Remote Monitoring

Did you have to punch ports through and use dynamic DNS? I can't get my Foscam through my t-mobile hotspot to save my life.

And you never will, there is a great article on seabits.com that explains why we never will without using a vpn and having the boat connect through that. You need some sort of end point to access it through. Because of the public cell/wifi DDNS will not work like it does for your house. I will try and find that article, it explains it much better.
 
Just now…. I use Foscam cloud storage for a couple bucks a month then suspend in the winter

I use the same, but don't suspend because I usually stay in the water year round. Great app that gets around the typical issues of accessing the boat remotely. I also keep the Maretron cloud service going as well.
 
And you never will, there is a great article on seabits.com that explains why we never will without using a vpn and having the boat connect through that. You need some sort of end point to access it through. Because of the public cell/wifi DDNS will not work like it does for your house. I will try and find that article, it explains it much better.

Thanks Orlando. I was hoping it weren't so but feared it was. I do have camera access with Reolink cameras. I'm guessing they setup a vpn to their cloud servers to pull it off.
 
I have a really dumb question to ask some really smart people…

Can I simply buy a Foscam dome camera, mount it to my hard top, hard wire it to a WiFi router on the boat, and communicate/view it from my iPhone while away?
 
I have a really dumb question to ask some really smart people…

Can I simply buy a Foscam dome camera, mount it to my hard top, hard wire it to a WiFi router on the boat, and communicate/view it from my iPhone while away?

If your wifi router (like a peplink) is connected to a public access point (marina or the like) and you use the Foscam app, you will be able to view your cameras from anywhere. You need to use an app or something that has an end point (server of sorts) that can redirect your wifi connection to where the boat is reporting too.

To access the boat or the boat to access the public WiFi, you need to have something that will act as your home's cable modem. This thread here goes into that. http://clubsearay.com/index.php?threads/ubiquity-bullet-m2-vs-peplink-max-br1-mini-wan-wifi.101605/ or the above seabits link.
 
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For several years I've wanted a reliable remote temp monitoring app for the winter (I stay in the water most years). I tried AcuRite but never got it to work well and they now seem to be out of the monitoring business and fully into weather stations which would be overkill. Last year, I tried a Govee unit but it would not stay on line and I am seeing that as a common complaint in reviews.
After some research this year I went with SensorPush (https://www.sensorpush.com). They have stand-alone sensors that will connect to a router but that brings the VPN issues into play. I got their G1 Gateway which connects to my router via ethernet but also can do wifi. The Gateway sends the data to a free cloud that I can access with their app. I set it up today and so far so good.
IMG_1474.jpeg

The Gateway is only about 3 inches square and the sensors about 1 inch. The sensors can be attached with 2-sided tape but also have fittings to use a zip tie to secure the unit to the overhead, which is what I will do in the ER.
IMG_1476.jpeg
IMG_1477.jpeg

The app has an overview screen plus an expanded view for each sensor with trends over time.

Compared to other solutions, this one isn't cheap but I'm hoping that reliability and flexibility will make it worth it.
 
... Compared to other solutions, this one isn't cheap but I'm hoping that reliability and flexibility will make it worth it.

@alnav Al, what a great solution! Excellent find, but I have to disagree with the "this one isn't cheap", I pay more for my yearly Maretron cloud service then this setup cost's with 2/3 sensors. For what this offers I think this is quite affordable and looks to be an excellent system. Please keep us up to date on it's reliability.
 
Screen Shot 2022-01-09 at 11.21.16 AM.png
I've been using boat command for a few years and love it. You can turn on and off different devices, have temp sensors, door sensors and turn on/off a/c's if you wish. I can monitor bilge activities and it will alert me if the bilge goes off more than X (I define X) times per day.

I also just recently purchased the Vesper Cortex which is an AIS, VHF, DSC device that also has remote monitoring built in. Just haven't installed it yet. Garmin recently purchased Vesper....
 
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View attachment 118173 I've been using boat command for a few years and love it. You can turn on and off different devices, have temp sensors, door sensors and turn on/off a/c's if you wish. I can monitor bilge activities and it will alert me if the bilge goes off more than X (I define X) times per day.

I also just recently purchased the Vesper Cortex which is an AIS, VHF, DSC device that also has remote monitoring built in. Just haven't installed it yet. Garmin recently purchased Vesper....

P.S. the picture shows "outside temp" and "inside temp". The "inside temp" is the boat command separate sensor as part of the system. Because I'm OCD, I also have a temperature stick connected up to my wifi (I use Verizon MIFI) a little higher up in the ER. SO I have a lower ER temp sensor (boat command) and higher ER temp sensor (temp stick). :). There's about a 4* delta between the two. Not bad.
 
@Blown284 I'm installing a Vesper Cortex in the coming weeks. I can't wait to use it this Spring. I was excited when it was announced that Garmin bought Vesper.

I am replacing my Raymarine 240 VHF. My helm has twin Raymarine (RM) E120W's. Cost is prohibiting a wholesale changeout to Garmin so I am going to piece meal it. So my first thing to figure out is if I have a SeaTalk or SeaTalk ng network behind the helm. Then, I need to decided if I want to add the Vesper Cortex to the existing RM SeaTalk ng network OR create a new Garmin NMEA 2000 network and add the E120W to that. That will all depend, I think, if there is a free SeaTalk ng port on the rear of one of the E120W's.

How does that plan sound to you?

Jaybeaux
 
@Blown284 I'm installing a Vesper Cortex in the coming weeks. I can't wait to use it this Spring. I was excited when it was announced that Garmin bought Vesper.

I am replacing my Raymarine 240 VHF. My helm has twin Raymarine (RM) E120W's. Cost is prohibiting a wholesale changeout to Garmin so I am going to piece meal it. So my first thing to figure out is if I have a SeaTalk or SeaTalk ng network behind the helm. Then, I need to decided if I want to add the Vesper Cortex to the existing RM SeaTalk ng network OR create a new Garmin NMEA 2000 network and add the E120W to that. That will all depend, I think, if there is a free SeaTalk ng port on the rear of one of the E120W's.

How does that plan sound to you?

Jaybeaux
2006 - you are probably all Seatalk, SeatalkHS, and NMEA 0183 (VHF) but your E120W should have NG ports on the back of them.
Your GPS receiver, Autopilot, and tridata are usually all Seatalk. It is a mixed bag on depth/temperature transducers; some are Seatalk and others are NMEA 0183. SeatalkHS should be your MFD's, and Sounder.
Raymarine says if you connect and use the NG ports the Seatalk ports will be disabled on the MFD's; when I attempted to use both it all worked just fine. I did end up changed the autopilot controller to the SPX (?) which was NG....

Regardless, I think you can do a step by step migration over to NMEA 2000 without having to change the MFD's right now.
 
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@Blown284 I'm installing a Vesper Cortex in the coming weeks. I can't wait to use it this Spring. I was excited when it was announced that Garmin bought Vesper.

I am replacing my Raymarine 240 VHF. My helm has twin Raymarine (RM) E120W's. Cost is prohibiting a wholesale changeout to Garmin so I am going to piece meal it. So my first thing to figure out is if I have a SeaTalk or SeaTalk ng network behind the helm. Then, I need to decided if I want to add the Vesper Cortex to the existing RM SeaTalk ng network OR create a new Garmin NMEA 2000 network and add the E120W to that. That will all depend, I think, if there is a free SeaTalk ng port on the rear of one of the E120W's.

How does that plan sound to you?

Jaybeaux

Jaybeaux,
Plan sounds good to me but I decided to just wholesale replace everything. I know I know.. expensive but I'm a grain guy and this Raymarine old stuff is driving me nuts --- especially the old school autopilot. LOL.
 
With todays technology and companies finally putting out network equipment that the average consumer can purchase at a reasonable price opposed to what the cost of network equipment cost only a few years ago. And as a result of cloud storage and access becoming the norm these days. Companies are starting to charge more and more for what was once almost free. Maretron is no different, their cloud server stats at $295 a year and goes up to $895. When I first started using this service around five years ago it was almost half of that. While I feel I could not do without this service I started thinking of ways to try and circumvent their service and do this for free.

The answer to this is ASUS routers. They have added the best support for VPN use I have seen yet. They can be a server or a client which is perfect and at a very reasonable price. I have an AX1800 on the boat and an AX3000 for the house. They support the OpenVPN protocol and works like a charm. The setup is a little pain staking to get the house side to see the client network. But I have been using this for a few months now and find this indispensable. My wife and I can work from the boat and have full access to what's at the house. There is also a phone app which allows you to access your home network from anywhere which also means the boat as well. This setup works like a charm and allows me to cancel the Maretron subscription. It also allows the boat to access my Plex setup at the house without having to enable the remote access, which has a few issues.

Is there is any real interest in how to set this up I can post a how-to on this. But as mentioned it does take a bit of work to configure this to get working right.
 
With todays technology and companies finally putting out network equipment that the average consumer can purchase at a reasonable price opposed to what the cost of network equipment cost only a few years ago. And as a result of cloud storage and access becoming the norm these days. Companies are starting to charge more and more for what was once almost free. Maretron is no different, their cloud server stats at $295 a year and goes up to $895. When I first started using this service around five years ago it was almost half of that. While I feel I could not do without this service I started thinking of ways to try and circumvent their service and do this for free.

The answer to this is ASUS routers. They have added the best support for VPN use I have seen yet. They can be a server or a client which is perfect and at a very reasonable price. I have an AX1800 on the boat and an AX3000 for the house. They support the OpenVPN protocol and works like a charm. The setup is a little pain staking to get the house side to see the client network. But I have been using this for a few months now and find this indispensable. My wife and I can work from the boat and have full access to what's at the house. There is also a phone app which allows you to access your home network from anywhere which also means the boat as well. This setup works like a charm and allows me to cancel the Maretron subscription. It also allows the boat to access my Plex setup at the house without having to enable the remote access, which has a few issues.

Is there is any real interest in how to set this up I can post a how-to on this. But as mentioned it does take a bit of work to configure this to get working right.
As a FYI the Victron remote services are no cost. And you can configure/control the system from their VRM app.
 
As a FYI the Victron remote services are no cost. And you can configure/control the system from their VRM app.

The issue there is, as far as I know, it does not report all of the N2K components, or does it?

The Maretron IPG100 uses their N2KView app and can be configured to display anything you like.
 
The issue there is, as far as I know, it does not report all of the N2K components, or does it?

The Maretron IPG100 uses their N2KView app and can be configured to display anything you like.
You are correct only a few of the NMEA 2000 components at this time. Victron is a power management system but provides data on tank levels.
 
You are correct only a few of the NMEA 2000 components at this time. Victron is a power management system but provides data on tank levels.

Yeah, with Maretron I also have digital switching remote access as well. It utilizes everything they offer. I would think that would interest you considering how vested you are in Maretron as well.
 

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