Therefore Boat Beacon is the best AIS App for Android. As well as the facility to also transmit your position back to the internet AIS sites via 3G. The app features CPA and TCPA alarms and colour coded AIS targets. Android should detect the AIS device and ask you to confirm that you want Boat Beacon to use this device.īoat Beacon will open and you will see live AIS data starting to come in and displayed on the Boat Beacon app. Finally plug the USB lead of one of our AIS Receivers in to the OTG cable. You simply plug in the USB OTG cable to your Android device and then download the latest version of Boat Beacon. You can then see the AIS targets on its chart display. It was also determined that the latest Boat Beacon App will read the NMEA0183 AIS data. As part of our testing, we confirmed that the drivers for all of our AIS receivers (and our NMEA to USB adaptor cable) are pre-installed in Android. There must also be an App running that knows how to use the USB device. In order for the USB slave device to work correctly, Android must have suitable drivers installed. However, many Android devices now support USB “On the Go” (OTG) which allows you to plug in USB slave devices – see USB OTG cable in image above. Many Apps including Boat Beacon support Wireless NMEA, which we documented in a recent article. Which will convert the AIS data in to wireless NMEA data that an App running on the iPhone/iPad can read. With Apple devices, currently the only option is to use one of our Wireless NMEA units. However, you then have the issue of getting this AIS data on to your phone/tablet. This is the reason why most boat owners ultimately decide to fit an AIS receiver on their boat. Constant risk of losing the 3G internet connection.Relying solely on Internet AIS data does have serious limitations though, namely In order to receive AIS data and transmit your position, you needed to have a 3G internet connection, but for many people Boat Beacon was a great app to have and introduced them to the world of AIS. Therefore friends and family can track your passage. As a result allowing you to appear on AIS websites like Marine Traffic, Ship Finder and AIS Hub. What is more, you could also transmit your position (without having an AIS transponder). One of the most popular features of Boat Beacon is that is allows you to receive AIS data on your phone or tablet (from the internet) without having to install an AIS receiver on your boat. Therefore allowing connection of an AIS receiver to an Android tablet.

The popular AIS App for Apple and Android devices, which should soon be available (as a free update) on the Apple Store and Google Play Store. This has been made possible by a new version of Boat Beacon. Today we finished a series of successful tests, connecting our AIS receivers to a Google Nexus 7 Android tablet.

Navionics for tablets