to query the "why?" of it myself! I know fine that it works in the Firth, and am convinced that I checked when going past Swona, on my way into Scapa Floe. It's more of a curiosity for me, rather than anything that I'd rely on. It's my primary laptop, entertainment centre, etc.etc., so it amused me to have it show my location.
Works well, but not in Avoch (of course)!

AI Overview:
Your Chromebook knows your location
primarily through its IP address, Wi-Fi network, and your Google account, as it lacks a built-in GPS module. It uses Google's location services, which can also use other available signals to estimate your position. You can control this through Chrome's site settings, or your network settings, though your network administrator may have set a default location.

Primary methods for determining location
  • IP Address: Your Chromebook uses the IP address of your internet connection to get a general location, which is often the most unreliable method.
  • Wi-Fi Networks: It can use the location of the Wi-Fi networks you connect to for a more precise estimate.
  • Google Account: Your Google account can use information from your previous activity and your home or work address to provide a location.
 
Reading the later posts about PC's etc ... I still have a 12v Point of sale desktop PC ... its about half the size of a regular desktop ...

Originally I had idea to create a PC based network system on board - this was when tablets were early days and really not much use. It was running my Laser Cutter for a while after Tablets became a better option and I also acquired an Acer One ...

It sits in my workshop ... connected to power to keep board alive ... sometimes I wonder ...
 
Refueler said:
Reading the later posts about PC's etc ... I still have a 12v Point of sale desktop PC ... its about half the size of a regular desktop ...

Originally I had idea to create a PC based network system on board - this was when tablets were early days and really not much use. It was running my Laser Cutter for a while after Tablets became a better option and I also acquired an Acer One ...

It sits in my workshop ... connected to power to keep board alive ... sometimes I wonder ...
Click to expand...
Have you seen how small the mini PCs are? They fit in your hand. Solid state. Driven directly from boat power. Hard to fault and powerful. Easy to fit in a locker.
We used to use a laptop with open cpn as a back up but it refused to run from ships power. It came up with faults as it knew it wasn't running from the mains charger. It was hard to secure it on the nav station in rough weather. It had the advantage of being portable but we have a pair of tablets for that.
We run navionics on the tablets but with open CPN word charts, it a brilliant back up system, and of course it's a windows computer that does other things
 
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I use a panasonic toughpad ( about £120 from ebay) , opencpn with the o charts (£15 for uk)
I then have a usb hub with a usb gps and Bluetooth and a matsutec ah-102 ais transponder (£180) via a pl2303 serial to usb plug.
Works well for me.
 
Oh , also an actisense NGX usb gateway to remotely control the raymarine evolution autopilot and give route tracking via the autotrack plug in.
 
I was a confirmed ocpn user on pc, tablet and phone for home planning/exploring.
This year I was introduced to Orca and was most impressed with the free version. Paid version wasn't too expensive.
If I didn't use a chart plotter on the boat, Orca would be the way I would go (with ocpn as backup) 😁
 
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