Garmin Bluechart Mobile App - Where are you?

Any news on connectivity to the chart plotters? I really like the route building capability on the app, but without the interface capability to the chart plotters through the existing wifi, it really misses the mark. Given the advancements, it really seems a shame to have a proprietary approach. $200 and a lead time of 5 to 8 weeks is taking the fun out of it.
 
Seems to me using the Garmin Homeport program will avoid having to pay for a router and waiting 5 weeks. I think Garmin missed the boat here,the ability to download from the ipad to an SD card sounds like a much easier method to transfer your routes rather than a router setup.
 
I would say that Wi-Fi is the easier method rather than using an SD card.

Of course, the Wi-Fi method at this time involves significant cost (at least $200 at this time) and possibly more complexity for the end user in configuring the Wi-Fi network with the Garmin chart plotter. Putting this aside, it's then a very simple for method for transferring the route data from the iPhone and iPad to the Garmin Chart plotter.

As far as I know there's no 30-pin dongle or Lightning dongle for latest iPad for downloading to an SD card. The dongles that are available will only assist in uploading SD camera card data to the iPad. Essentially, these dongles are 'readers only'.

The Bluechart Mobile App would need modifying to create a route data package in the form of a file that can be encapsulated in an Email attachment or for sending directly to a computer. Of course, this file has to be in a format that the Chart plotter understands as well. The Email attachment or the sent file can then be dumped onto an SD card using a computer -- much like that's done when downloading a Garmin Chart plotter software upgrade, unpacking it and then copying it to an SD card.

What would be cool is for Garmin to develop a means for using a Wi-Fi SD card in their Chart plotter SD card slot so it can receive data across Wi-Fi from the iPhone and/or iPad's Bluechart Mobile App. Once the Wi-Fi SD card receives the data it can then load it into the Chart Plotter. Most Wi-Fi SD cards I've come across only allow cameras with Wi-Fi SD card compatibility to connect to an 802.11b network to send photo data. So these type cards are 'senders' only and cannot be used as readers which is what's needed for the Garmin Chart plotter's SD card slot...

For most of us I suspect we will just have to wait for a less costly Wi-Fi solution that Garmin certifies.
 
Sorry that I went dark here for a few days. I had a few things come up and did not have any time for testing. I have a GPSMAP 3005c. I guess my unit is too old, and it's not listed as compatible with BCM on the Garmin website. That being the case, I never tried to set up the PicoStation, as I did not see any point in trying.

It is in my nature to be curious, so I went ahead and did some poking around on the Garmin network with my laptop. My plotter's IP address is 172.16.6.161. All the packets were UDP packets, which is understandable given what they are trying to accomplish. Although it's possible the newer GPSMAP series have different IP addresses and work quite different then my unit. I just thought I would share what I knew. If anyone has the PicoStation configuration that is known to work, I would love to have it. I have a friend that would like to try my PicoStation with his plotter. We was willing to let me set up my PicoStation on his plotter with a configuration that was known to work, but he would not let me do any hacking on his system. A completely understandable position.

To add to the above discussion. I seriously doubt we will ever see the Apple Camera connectivity kit able to program SD cards with the BCM app, to transfer waypoints / routes / tracks. While that would be really neat, don't hold your breath. I welcome ActiveCaptain's vision of having all that info stored in the cloud. I'd like to start uploading my own routes to ActiveCaptain. I am happy to share my local knowledge with everyone else. I need to research what I need to do, to get them exported into a format that can be uploaded.

ActiveCaptain: I hope that your Great Lakes travels take you down to the West Basin of Lake Erie! Many Loopers take the Trenton-Severn waterway from Lake Ontario to the Georgian Bay. They completely miss the West Basin of Lake Erie, the Lake Erie Islands, Lake St. Clair, and the St Clair River. It's a fantastic cruising area to miss!
 
rem1473":2dm7cy8s said:
I need to research what I need to do, to get them exported into a format that can be uploaded.

All you need today is a GPX export file of the route(s) you want to upload. ActiveCaptain's My Card/Routes swallows GPX files and makes them instantly in your account and available to everyone else too.


rem1473":2dm7cy8s said:
ActiveCaptain: I hope that your Great Lakes travels take you down to the West Basin of Lake Erie!

We draw 6' so we're going to skip the Trent-Severn. We're busy measuring height issues too. It's simple for us to get to 19' and only moderately difficult to get to 16' (our arch folds in both directions). What we need to see is if we can get to 15.5' to make it all the way down the Erie Canal or whether we need to go through Lake Ontario/Welland Canal/Lake Erie. Either way, we'll be going around the west side of Lake Erie to past Detroit.
 
rem1473":21ae2lct said:
It is in my nature to be curious, so I went ahead and did some poking around on the Garmin network with my laptop. My plotter's IP address is 172.16.6.161. All the packets were UDP packets, which is understandable given what they are trying to accomplish.

The 172.16.x.x is a private class B network so you should use a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and hand out any ip address to the ipad and see what happens. I hope to try this out next Saturday ... Living in Michigan the boat is in storage and a pain to try these things out.

Be sure to get the latest firmware update. On my 5215 I need to have 7.50 as that started support for the WiFi adaptor. I suspect that leaving the WiFi open would allow more data to pass than is necessary but as long as a radar is off it should work. Remember that the garmin network is 100mb/s and wifi can't support that bandwidth.

Poking around should be an interesting project.

Pat
 
This morning I was able to update the 5212 (and all devices) to the latest version for firmware and test out using BlueChart IOS. Given I have not purchased the Garmin Marine WiFi Adaptor Kit I decided to just try out a small portable WiFi access point. I used a dlink that I had sitting around.

I configured the dlink to have an IP address of 172.16.6.3 (random guess) and had it serve as a DHCP server. It handed out IP addresses starting at 172.16.6.100. The netmask was set at 255.255.0.0. I used the 172.16 range because of the post above that started me thinking about trying it out. (Thanks Rem1473 for the fast start!) Once everything was connected I started turning on devices. Very quickly I found that in addition to the iPad, Access Point and Mac there were three other active IP Addresses:
172.16.3.0 - MAC Address 00:05:4f:40:03:00
172.16.6.0 - MAC Address 00:05:4f:40:06:00
172.16.7.0 - MAC Address 00:05:4f:40:07:00

And there was a ton of multi-cast traffic to these addresses. Most of the traffic was UDP. (all of the multi-cast was UDP)
239.254.2.1
239.254.2.2
239.254.2.4
239.254.2.8

I then pulled some routes from the plotter. The plotter beeped and asked me to acknowledge Once I did the routes transferred. Very easy! Next I looked at the Garmin Devices screen on the plotter and wow - There is "BlueChart iOS" listed as a device on the Network! It all works with a standard router ... Now I don't have a radar pushing data but the rest seems to work. A longer write-up is here: https://sites.google.com/a/patmcqueen.com/pat-mcqueen-home/home/garminmarine

Pat
 
Just what I needed. Thanks for the update, I look forward to trying this.
 
Most of what is being written here seems like Greek to me. I may cave in and just buy the Garmin router when it becomes more readily available. For now I have been putting in my routes on the 5212 while on the boat and when off the boat either use the Garmin software on my laptop and then transfer or set up a route on my ipad and follow that in conjunction with my 5212. Probably a bit awkward, but I don't need Rossetta Stone to figure it out.
 
Knotflying: I'm with you as much as I like fiddling around. I'm somewhat network savy, but I know how easy it is to screw things up. One needs to diagram any network setup carefully and take notes as things get changed. I don't pretend to know how the Garmin network is setup -- however, I'm interested in what others are doing trying to engineer a less expensive solution. Networks are atrociously finicky things IMO. If you get something wrong you can get into a situation with 'circular' network traffic that consumes the local network bandwidth in a hurry.

The other aspect is a safety issue for me. I do not want to interfere with the Garmin's 5212 software and route plotting software. Of course, even with a Garmin solution there's no guarantee it will not cause problems and could have bugs in its software as well -- but at least you can call in Garmin and get their support presumably.

I'm curious about the router's power supply. Most routers you buy at computer stores require 110v with a step-down transformer brick. For the boat, presumably, the power input is 12v.

I will await for Garmin's official router solution for the time being.
 
Have others noted that the Garmin Bluechart Mobile App had a new update recently ? Fixes bugs according to the App store!
 
rem1473":1zspjpy1 said:
It is in my nature to be curious, so I went ahead and did some poking around on the Garmin network with my laptop. My plotter's IP address is 172.16.6.161. All the packets were UDP packets, which is understandable given what they are trying to accomplish.

Thanks for the helpful information.

May I ask, what was the MAC address associated with the 172.16.6.161 IP address?
 
All,
Great thread and I've enjoyed reading it from start to finish. Also found this link from the Panbo article. First off, very excited about the new Garmin BCM, and also an avid user of ActiveCaptin. Much appreciation for all the hard work going on in the background from ActiveCaptain and all involved here.

Don't mean to lower the level of technical discussion, but have two more general questions. I currently have a full garmin suite including the 720s MFD, GMR 18HD Radar, vision charts, and a sounder module. Use the HomePort software for routing planning. Also have the new BCM app and local charts downloaded on my iPhone 5 and Gen 4 Ipad with AT&T cellular capability, and all the ActiveCaptain info downloaded as well.

Trying to understand what all I stand to gain if I eventually add the Garmin wifi adapter in the spring. From my reading and limited understanding thus far, the wifi adapter enables the ability to transfer routes between the iDevices and the 720 MFD correct? The only information the MFD currently passes for consumption is GPS location? Since both my iPhone and iPad have on-board cellular, I get GPS location information internally, thus the MFD location is of no addtional benefit?

One other question related to the wifi adapter, and this may be more a iDevice question, if I'm logged into the wifi adapter as an access point to get the MFD's positioning data, I will no longer be able to access the net for other activities via the cellular side of the iDevice correct? I believe the iDevice is connected to a wifi access point, that access point becomes the preferred data/access source and that there is no failover to cellular if the access point has no internet connection correct? So for now, circling back, the only benefit would be to get GPS location (if I didnt have already have that capability internally in the iDevice) and to transfer routes/plots/tracks.

Looking forward to tracking this discussion thread moving forward and looking into network integration of my devices. Also looking forward to browsing the other threads here outside the Garmin BCM discussions.

Thanks in advance.
James.
 
James: From my understanding you have it all correct. I also have same question(s) as my iPad has the Wi-Fi + Cellular with AT&T. It also has the GPS ability built in.

So for me the only advantage of having the Garmin or some other Wi-Fi router is for transferring route information.

The one issue I see is that if I were to configure a route on the iPad independently of my Garmin 5212 chart plotter then any 'safe' route being used on the chart plotter along with auto pilot for following the route will not be same as seen on the iPad. What the iPad will display is the boat's location somewhere close to the route line setup on it -- the boat's location will be accurate but this location relative to the route line will not necessarily be correct.

I've talked this over with 1st mate and it has been decided for time being this will be acceptable.

What I'm after is capability for the Garmin's 'safe course route' calculation and route line to be transferred to the iPad. Given this, then the Chart plotter display and the iPad display will be completely sync-ed up.... 😛
 
Another consideration: the iPad (3G/4G) with the Garmin Bluechart Mobile App will tell you where you are, independent of the fixed chartplotter. Rather than rely on two connected devices spitting out the same information, you have redundancy by keeping them separate.

I know there was discussion with Baz about his wife in the V-berth, wanting to follow along. It just isn't that far from the helm to the V-berth on a 25... you could always invite her out to see the beautiful scenery passing by and she could still have the iPad to see exactly on the chart where you are located. Win/win. No messing with the potential of something getting messed up in that wifi scenerio and both devices locking up. Considering the proximity, if there is concern on your wife's point while in the V-berth, you can lean over and pat her on the shoulder.

:mrgreen:
 
JamesTXD: Thanks for the advice. Wife has a mobility concern (low energy level, balance issues along with PD) and heaving herself out of the V-berth requires a lot of her energy. Yes, using her iPad she can obtain the boats location using the Bluechart App. However, at this time she does not have the chart plotters calculated "safe course" line on her iPad to know where we are heading to, how long until we reach our destination, etc. It would be very convenient to have this 'safe course' displayed on her iPad as well.

Yes, I like the idea of having redundancy for the boat's location as you've said. Nice. 😀

One solution I have is to record a photo of the Chart plotter using my iPhone. This photo is then captured via the Apple "Photo Stream" feature and uploaded to the iCloud. My wife can then have access to that because it will download automatically to her iPad. Of course I have to be in range of a Cell tower for this to happen... and in our PNW Puget Sound area this is not an issue. Another option is for her to hand me the iPad and I can immediately take a photo of the Chart plotter's screen display and hand it back to her.
 
Well, it sounds like you have some options worked out. Sorry to hear about your wife's medical situation and know that it wasn't my intent to pry. Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.
 
Baz,
Check your PMs. I had a question about "safe route" and what you meant, but didnt want to distract the conversation from BCM going on here.
 
jimfrommd":3483dpa6 said:
Baz,
Check your PMs. I had a question about "safe route" and what you meant, but didnt want to distract the conversation from BCM going on here.

Got it... and replied. 🙂
 
Hello,

I have been testing the App the last week.

Does anyone found a way to enter waypoints (add waypoint) by coordinates or edit waypoint coordinates?

Thanks.
 
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