which ipad for 'navigation'?

Giblets said:
Well my Virgin SIM certainly does support a Personal Hotspot (tethering) which means the phone is connected to other devices via WiFi and that the other devices can use my data allowance.
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Ah yes, now I remember.

Last year I had some cool new Raymarine gear fitted to the boat. Entering Cherbourg in the black of night the cockpit screen went a weird red colour; the same happened to the plotter down below. Oops!

Thankfully Giblets' iPad saved the day ...well 'the night' to be more precise ;)
 
We use an iPad Pro (with Sim) and run Transas iSailor, which has served us faultlessly... almost.

Whilst the other posters are correct in advising that the iPad does need to be sim enabled, though doesn't actually require an installed sim, data can be very useful. The AIS receiving features of iSailer are very useful but do require an active data connection. We recently sailed Mylor to the Scillies using the app as our primary form of navigation. The whole thing was great, but we did lose data reception for a good hour in the middle of the separation scheme, probably where we needed AIS the most!
 
dom said:
Thankfully Giblets' iPad saved the day ...well 'the night' to be more precise ;)
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The charts have only the other day been fully updated to allow for such an occurrence again this year, dear chap!! :cool:

How's the ship's port of registry now? ;)
 
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Giblets said:
The charts have only the other day been fully updated to allow for such an occurrence again this year, dear chap!! :cool:

How's the ship's port of registry now? ;)
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Funny you mention that - going to try and remove with the missus' hairdryer + acetone this w/e; then have it properly polished out in the winter service.
 
Giblets said:
Well my Virgin SIM certainly does support a Personal Hotspot (tethering) which means the phone is connected to other devices via WiFi and that the other devices can use my data allowance.
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Interesting to hear that. I can't see why tethering's an issue for the sim provider - you will be using up your allowance whether it's being viewed on the phone or the tethered device - how would they know, and why would they care? But that's what the guy in the shop said (though he also told me Virgin don't do data SIMs, but they're there on the Virgin website :roll eyes:) ), and because of my doubts about his advice I specifically asked about tethering on the website helpline and was told exactly the same thing.

I would have tried another SIM provider, but was trying to sort out new SIM and hardware quick to use on imminent holiday - and failed. (They obviously didn't want my £££s!)
 
Bought a mifi unit from Currys the other day, think the offer is still running but the data bundle was cheap and large .
K
 
LittleSister said:
I was interested in getting iPhone and iPad to do this ('tethering'?) for non-nav purposes via bluetooth (I'm not clear what iCloud has to do with it, but am digitally illiterate)
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Well, neither of us want your iPad to connect via my phone, or vice versa, just because we happen to be rafted up or sitting near each other in the pub. The conventional way to deal with this is for each of us to manually set up our own hotspot on our phone, and manually put that hotspot's name and password into our tablet. However, the "digitally illiterate" might find all that a bit too complicated, so Apple do nearly all of it for you automatically. Having your iPhone and iPad registered to the same iCloud account is how they know they're both yours and should be allowed to connect to each other.

You can still manually enable a standard hotspot with a password if you want to connect non-Apple devices (I do it sometimes with my work laptop and the Android dashboard thingy in my car), the point is that the Apple devices automatically know about each other without needing you to set anything up.

(I've no idea if there's a similar system in the Android world; there may well be.)

Pete
 
LittleSister said:
I can't see why tethering's an issue for the sim provider - you will be using up your allowance whether it's being viewed on the phone or the tethered device - how would they know, and why would they care?
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As I understand it, they "know" by looking at various aspects of the network traffic - both high level stuff (if you're downloading MacOS X updates, or reporting your browser as Internet Explorer, then you're probably not on a phone) and low level stuff like exactly what flags your OS sets on a particular type of network packet.

I suspect the cheaper suppliers care because they rely on people downloading less on a smaller device, and hence leaving some of their allowance unused, allowing the supplier to "overbook" capacity. But that's just speculation, there might be some other feature of the market I'm unaware of. I also suspect the gap might have narrowed almost to non-existence now, with folks watching Youtube or Netflix on their tablets. I know Vodafone don't care at all, they're quite happy for me to download 20GB at 105MBps in Norway, for £20 per month.

Pete
 
prv said:
The conventional way to deal with this is for each of us to manually set up our own hotspot on our phone, and manually put that hotspot's name and password into our tablet. However, the "digitally illiterate" might find all that a bit too complicated, so Apple do nearly all of it for you automatically.
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This digital illiterate knows how to do the manual names/passwords connection set up (otherwise you wouldn't be able to read this!), but didn't know that there was any other way to do it!

Useful responses to my conundrum - thanks all. Without a 10 year old in the house it's difficult to keep up with the jargon, let alone know what banality or stupendous wizardry lies behind it.
 
first of all, while one can indeed hook onto your phones hotspot with an ipad, is this actually any use for navigation, as the wifi ipad still has no gps?

Anyway, I have a wifi only ipad, and a cheap android tablet. I used the tablet till recently, its fine, but slow to refresh often. I bought a garmin glo gps receiver for the ipad, it sits downstairs on the chart table and the ipad picks it up by bluetooth. Bloody excellent, I now used my ipad all last week from cumbria to man, northern ireland and over to islay and ardfern. Worked like a dream, and is now my gizmo of choice for navigation. Coupled with a waterproof usb socket installed in the cockpit, and I can run it as long as I like.

If I was buying speficically, I might look at something else, but already having an ipad, the garmin glo just works.
 
My Hudl is still going strong and never had any problems seeing the screen in bright sunlight, it just uses a bit more battery with the brightness turned up. On screen clarity the Sony M4 Aqua screen has been great racing an open cat in Sweden. Lots of sun and lots of water. ( http://www.stockholmarchipelagoraid.com/)
Stockholm-Archipelago-Raid-2015-4839.jpg
 
I've had a quick hunt through the ads for refurbished iPads. None of the specs seem to include GPS, even the sim enabled ones. Have I missed something?
 
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I have an iPad Pro (new 12.9 inch model) with Navionics and Imray apps talking to my Vesper Marine XB-8000 over WiFi. I use a Joy Factory articulated arm and iPad holder, a tad expensive but very good. I went down this route because traditional 'marine' chart plotters do not offer flat screens. They all seem to have rear entry cabling and connectors meaning that the screen needs to mount quite a few inches off a bulkhead which is not what I wanted. I am very pleased with the setup. Until I fitted the Vesper Marine XB-8000 AIS i used the Navionics and Imray apps with a Bad Elf GPS Pro on my old iPad Air which also worked very well indeed, both at home and in Croatia. The good thing is that you can use it down below and also mount it in the cockpit in a waterproof case if needed. Although the apps work with the iPad's internal GPS I preferred the more accurate marine GPS signal offered by Bad Elf.
 
I'm intrigued that the ipad's gps chip is less accurate than a marine one. I have a Garmin 276c on board so I'll be able to compare. In fact, I'd love to find a way to update the 276c's charts too - Garmin seem to be on a mission to obscure and confuse.
 
Gunfleet said:
I'm intrigued that the ipad's gps chip is less accurate than a marine one. I have a Garmin 276c on board so I'll be able to compare. In fact, I'd love to find a way to update the 276c's charts too - Garmin seem to be on a mission to obscure and confuse.
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In my experience there is little in it but as I had the Bad Elf and it has the data logging option too, I can log my passage then overlay it onto a chart easily. I agree with you about the 276C, in my view one of the best bits of kit they sold. if you ever do find a way to update the charts let me know :)
 
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