What are your perceptions / thoughts about signalk?

[GHA]

I'm involved a tiny bit and having a chat with the developers of signalk soon about possible redesign and how to be most beneficial to sailors, what would be helpful would be to find out what peoples perceptions / thoughts are about signalk.
Signal K » Welcome
Demo here but pretty basic. Signal K Server
For those new to it, the word signalk has morphed a bit over time to mean both the structure of the messages and the software program. The program (server) can pretty much do anything with data on a boat you can dream up, very powerful.
Please no "I go sailing to get away from that nonsense"
How you perceive it would be interesting, or for anyone who has tried it - how easy it is to use, or what puts you off trying it?

tia

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I am late to digital data in the sailing space. As I upgrade to new plotters (Axiom+ 12) I have started down the networking road. My plans are eventually to do away with analogue engine gauges. Next project will be to fit a pressure sensor to show pressure on the Axiom. However, in my work world, we suck data out of a plethora of machines and trend, so I am not blind to the idea of data as a tool for effective decision making. Hence for me I am interested is solutions that will take my data sources and allow them to be used on other devices. Early days for me.

 

[GHA]

I am late to digital data in the sailing space. As I upgrade to new plotters (Axiom+ 12) I have started down the networking road. My plans are eventually to do away with analogue engine gauges. Next project will be to fit a pressure sensor to show pressure on the Axiom. However, in my work world, we suck data out of a plethora of machines and trend, so I am not blind to the idea of data as a tool for effective decision making. Hence for me I am interested is solutions that will take my data sources and allow them to be used on other devices. Early days for me.

Wow, a reasoned & honest reply, didn't expect that Thnx.
I think the general perception among the more computer challenged is that it's a geeky thing for nerds to play with though not really the case.

And Openplotter is made for you, raspberry pi will do all the work & send the data wherever you want, and log it all for pretty graphs, barometer is fascinating
Never knew there were daily tides in barometric pressure!

 

[dunedin]

Signal K sounds like a great idea - but not everybody wants to play at DIY electronics and/or programming.
Is there a site somewhere that lists commercially available products that would give a “plug and play” Signal K capability direct into an Android or IOS tablet?

 

[GHA]

Signal K sounds like a great idea - but not everybody wants to play at DIY electronics and/or programming.

This is exactly the perception problem -

why do you think it it needs electronics or programming skills?
Where did you get that impression from?

Guessing web forums but it is a perception problem that is unfortunate, in many ways it's actually easier than setting up and running opencpn on a laptop.

Is there a site somewhere that lists commercially available products that would give a “plug and play” Signal K capability direct into an Android or IOS tablet?

That's not actually how it works. You need to run a program (called a server) which does all the work. Usually on a Pi with a custom operating system - openplotter, comes with most stuff like signalk & openplotter already installed with tools to click on for updates or install more so everything is known to play nice together. Feed any nmea0183 data through a usb/serail or wifi or get a nmea2K usb adaptor to get the data in there.
No need to know anything about Linux, write openplotter to an SD card and turn on, point to the GPS & off you go. On a tablet join the openplotter wifi network and all the nmea and signalk data will be coming in.

It will take data from wifi, pins on the Pi or USB, dozens of plugins to talk to devices which do all the work for you if it's not nmea data.



List here of other systems which can talk signalk, but no need, jyst use nmea like everyone else

Signal K » Applications & Solutions

 

[dunedin]

This is exactly the perception problem -

why do you think it it needs electronics or programming skills?
Where did you get that impression from?

Guessing web forums but it is a perception problem that is unfortunate, in many ways it's actually easier than setting up and running opencpn on a laptop.


That's not actually how it works. You need to run a program (called a server) which does all the work. Usually on a Pi with a custom operating system - openplotter, comes with most stuff like signalk & openplotter already installed with tools to click on for updates or install more so everything is known to play nice together. Feed any nmea0183 data through a usb/serail or wifi or get a nmea2K usb adaptor to get the data in there.
No need to know anything about Linux, write openplotter to an SD card and turn on, point to the GPS & off you go. On a tablet join the openplotter wifi network and all the nmea and signalk data will be coming in.

It will take data from wifi, pins on the Pi or USB, dozens of plugins to talk to devices which do all the work for you if it's not nmea data.

View attachment 171721

List here of other systems which can talk signalk, but no need, jyst use nmea like everyone else

Signal K » Applications & Solutions

So can you point to a commercially available box sold with the necessary processor (eg Pi) pre-installed with the necessary software, in a waterproof case with relevant connections (eg N2K and preferable Raymarine equivalent) and WiFi output?
Must admit not researched this recently, but that is the sort of “plug and play” solution I think will be needed to get take up beyond the DIY enthusiasts.
Perhaps Digital Yacht iKommunicate will become that but not seen on chandlery websites etc yet.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Paddy

Is there a SiknalK server that will run on a PC or Mac as the Pi is not known to me and I already have a 12V PC on my boat for OCPM and other applications

 

[GHA]

So can you point to a commercially available box sold with the necessary processor (eg Pi) pre-installed with the necessary software, in a waterproof case with relevant connections (eg N2K and preferable Raymarine equivalent) and WiFi output?
Must admit not researched this recently, but that is the sort of “plug and play” solution I think will be needed to get take up beyond the DIY enthusiasts.
Perhaps Digital Yacht iKommunicate will become that but not seen on chandlery websites etc yet.

Not that I know of. It's opensource, not commercial. But a plugin board should be available soon, think this guy is a tester. "Necessary software" - click a mouse you can do that.
But again, do you think it was doom & gloom on web forums that gave you the idea that you need to be good at electronics & programming?

 

[mainsail1]

Oh dear, please say I am not the only one who has lost interest already?

 

[GHA]

Paddy

Is there a SiknalK server that will run on a PC or Mac as the Pi is not known to me and I already have a 12V PC on my boat for OCPM and other applications

PC exe is available here >
GitHub - SignalK/signalk-server-windows: Signal K Node server for Windows

I actually have sigK running in a could computer, will PM in a bit with web address & see if I can get it running with sample data.

 

[GHA]

Oh dear, please say I am not the only one who has lost interest already?

Read the first post
"Please no "I go sailing to get away from that nonsense" "
Please don't trash the thread...

 

[mainsail1]

Apologies

 

[dunedin]

Not that I know of. It's opensource, not commercial. But a plugin board should be available soon, think this guy is a tester. "Necessary software" - click a mouse you can do that.
But again, do you think it was doom & gloom on web forums that gave you the idea that you need to be good at electronics & programming?

I don't claim to be an expert - but your diagram included certainly doesn't give much reassurance that it is yet a mature product for non-hobbyists.

To my mind, as said earlier, it will be a mature technology when I see advertised on Cactus Marine (etc) an affordable box that I can plug in a SeaTalkNG spur cable and have up and running.
And/or Signal K is included in mainstream B&G / Raymarine and other MFDs.
To be honest I am surprised that it has not made as much progress to mainstream as I had hoped when first read about it many moons ago. It needs a breakthrough "plug and play" product.

 

[GHA]

I don't claim to be an expert - but your diagram included certainly doesn't give much reassurance that it is yet a mature product for non-hobbyists.

Interesting, but how is it any different to any other plotter etc?

Terminal blocks for nmea083 & for nmea2k, means wiring n2k in instead of just a plug. All the other terminals are for stuff that no other marine device can do, you can ignore them.Though no point to compare to a chart plotter, have you ever downloaded and installed opencpn onto a laptop & got nmea data going in? More of a realistic comparison. If that sounds a bit much then you could well struggle.

But to reiterate, this thread wasn't started to discuss good/bad opinions but Why any bad opinions came about.

 

[jdc]

I've spent 40+ years as a design engineer, or boss, in a variety of companies; more recently as head of R&D and CTO for a semiconductor firm, and subsequently CEO of a cloud software firm. In my experience, the vast majority of hard to find bugs, especially security holes, have come from imported software, or its poor documentation. To the extent that now I use the absolute minimum: our database structures, front-end servers, processing, AI and servers are entirely written, tested and maintained in-house. We do use (certain LTE versions of) Ubuntu, and Python - both obviouslyfrom outside sources - and some libraries or functions like Apache and zmq, but these have to be very thoroughly adopted first. Oh, and no Microsoft operating systems.

So what exactly does signalK do that you can be confident about - which requites a degree of skill and a lot of work - which you couldn't do quicker yourself?

 

[smert]

A lot of open source software struggles with the documentation. It's often written for the techie, by the techie who wrote the software, who therefore knows it intimately. This often means that the instructions assume a greater understanding of the software than exists. What it often needs is that documentation to be written from the complete outsiders point of view.

It also needs to be packaged so that all the component libraries/requirements are included. Having to hunt for various bits because the instructions say to get them from a specific repo run by a guy in his bedroom but he has since shut the repo down is a definite no no!

It's been a while (a few years) since I looked at opencpn and SignalK so I don't know if these points are applicable (I remember struggling to get opencpn to play for some reason) , but they definitely have a bearing on the perception of Open Source being more difficult than the value it provides, when compared to Commercial Off the Shelf.

 

[B27]

I had a quick look at the signalK web page linked to.

The list of applications is mostly gobbledegook, but I noticed 'Active Captain', so presumably people are using all this network stuff to generate the duff crowd sourced depth data in Navionics?

I'm sure I could invent uses for it, but it's very complicated for what I want to do.
I wouldn't be comfortable with using it for anything important because I don't have the depth of familiarity with networking to trust it. I need stuff on my boat to be simpler, better understood and very well tested.
This kind of networking everything concept is perhaps better in a home environment where the consequences of it not working are more trivial.

In these forums, I think one or two proponents give signalK an image of ' I don't really understand this but I've got lots of graphs'. Maybe it would be better to publish more real examples of people using it to solve the problems that sailors actually perceive they have?

What, fundamentally, do people want from networked data on a boat?
I'm not sure there's a consensus on that, or even a huge number of people who aren't happy with either simpler systems or throwing money at Raymarine et al.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

My experience is as post 2.

As an experiment I googled how to convert analogue digital data to NME 2000 using Raspery Pi. Lots of tutorials and how to articles popped up, including parts e.g. you need a MCP3008 analog-to-digital converter (ADC) chip to convert any type of analog signal to a digital signal that the Raspberry Pi can process.

It doesn't look that hard, Sure, I ca buy and Actsense Unit, connect the wires of analogue devices to the unit, and then the unit's output ports to NME2000 and then Raymarine. Very easy but it is relatively expensive. The costs of the Pi and MCP plus some other stuff less than USD50.

It will take a bit of time to learn what to do as some of the language terms are unknown to me, but I reckon it will be easy to do and at a low cost. Then perhaps something like Signal K can transmit all the data. IN the long future I will convert to lithium and solar. I do grant that is is easy to get lost in data to the point that it becomes an overhead with no added value, however if the data is available, then it shouldn't be an issue to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Sandy]

what puts you off trying it?

I'm retired and don't want to spend my time debugging somebodies dodgy code when I should be sailing.

 

[B27]

My experience is as post 2.

As an experiment I googled how to convert analogue digital data to NME 2000 using Raspery Pi. Lots of tutorials and how to articles popped up, including parts e.g. you need a MCP3008 analog-to-digital converter (ADC) chip to convert any type of analog signal to a digital signal that the Raspberry Pi can process.

It doesn't look that hard, Sure, I ca buy and Actsense Unit, connect the wires of analogue devices to the unit, and then the unit's output ports to NME2000 and then Raymarine. Very easy but it is relatively expensive. The costs of the Pi and MCP plus some other stuff less than USD50.

It will take a bit of time to learn what to do as some of the language terms are unknown to me, but I reckon it will be easy to do and at a low cost. Then perhaps something like Signal K can transmit all the data. IN the long future I will convert to lithium and solar. I do grant that is is easy to get lost in data to the point that it becomes an overhead with no added value, however if the data is available, then it shouldn't be an issue to sort the wheat from the chaff.

If your goal is to convert some analogue signal to NMEA 2000, you should be able to do that for under ten quid. A canbus transceiver and a small arduino clone etc.

But what's the real 'top level' aim here?
e.g. ' I want to monitor the engine temperature without leaving my bunk'.