Raymarine Lighthouse 3 Upgrade Now Available for older kit

[Mikehp0]

When I bought Zen Dog, my Prestige 38s, in late 2015, I upgraded to a Raymarine ES128 plotter (MFD in Rayspeak) as the original 2008 vintage Raymarine kit was a mystery to me.

I've managed to get my head around the quirks of their Lighthouse 2 operating system but have followed the progress of Lighthouse 3 with interest. It was launched on their shiny new Axiom kit a while ago and impressed me at boat shows. They've clearly spent a lot on interface and user experience design.

I spent 2 days at Raymarine HQ last week, doing their own navigation and radar courses. The nav course was good - I learnt lots of tricks and tips. The radar course was fantastic. Others had done the RYA Radar course previously and said that this was much better.

Whilst there, it was confirmed that the Lighthouse 3 upgrade for the ES series had been made available on Raymarine's site that morning

I downloaded it onto an SD card. One weird anomaly is that the newly released 3.3 version doesn't seem to allow an internet connection via WiFi which was a great feature of Lighthouse 2. I will chat to the support team about this - maybe I've missed something in the software and the manuals. Tablets and mobiles can still connect to it though in order to sync with the Navionics and Raycontrol apps.

I spent the day on Zen Dog today, quite prepared to solve "early adopter" issues. There weren't any. The MFD upgraded seemlessly and all of the peripherals including my older ST autopilot connected and worked immediately. I tested everything I have thoroughly ( I run software businesses) and tried out all the new skills I learnt at Raymarine HQ last week. I can't comment on VHF or entertainment integration as Zen Dog has gear that's incompatible with Raymarine in these areas. The performance is acceptable but nothing like as fast as Lighthouse 3 on Axiom MFD devices. Chart refreshes with the same display options set are marginally slower than before. This is to be expected, though. Raymarine won't want to handicap future software development by the need to maximise performance on outdated kit.

Lighthouse 3 is a huge improvement, in my opinion. It just flows so well. Simple things like having the settings for each "app" (radar, chart, data, entertainment etc) within the app itself make the whole experience so much better. The radar app particularly seems to be much better. I can't see that any of the serious power has been watered down. For example, I've always loved the idea that I can have as many different instances of the chart plotter app as I want, each configured slightly differently.

If you have an ES MFD, do check the specification comparison between v2 and v3 to make sure your favourite feature is available. There seem to be a few features that haven't made it into v3.3. Most of the missing stuff seems yacht related - I didn't know about the existence of (and have seen little evidence of the use of) Lighthouse 2 features designed to show them when and where to do their funny twists, turns, bobs and weaves. There seems to be lots of fishing related functionality for Raymarine's parent market. There were hints that v3.4 is close to release and that extra functionality will pop up then.

Hope this helps!

 

[Talulah]

Looking at the new manual they've finally sorted the distance units out.
There used to be 3 units of measure. Nautical Miles, Statute Miles and kilometres.
I found it very annoying Nautical miles was using imperial measurements when in fact nautical miles can be both imperial and metric.
They've now fixed this and nautical miles has 2 options. NM & m or NM (I). There are now 4 options for the distance units.

Just a shame Lighthouse 3 only works on the Axiom, ES and GS models. Not the A, C, E series.

 

[brainstorm]

I have an Axiom chartplotter which I bought last year, but was very disappointed that it did not have the wifi facility so I could pick up the data on my phone. Does anyone know whether this was included in the latest update?

 

[Mikehp0]

Just spoken to Raymarine's excellent support team. The ability to connect my ES128 MFD to a wifi internet connection (marina or mobile phone hotspot) isn't in Lighthouse v3.3 but will return in a forthcoming release. I forgot to ask them whether it is available currently with v3.3 on Axiom. Sorry, brainstorm - that could have resolved your issue. If it is on the way for the old kit, it is bound to be on the way or already there for their new stuff.

It is a great feature. It means that an iPad connected to the MFD for use with the Navionics app or just the Raycontrol remote view/control app can still connect to the internet without changing to a different wifi.

I also used to hook up Zen Dog's smart TVs and other WiFi connected kit to the MFD so that a change of location only involved resetting the MFD's internet connection rather than all of the devices on board. Luckily, I've recently done away with this. I've installed a Hubba X4 Duo router that acts as a bridge between my devices and marina wifi but automatically and seamlessly falls over to one of its two SIM cards when Zen Dog leaves her berth or the marina WiFi packs in

 

[prv]

I have an Axiom chartplotter which I bought last year, but was very disappointed that it did not have the wifi facility so I could pick up the data on my phone. Does anyone know whether this was included in the latest update?

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking about, but my Axiom plotter can create a wifi network which my phone can join and then run the Raymarine apps to control it and remotely view the screen. Alternatively, the plotter can join a wifi network created by my phone in order to connect to the Internet and download updates. There isn't, as far as I know, a browser; I assume this is the reason I couldn't download updates over the marina wifi, because it has one of those registration screens before it will allow Internet access and the plotter has no way to display it.

Pete

 

[Mikehp0]

>>Alternatively, the plotter can join a wifi network created by my phone in order to connect to the Internet and download updates.
That's the bit that has gone missing in the upgrade from Lighthouse 2.xx to Lighthouse v3.3 on the older ES devices but which Raymarine support say will come back soon. However, your kind input suggests that brainstorm should be able to solve his Axiom connection to the internet snag now.

 

[brainstorm]

Thanks very much both for your input. I have not tried it yet this year as my boat is in Portugal. I will speak to Raymarine tomorrow and check with them to see if connection to an I phone with wifi is now possible. I guess I will need to bring the Axiom home and plug it into my PC at home to get the upgrade. I will be doing some singlehanded sailing this year and it would be good if I can keep an eye on the AIS data from the Axiom through my phone from my bunk!

 

[prv]

However, your kind input suggests that brainstorm should be able to solve his Axiom connection to the internet snag now.

Hmm. The Axiom has been able to connect to the internet via a phone at every software version - that’s how I upgraded mine (part of the first batch into the country) from the initial release software, through each step, up to the current one.

So if he wanted to do that before and couldn’t figure out how, he still won’t be able to figure it out now

Pete

 

[Mikehp0]

>>I guess I will need to bring the Axiom home and plug it into my PC at home to get the upgrade

no need to bring the Axiom MFD home, brainstorm - you just need to download the upgrades onto an SD card and load them onto the MFD. In theory you could tether the Axiom to a mobile or connect to marina wifi and upgrade that way. However, I've now read the Axiom Lighthouse v3.3 manual and, I might be wrong, but it looks like the ability to connect to a wifi hotspot has been removed from the Axiom as well for now.

 

[iapetus]

OK, that also means that my (not so) old beloved c-series MFD won't ever get an update again and will have to stick to the latest Lighthouse II release (and its bugs, never to be fixed methinks).

Given its age and limited speed (switching display modes is already a nightmare), I nevertheless don't see how it could run Lighthouse 3 with all the newish bells and whistles. The Axiom Pro will be for the next boat !

 

[Dorset Dan]

>>Alternatively, the plotter can join a wifi network created by my phone in order to connect to the Internet and download updates.
That's the bit that has gone missing in the upgrade from Lighthouse 2.xx to Lighthouse v3.3 on the older ES devices but which Raymarine support say will come back soon. However, your kind input suggests that brainstorm should be able to solve his Axiom connection to the internet snag now.

I've just upgraded my ES127 to Lighthouse 3 this evening and was disappointed to see that you still cannot connect to wifi to check for updates, etc. On LH3 on my previous boat which had Axiom I seem to remember that you could instantly check for updates not only for the Axiom but it would also check for updates on the other bits of the system (i70, p70r, AIS unit, etc).

Also disappointed to see that the Apps seem not to have made it to the ES version of LH3 - I used spotify quite a lot on the old boat.

Anyone know whether Raymarine are planning on adding the wifi function and Apps functions to the ES series?