GPS and AIS into a Wifi-only iPad Plus AIS into Standard Horizon Plotter

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dje67

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Got myself a 12.9" iPad for use at home, but now want to make use of it as a plotter on board. Screen size is amazing! Obviously, I'd want to get GPS into the iPad and I'd also like to get AIS (and possibly some NMEA 0183 info, though not a priority). I use the Navionics app. I've no NMEA 2000 hardware onboard.

I also use a Standard Horizon plotter and would to have an additional, direct-wired NMEA 0183 AIS feed to the plotter from the AIS unit I get.

There seems to be a couple of GPS units that can connect to the iPad using Wifi or bluetooth. If I have separate GPS and AIS units then the iPad can only connect to one of them. So, I'm hoping that there's a single module out there that can provide the iPad with both GPS and AIS (+ poss NMEA) through a single Wifi (or bluetooth) connection.

Has anyone else been down this road? What did you use?

There are many Wifi-enabled AIS modules out there, many of which have a GPS receiver. But it is not clear whether the GPS info will feed to the iPad (and work!) or whether it is only the AIS info that will get sent.

The (few) GPS modules that I've found are:
Garmin GLO 2 GPS and GLONASS Receiver £70
Bad Elf - various models around £150
Neither do AIS, though. Don't think they will allow the direct-wire to my plotter either.

There's Quark A-026 module that does AIS (and NMEA) with a GPS input, but I'm not sure if the GPS data gets sent and if it will provide instantaneous, continuous GPS data that the iPad can use.

Thoughts?
 
On my previous boat, I got a vyacht WiFi box. You can then wire up to 3 nmea pieces of equipment and it feeds the iPad via WiFi.

there are other brands out there, this was quite cheap and worked fine.

I used iregatta pro at the time.
their subscription to Transat maps was pretty good value.
I currently use weather 4D pro. This has every chart you can think off via subscription, wind, currents and wave forecast and route planning.

I also use a WiFi only iPad. The only issue with a big screen iPad is in nav mode it kills the battery pretty quickly, I have to keep it plugged in which just about holds the battery level. So this makes using it in the cockpit for long periods a bit of a pain. It is better at night when the screen brightness level is low. In bright sunlight it’s pretty useless. I usually end up keeping it below and use my iPhone on deck for quick heading checks and ais, just have it in my pocket.

one point is I would not use any of these things as my only navigation aid ,
T
 
dje67 said:
If I have separate GPS and AIS units then the iPad can only connect to one of them. So, I'm hoping that there's a single module out there that can provide the iPad with both GPS and AIS (+ poss NMEA) through a single Wifi (or bluetooth) connection.
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any commercial units which will give you AIS over bluetooth, it's all wifi
It is of course possible to connect an ipad to both wifi and bluetooth at the same time
I have the garmin glo and can confirm that it works fine over bluetooth with a 6th gen wifi-only pad with Navionics. I don't use it on my own boat but it's a highly portable combo I can take with me as backup when navigating another boat.

That being said, the fewer virtual bits of string you have holding things together the better so if you have GPS over wifi and can send it together with the AIS all the better

IIRC when doing some analysis of Navionics sonar charts a few years back on an android phone with location services switched off, NMEA GPS data over wifi did appear to be being used by Navionics. someone with a recent iOS version should confirm that (If not I'll try to next week) and if so that Quark unit does indeed look like it does what you want it to.
 
laika said:
I'm not aware of any commercial units which will give you AIS over bluetooth, it's all wifi
It is of course possible to connect an ipad to both wifi and bluetooth at the same time
I have the garmin glo and can confirm that it works fine over bluetooth with a 6th gen wifi-only pad with Navionics. I don't use it on my own boat but it's a highly portable combo I can take with me as backup when navigating another boat.

That being said, the fewer virtual bits of string you have holding things together the better so if you have GPS over wifi and can send it together with the AIS all the better

IIRC when doing some analysis of Navionics sonar charts a few years back on an android phone with location services switched off, NMEA GPS data over wifi did appear to be being used by Navionics. someone with a recent iOS version should confirm that (If not I'll try to next week) and if so that Quark unit does indeed look like it does what you want it to.
Click to expand...

I've got a YAPP coming that (amongst a lot of other things) has 2 NMEA-0183 input ports - one at 38.4 kbaud (for AIS) and the other at 4.8 kbaud (for GPS), multiplexes them together, and sends the combined data out via Bluetooth that OpenCPN on a tablet can pick up. Maybe I should make a NMEA-0183 multiplexer with 1 input at 38.4 and 2 at 4.8 and send the combined data out via Bluetooth.
 
Quark A031 installed on my boat. Worked great. Combined ST50 depth sensor together with wind speed data and all went to the Navionics app.
 
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