Are marine electronics obsolete?

[yottyboy]

I'll use my iPhone for casual use on the road, but I'm not getting underway without good marine electronics on my boats. I've never seen a mobile phone with a radar either! :-)

I'm not suggesting that anyone go out to sea today with only an Iphone to guide them. However, just think about what first generation cell phones in the 90's were doing compared to what they do now. That's only about 15 years back. I would submit that in another ten years your "phone" will be more of a useful device for doing anything you need it to do whether that be navigating with Radar overlays, designing buildings, diagnosing medical problems, calculating complex math or what. CPUs with quad core, 16 core, 32, core 64 core and up are on the way along with clock speeds that boggle the mind. Put a couple of those in a small hand held device, and the possibilities are endless. It wasn't so long ago that the computing power available in your current iPhone was on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars.A 16gig storage array was well over a million.

With external Bluetooth sensors, there's no reason why it would not be possible to have it all in the palm of your hand. What if you need to keep track of your radar or depth while working on the stern or somewhere that you were out of the pilot house? If that information were at your fingertips it would be far more useful than if it were 30 feet away out of sight.

Edited September 2, 2009 by yottyboy

[Kerry]

"Away out of sight" your not wrong there, 15 years ago one could actually read the text on a phone, today you need a magnifying glass. So unless phones are going to get multiple times bigger and somehow I doubt that then no phones will not be the future of it all.

[Weekend-Hooker]

Gonna need a 10" screen for me .......now thats a big phone right there...

[one4water]

I was thinking same thing. What if the large screen, transducer, antenna and radar dome were hard mounted on the boat but the Iphone or whatever phone just drops into a docking station that is wired to these? The brains are in the phone not the screens or the sending units. Properly designed, you could have radar, fish finders, chart plotters with worldwide charts, weather, internet, e-mail and cellular communications, emergency repair manuals and diagrams, local port information for any port in the world all in one unit that is 100% portable. It would give the owner of a 25' boat the command center matched to multi million dollar yachts, super tankers and cruise ships.

[wkearney99]

I was thinking same thing. What if the large screen, transducer, antenna and radar dome were hard mounted on the boat but the Iphone or whatever phone just drops into a docking station that is wired to these?

So you've never left your plug or keys at home? Wouldn't that be great, no chart plotting because you didn't bring the phone along...

Can't argue against having better integration. Being able to search or route plan on the phone and upload to the plotter would be great. Being able to pull data from the boat for use on the phone would likewise be helpful. A few gateway type of devices could handle this.

For some casual situations using a phone works. But when the weather turns crappy and you NEED to have the plotter working, as the boat is being tossed around like a toy, a handheld phone is not going to suffice.

[Kamper]

Gonna need a 10" screen for me .......now thats a big phone right there...

One word... PERIPHERALS.

You guys aren't finding deadends for the technologies, you are identifying challenges for the engineers. My cheap lap-top can run a second screen. Some processors can operate several, each with a different application or browser running.

In time, there could be a system built around a removable core unit that's as physically big or small as you want it to be. Remove it when you tie up to a pier restaraunt, when you go home or when you step up into the liferaft. Just like an XM or Sirius receiver it could be plugged into the boat, your car or a computer docking station for recharging and updating, or just dropped ito your pocket in case you get a call on the way to the porta-potty at the ramp.

I still say don't throw out your chart plotter yet. Don't toss out the technology wish list either.

[wkearney99]

Just like an XM or Sirius receiver...

And you realize how poorly those portable units "integrate", right? Usually with nothing more than audio outs. It's not in their best interest to have you subscribing with only one device. Better to ding you for one radio built into your car, the wife's car, the house, another in the boat, etc. Not that it invalidates the idea, just that satellite radio makes a less than ideal analogy.

As for a "does everything" core device, that often ends up as a 'jack of all trades, master of none' scenario. Can't argue against it being a fine idea, just not one without a lot of engineering hassles and expense. Meanwhile purpose-built devices do a better job at often considerably less cost.

Now, make the devices interoperate more seamlessly and then you're on to something. Each can contain as much or as little functionality as necessary to perform it's tasks.

[Kerry]

Yep there is one thing for sure about standards, there are so many of them, subsets, supersets and propriety additions on top that make sure most things talk to each other just a little but only talk with full functionality with an intended few.

One only has to look at the third party charting formats and connections with specific manufacturers to understand they don't want an open infrastructure.

[Kamper]

And you realize how poorly those portable units "integrate", right? ...

You realise that technology improves with each generation, right?

If that weren't the case we'd still be clubbing our popcorn to death with rocks and heating it over zippo lighters, one kernel at a time.

- - - -

For sale: Matched oars from OMC (Overboard Maneuvering Company). Not sure if they are salt-water rated. Apear to be whittled from solid logs.

They work great. Selling because I just repowerred with Squaresail from Viking. Runs like the wind now!

Posted on my website: oldcrap@carrierpigeon.nest

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Sorry, a little more sarcasm than your reponse deserves but I was on a creative roll!

Edited September 16, 2009 by Kamper