Signalk - would you use it?

[laika]

As I understand it the SigK server isn't a gateway, but handles the request/response for the json stuff. The gateway is the thing that homologates the nmea 0183/2000/seatalk etc data into json messages. Which might be a useful item. I would guess a pi would require additional hardware to handle multiple serial lines but I'm not a hardware person.

If you scroll down to "Interfacing to Other Devices" here: http://signalk.org/installation.html
you'll see the relevant info. It was always a normal thing to have the same box (e.g. raspberry pi) run all the bits but yes, additional hardware required (standard n2k interface being the actisense ngt-1)

Regarding the ikommunicate, I don't own one but objectively it's not outrageous compared with DIY. By the time you've bought a pi and a power supply and an actisense ngt-1 and a couple of dodgy rs-232 converters you're nearly at the ikommunicate's price but you'll have a diy box with bits hanging off it and non-opt-isolated "0183" inputs. I think Digital Yacht did a pretty decent job of wrangling SignalK (and its developers) into a commercial proposition. The kickstarter campaign was a brilliant example of kickstarter's potential as a marketing tool rather than simply a funding mechanism

 

[rszemeti]

Indeed! Bit lax on my part, online the word signalk has morphed a bit day to day to mean the signalk-server.

Oh wait ... so you mean your question is not "runnign SignalK apps on a windows laptop" .. but running the SignalK server on windows?

I better change my answer then, no one would want to do that, as most people need their SignalK server to be low power and reliable.

Please take one off the "using it already" and add one to the "not even vaguely interested"

 

[laika]

From what I recall, OpenCPN uses SignalK as the source of all it's data, and any data source (be it NMEA serial or whatever) is aggregated into the SignalK server stream

Being fed up with preceding everything with "Things may have changed but..." I just cloned the OpenCPN source and things haven't changed.

OpenCPN uses NMEA 0183 as its input and for everything internally

There was some talk a couple of years ago from the SignalK folks that it should be converted to SignalK but I don't see any progress there.

 

[dunedin]

I no longer bother to take the laptop on board.
When can access useful info via an App on Android and IOS then might start to be interested, as these are used extensivley on board (albeit already use Raymarine App for most data I currently need)

 

[[163233]]

It was always a normal thing to have the same box (e.g. raspberry pi) run all the bits but yes, additional hardware required (standard n2k interface being the actisense ngt-1)

Yes, the dongles are effectively performing the "gateway" activity.

Not knocking the idea, the current protocols all suck in one way or another, it's just too expensive for the likes of me to mess about with for fun, so I'm out.

 

[Mikedefieslife]

As it stands it is very much geeky. The "whats in it for me" factor is very low for most people.
.

Probably on this forum, but on a cruising forum with fill-time liveaboards you'd get a very opinion. Here, people are probably just more interested in checking if their boat is ok on their swinging mooring

 

[lw395]

Having been on a boat where a very flash networked system started telling us random nonsense, I would be quite keen to avoid having such a system.

One of my metrics is to ask myself whether I could lend the boat to any reasonably competent yotter without having to spend hours lecturing them on the foibles of the electrics, instruments or plumbing.
My interest in keeping up to speed with ever more complex ways of connecting stuff together declined when I stopped getting paid for it.