Mailasail Red Box

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oldvarnish

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I'm gathering opinions on Red Box , please.

http://www.mailasail.com/Communication/Red-Box

I've got a satphone/laptop set up which works but is clunky and lots of wires everywhere. This seems neater. But it's expensive £480 + VAT

For a hundred quid more I can get an Iridium Go which would make the satphone redundant (and I can sell it thus reducing the effective cost of the GO)

Anyone else struggled with this choice?

My main aim is to get GRIBs reliably, cheaply and easily in faraway places.
 
A Google search for "ybw redbox" shows this has come up a few times before on here....

From memory, I think the Redbox will integrate several external data access methods - wifi, 3/4G, satphone etc - into an onboard wifi network. Iridium Go will satisfy only one of those methods
 
It was £299 +VAT at the boat show. I was going down the sat phone route and this seemed the easies way to connect it. Also will connect wi fi devices and mobile phones so just one place for all your connections. Haven't fitted it yet though! Ohh and you can use it to broadcast NEMA info if you want it to.
 
I followed the thread regarding Mailasails alleged indifference to enquiries and attempts to sell new stuff at any cost. To balance out those negative comments, i'd like to mention I've had brilliant service from Mailasail. I started using Iridium for weather downloads ((gribs) about 15 years ago, purchased a used Iridium phone with all the data gubbins, Parahandy of this parish set it all up for me, I was referred to Ed Wildgoose of Mailasail for the required pre paid SIM. He was extraordinarily helpful and gave me loads of free advice and I hadn't bought the thing from him. Since then I've always returned to Mailasail whenever I've neeðed advice or minutes and never found their service less than extremely helpful. I can only imagine the people who have problems are naturally aggressive punters whose approach Ed might not suffer too kindly.

From my personal experiences of Mailasail, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. I have absolutely no connection to Mailasail apart from being a satisisfied punter.
 
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I preferred not to mix my satellite connection with WiFi and other on board networks.. I'd be worried that the satellite link could come up at any time and start using up data in the background.
For GRIB files, I just use simple free email via the laptop and Iridium terminal. I send a request email to globalmarinenet and a minute later the GRIB file returns by email.
I guess I could have set a regular email feed but never got around to that.
So - rather then spending £100s on new equipment or on compression services, I just downloaded the simple Eudora email client and set up a few email addresses (whilst connected to the internet direct).
I also set up a few email accounts whilst on land so that if whilst sailing I started to receive SPAM on one account I could just change to another.
Screenshot here showing two emails sent and two immediate replies.
http://1drv.ms/1Uc4a4H

Instructions for the email part here...
http://www.globalmarinenet.com/free-grib-files-provided-by-global-marine-networks/

OldVarnish... When you get this working you could then try email via your HF rig.. You don't need a Pactor modem - just a basic USB Soundcard adapter for your HF radio to laptop connection!
http://www.winlink.org/
 
Hi all. Just to be clear, I represent "mailasail", we do try to be clear who is writing, so readers can discount appropriately that we will obviously have a certain bias! That said you can find previous posts by clicking on the username and I hope we do *try* to keep posts neutral and factual?

So with that out of the way, can I point out a couple of reasons *why* we advocate an apparently "more expensive" solution to a problem:

- I think first please note that our history was building some desktop software (we call it teleport-it) that does all kinds of clever magic to squeeze more data down an internet connection (it doesn't care whether it's 3G or satellite or whatever, it always just does it's best). That software remains available and in fact the main documentation on setting up satellite phones on our website still shows you how to use all of that (remember this is documentation which has been used by thousands since 2001)

- However, we have the fortunate experience to "observe" many hundreds of users setup equipment each year, so we find this very helpful to try and improve this documentation and also our product. It's little things but for example we originally made a short "book" which was deliberately printed and given away (stuff on paper used to really work for people). Then we moved to more diagrams and online. More recently we moved to using videos a lot more (this seems to be the current thing which works best for "most" people)

- *But*, in the last few years, and this is a "sweeping generalisation", so please don't take offence if you aren't one of the "generalisation", we observe that customers simply don't expect "internet" to mean installing software, configuring things, optimising the computer for dialup and quite a lot of fiddling that goes with taking a modern computer and making it work ok over the slow Iridium link.... Also driver support is a challenge, for example there are currently no Windows 10 drivers from Iridium for the Iridium handset (not a problem with older devices because they use serial to usb adaptors)

- So I'm only trying to show how we came full circle, but: When I talk to most people about "internet", they have an expectation that this means something like, plug in the router, connect the telephone line to the router and join the wifi network and ... it just works... So for example when you go into an internet cafe you don't normally expect to have to know anything about how the internet cafe internet works, install drivers, etc. Same also at home. So the goal of our product was to try and make the satellite gear "plug it into the router, it just works"...

- Whether we achieve that goal is for you guys to decide! I do understand it affects the price of entry, that's difficult for us to change. However, there were two ways we could go with the product:

1) We could either go for the cheapest possible dumb router and just use that as the bridge to the computer, and that is the route Iridium went with the Axcess Point (which in case you aren't aware is a rebranded Cradlepoint 3G router, it's quite a bit cheaper if you bought it from Cradlepoint and not Iridium). The problem with this is that it requires software on the device... So we come full circle to needing to build device software, maintain it, support lots and lots of mobile devices, etc. Supporting software on Apple IOS and Android is actually quite a lot more challenging than you might expect.. There are a lot of hurdles to getting approvals and the devices are quite locked down and its tricky to actually do many of the things you want

2) We could go for a more powerful router and then put all the optimisation *on* the router itself. This is what we chose to do with the Red Box and it means we need a more expensive router, BUT, we no longer need any software at all on the device!! So with this product you can use say a Windows laptop and use ANY email program you are familiar with. Or you can take a 1990s Palm Pilot... OR you can use next years, not even released Apple gadget... So because all we require is that your device has "wifi and an email client", we release ourselves from having to support lots and lots of mobile devices, we have far fewer issues when Apple/Google/Microsoft change things with upgrades, etc, etc.

It has proved to be a big win for us in terms of reducing support, we used to budget 1-2 hours of support time to each from new software install customer (mostly by email), but we currently have near zero support requirements from users of our Red Box (sure we get a few emails, but usually relating to the more advanced features). Do remember also that we have always offered free trials of the software service (ie no one ever pays if it didn't work for them), and if anyone is nervous we also offer the option to buy the Red Box on a return-if-unsatisfied basis, so we are trying very hard to maintain our position that we prove our product works with very little risk to yourself... ( I hope this is unusual and speaks for itself?)

So please disregard that the red box "has wifi". I get asked about that a lot. If you wish you can disable the wifi and connect to the router only via a cable! The wifi is a red herring, it's simply a convenient way to connect *to it*. The difference is where the intelligence lives (onboard) and also because we move it to the appliance (no software on the device) we improve compatibility greatly

Now, this is simply statement of fact, forgive please some aspirational statements (marketing...).
- So we ended up in a position where we have a more expensive device we wanted to try and make best use of it!
- So we are developing it with a model which is about "integrating" all the onboard "junk" that we all collect.
- So if the industry is all about building "shiny things" and trying to get you to part with your money, the challenge is how to make all these shiny things work when you get them back to your boat.... !!
- So our commitment is that we have worked very hard on "automatic setup". So our goal is that we can take more and more devices, all YOU need to do is simply connect the wire to the Red Box and "it just works". Now don't get me wrong, our goal is to support every single device which has ever been invented and ever will be invented... We are obviously going to fail! However, we think we have the right attitude to fail trying...
- So to clarify that, you DO NOT need to use all these features, the point is simply that our current model is that we add more and more stuff to the Red Box firmware each year, but the customer does not pay to get these features... So I will list a few things we now support, but the point is it's all potential for when you want it and there is no extra charge to use it as and when it suits you

- So today we support all satellite devices (that I know of), including Thuraya, Globalstar, Inmarsat and Iridium. "Most" 3G/4G mobile phone data sticks. Android phones "tethered". Wifi boosters from many manufacturers (we also have an offering ourselves, but we support our competitors also).
- Also you can connect up your Raymarine/Furuno/etc NMEA instrument feeds and there is no configuration, simply connecting up the cable repeats the data around the boat (there are a ton of apps on the app store to consume this)
- Coming in the future are some ideas to push this NMEA data to shore, probably users will call this "GPS tracking" or "anchor watch", etc. But the point is these changes are likely to be free updates
- So hopefully this goal justifies the cost of the box, in that it has a life beyond simply the satellite device...?


OK, so apologies if this reads as an advert. I merely *try* to explain how we as a company ended up here. Anyone is welcome to use our software only based solution to hook up their satellite system!! We support this, it's not a problem. However, my honest expectation is that over the last 5 years the probability of success has dropped to the point we see very low success rates (users simply don't have the patience to read the instructions and fiddle). So both options are offered, but my opinion is that if you have a newer computer than Windows 7 (ie Win7 can still be used software only), then you are unlikely to be successful using a satellite phone WITHOUT using a hardware appliance. So this could mean our product, or one of our competitors, but some kind of hardware based router will likely be needed for success


Again, trying to keep this advice neutral. I would appeal that the most important secrets for success with satellite gear are:
- Recognise that this stuff is now vastly slower and effectively "more complicated" to setup than the internet you are used to.
- So time if your enemy. Buy equipment in plenty of time and get it setup well before
- Buy from someone who will give you support!! Test that support before you buy and take recommendations!! If you buy a £1,000 device and you CAN'T get it hooked up and working then you have a very expensive paperweight... Saving £xx by buying on ebay will NOT help if you then waste hundreds of pounds in airtime trying to get things setup optimally...
- MailASail for example send engineers to the Canary Islands in Nov. We were there for nearly 4 weeks this year for example. To give an example of support we were asked to provide, the ARC event generated something like 100-110 boats asking for service, out of something like 160 or so boats which would carry sat comms (not all ARC boats take satellite services)... The cost to our company works out about £100/boat simply to be in the Canaries (hotel, flights, food, etc), so it would be significantly cheaper for us to stay at home and take support by telephone... We hope this commitment will win us customers who value support though...

- Investigate "optimisation software". Whether you look to us or one of our competitors, software can give you a 5x speedup (or perhaps more). So for example I regularly see users picking a solution which advertises say "half price airtime" on the promotion, but as a result they are losing out on the 5x performance gain from some optimisation software. In my opinion this isn't a gain!
- Ignore marketing blurb (including ours), there is some low hanging fruit that makes the optimisation successful, the details make various products slightly faster/slower, but broadly they will be similar (anyone is welcome to contact me off forum and I will happily give a well thought out argument that our product is the best! However, the takeaway point is that having "something" is very valuable)

- Beware airtime pricing. Often it's a route to getting support. Remember its easy to waste hundreds of pounds in wasted airtime if you don't use the device correctly, buying without support can easily be a false economy. Also beware "deals", I need to be careful how I explain this to avoid "advertising", but we often get customers switching because they say they like that we offer to let people mix and match vouchers. So some of our competitors offer apparently great looking initial purchases, but then work out more expensive because its not possible to extend these so you waste more around the edges. I think it's not appropriate for me to talk about that further on the forum, but the point is to do your sums up front, and of course I am happy for anyone to pickup the phone and give us a call and I will likely show you how you can save money...


I hope this comes across evenly and balanced? Good luck with your trip wherever you sail and if it's helpful there is lots of advice of general technical on our website!
 
I am a satisfied user of the Mailasail Redbox with no connection to the company other than to say that I have been consistently happy with the advice and help provided over many years.

I run the Redbox as the communications hub on board - with Iridium, 3G dongle and external WiFi connections. I also use it to produce WiFi streaming of boat navigation data including instruments, GPS and AIS for iPads.

For my purposes it has been a fantastic bit of kit.
 
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