Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Kickstarting NMEA to Signal K gateways

I would have never thought you would see a NMEA certified gateway product on Kickstarter, but Digital Yacht is funding a Signal K gateway, and very successfully to boot. In the first five days they are past halfway to their goal. I was the third one to pledge, and Ben Ellison was the second. You can read his really good piece about this on Panbo. Got some spare change? Support Signal K and Digital Yacht on Kickstarter.

The connected boat is coming!

Sunday, October 25, 2015

NMEA 2105 conference musings on technology

The 2015 Baltimore NMEA conference was in my mind truly notable for a number of reasons. I was privileged this year to be a NMEA technology award judge along with my esteemed colleagues Ben Ellison (Panbo) and Jim Fullilove (Marine Electronics Journal). Signal K had it's NMEA debut. The two presentations by Tim Mathews were the most attended at the conference. But most of all the advancement of marine electronics took a massive surge forward. Terminology never heard at a NMEA conference before abounded. Pulse compression, gallium nitride amplifiers, mills cross phased arrays, Android OS platforms and much more. You know who is responsible for this happening? Without a doubt, you are!