Free Anchor Alarm for iPhone

[Bruce Moore]

I thought I'd give this one it's own thread, in case anyone wants to expand on the topic.

Jeffrey and Karen Siegel, the nice folks at Active Captain, have developed a free anchor alarm application for the iPhone. They announced today it was swiftly approved by Apple, and is available as their Christmas gift to the ActiveCaptain community.

Description: "DragQueen ("may she stand careful watch over all your nights at anchor") is a simple anchor alarm. It provides distance and GPS accuracy alarms along with an alarm delay. The Alarm is quite annoying and is the perfect thing to waken you at night if it detects anchor dragging to your specifications."

They tested and tweaked it for two months aboard their own boat while underway from Chesapeake to Florida, including to very tight distances on windy nights so the alarm would actually go off. As Karen said, "never before had I seen (Jeff) wake up at 3 AM to an alarm with a smile."

You can get DragQueen here.

An Android version is forthcoming. It will also be free.

Cheers

 

[walldog]

I thought I'd give this one it's own thread, in case anyone wants to expand on the topic.

Jeffrey and Karen Siegel, the nice folks at Active Captain, have developed a free anchor alarm application for the iPhone. They announced today it was swiftly approved by Apple, and is available as their Christmas gift to the ActiveCaptain community.

Description: "DragQueen ("may she stand careful watch over all your nights at anchor") is a simple anchor alarm. It provides distance and GPS accuracy alarms along with an alarm delay. The Alarm is quite annoying and is the perfect thing to waken you at night if it detects anchor dragging to your specifications."

They tested and tweaked it for two months aboard their own boat while underway from Chesapeake to Florida, including to very tight distances on windy nights so the alarm would actually go off. As Karen said, "never before had I seen (Jeff) wake up at 3 AM to an alarm with a smile."

You can get DragQueen here.

An Android version is forthcoming. It will also be free.

Cheers

Thanks for posting this Bruce. We installed it this morning and while we have not boat tested it, it does seem to work well. It has a loud annoying alarm and will make a nice addition to our IPAD nav apps.

 

[GulfSailor]

Jeffrey and Karen Siegel, the nice folks at Active Captain, have developed a free anchor alarm application for the iPhone. They announced today it was swiftly approved by Apple, and is available as their Christmas gift to the ActiveCaptain community.

Thanks for the link and thanks to Jeffery and Karen.

I must admit it doesn't have a name I would usually have searched for! 😛

 

[Bruce Moore]

Update from Jeffrey Siegel, for those who aren't members of ActiveCaptain.

The free anchor alarm app is now available for Android phones. Plus, lessons learned:

With thousands of downloads already and a lot of feedback about the
free DragQueen Anchor Alarm app for iPhone, there are 4 new things
to talk about:

1. DragQueen Anchor Alarm is available now in the Android Market.
There were about 100 people who tried the beta release and there were
only minor issues. If you have an Android phone, go grab it. You'll
like it. Remember to write a review about it!

2. The source code is available now.
We promised it. You can download and see all the magic behind the
software. It's quite simple. If you're able to write software, it
might be something you want to play with and expand. It's free and
without license. You're welcome to use it and experiment or make
anything with it that you'd like. Get the source here:
https://activecaptain.com/articles/misc/DQSource.php

3. You have to consider overnight powering issues with DragQueen.
Keeping a smartphone powered all night long while running its internal
GPS will quickly drain the entire battery. To use DragQueen in real
anchoring situations, you need to have it plugged in to AC power
or else use an external power source. We don't use AC power at night
and instead love the New Trent external battery. We have the IMP99D:
http://www.newtrent.com/

4. Your smartphone's GPS might have accuracy issues below deck. It's
why DragQueen continuously reports the accuracy and allows you to set
an alarm on it. There are two ways to get better performance if it
just doesn't work below in a stateroom for you:

a) Use a Bluetooth GPS above deck with a clear view of the sky. A good
iPhone/iPad/Android product is:
http://xgps150.dualav.com/

Android phones will work with other Bluetooth GPS devices too. Look
for reviews in other places - there are many available.

b) Keep the phone above deck with a clear view of the sky and use a
Bluetooth speaker system in the stateroom.

 

[aginglawyer]

Great app with a great name.

Plugging into AC power is not necessary, however, if you have a cigarette lighter, 12 volt, charger for your phone. Much more convenient for those of us without the $$$ for an inverter.

Thanks.

Allan and Yvonne
Stout R25SC

 

[baz]

Great app with a great name.

Plugging into AC power is not necessary, however, if you have a cigarette lighter, 12 volt, charger for your phone. Much more convenient for those of us without the $$$ for an inverter.

Thanks.

Allan and Yvonne
Stout R25SC

Ditto.
Thanks Bruce.
Great App.
Nice to have access to the source code -- love the sharing attitude.... 🙂

If you wish to hear the alarm sound simply set the "Distance Alarm" to zero. 😱

Sometimes the App will indicate GPS is not responding and turns the "Alarms" status button to OFF !!!!!!!! :shock: So long as GPS is not responding the "Alarms" button cannot be slid to ON.

I'm a bit concerned about the GPS accuracy mind you. If accuracy varies by several hundred feet this is a problem presumably.

 

[JerryE]

I used it with success in the Florida Keys very recently. It takes less juice than leaving the Garmin system on all night which is what I like. I was parked in a marina next to a 49 foot Krogen Express. That guy would benefit as he could walk up to his bow and the moment he dropped his anchor he could set DragQueen on his iPhone. If he walked back to his cockpit and set an anchor watch on his in-house nav system, he would have to add scope distance for the length between his antenna and bow, around 25 feet! I didn't bother to do this as the distance between bow (anchor drop) and my iPhone at the helm was more like five feet on an R25. Another advantage to our mini "yachts!"

BTW, I visited with Ed and Elaine Henn on their brand new R27 Bay Ranger now in Marathon in the Keys. We got a chance to go over it from stem to stern–what a beautiful boat. I bet it has as much cockpit space as an R29 (5' by 9'). The slightly, but significantly larger bathroom was much liked by Gail. I like the significantly bigger cave for storage options. Overall, Ed counted 50 significant improvements to the R27 over the R25 which helped him rationalize the jump. An interesting experience.