Saturday, December 4, 2010

Maretron Marine Electronics N2KView

Maretron N2KView App

Application: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Function: System Control and Monitoring
Cost: App is free, separate licensing needed
Rating: *****

Monitor and control your yacht from you iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, wow, how cool it that! Maretron has long been known for their yachting monitoring and control systems.  The N2KView app simply take their systems and makes them available to any one of your iThing devices. 

This has to be one of the greatest apps in boating. The 3G iPhone and iPad app will work from anywhere you can get a 3G connections.  A WiFi only iPad and iPod Touch will only work over the ships network connection and act as a remote monitoring and control device for all your yachts systems.

This application can be set up to monitor and control just about any device on your yacht. It requires that you first have all these devices networked on an NMEA 2000 system.  Once connected to a PC the data can be made available to another PC or many other handheld devices such as the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  An Android version is also available if your not an Apple fan.

Features:
  • Allow the monitoring of just about any system or device on your yacht.
  • Works with your yachts NMEA 2000 network devices.
  • Is flexible and allows the user to design screens and controls to their specifications.
  • Requires that your NMEA 2000 network is connected to a networked PC via a USB device.
  • The PC acts as the server and required a licensed dongle.
  • Two levels of service, basic and platinum, one server license and one client license is provide with each service. Additional client licenses can be purchased.
  • Display and graphing of almost any monitored function.

Pros:

The app is fully configurable to monitor and control many of your yachts systems including Air Conditioning (HVAC), Anchor Watch, AC Power, Battery, Depth, Engine, Environment, Fuel Management, GPS, Heading, Ice Makers, Navigation, Rudder, Speed, Tanks, Time, Transmission, Watermakers, Weather and Wind.

Maretron allows the user the flexibility to design and develop the screens to their own specifications. It allows the user to determine the number of screens, size of the controls and layout. They offer two levels of service with varying levels of monitoring and control.

If you already have a NMEA 2000 network on your yacht, this may be the next step in bringing the data to your fingertips anywhere at anytime.

Cons:

The system requires that you already have a NMEA 2000 network. While the app is free, additional licensing is required to allow the client device to connect to the PC network server.

With all this cool technology you may be watching your yachts systems more than the beautiful scenery around you.

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