Onboard WiFi


twarble

twarble

Member
hey guys...anyone out there try installing a WiFi hotspot on their boat? i'm looking at a few options, and am curious what you guys have done? I'm debating between doing something like the IslandTime solution (approx $370) http://www.islandtimepc.com/marine_wifi.html, or trying to keep it real simple and doing a simple WiFi Extender (approx $60) http://hawkingtech.com/products/hi-gain_wireless_networking/high_power_wi-fi_solutions/hwren2.html

not sure if anyone has tried anything now that so many systems are WiFi capable like Fusion radios, and MFD's. any lessons learned?

thanks in advance,
twarble
 
yeah, exactly. very similar to the Island Time product that i listed above. for what it's worth, the support at Island Time is supposed to be phenomenal. if you get yours up and running, let me know what you think.

my biggest concern with that kind of setup is what happens when i pull anchor and start moving. i don't know if it will continue to pick up open signals as I cruise. or if you have to configure which ones to latch on to. if it's the latter, then my phone will think i have Internet via WiFi, and I won't really have access to email and the such. not good...
 
so just to close this out, thought you guys might be interested to hear what i ended up doing.

the solutions that i had seen, and that are mentioned above, allowed generally two modes of deployment, and still required an external antenna on the roof that i really didn't want to do.

the first mode is repeater/extender which basically takes a shore based WiFi hotspot, i.e. SSID coffeshop, and re-broadcasts it on your boat via the local WiFi AP you install somewhere on board. the roof based antenna picks up the coffee shop signal, and makes it stronger locally on your boat. you configure your phone/ipad whatever to connect to coffeeshop, and you're online.

the second mode is to use the coffee shop as basically wireless backhaul, or an ISP in other words. it broadcasts a local network, i.e. boatnet, via the WiFi AP installed on the boat, and used the roof mounted antenna to pick up SSID coffeeshop. you configure your devices to connect to boatnet, and you're good.

each provided their own issues to me. the first method connects all WiFi devices like an iPad or your smartphone to WiFi...but when the boat moves away from the coffeeshop SSID, the WiFi goes down completely. the second method is even scarier to me...you move away from the coffee shop and all of your devices are still connected to boatnet, thinking they have Internet, but they don't! even if your device has 3G or 4G connectivity...they will not connect to the Internet. for someone like me that 'works' from their boat, this is bad news. granted you could log into the router and configure it to grab a different SSID, but what if you forget? i don't boat around the Bahamas, so this isn't something i'm likely to remember to do.

throwing another wrench in the works...i also needed to connect a Fusion radio, and 2 Garmin MFD's to the WiFi AP via Ethernet. one of these days everyone will just play nice together via WiFi. and what i really wanted was to use both an iPad and my smartphone to talk to both the Fusion radio and MFD's.

to fix all of my issues, i made one concession, and purchased an iPad mini to be dedicated to the boat. i'm using the smartphone as a hotspot, and have installed a WiFi AP and router from Alfa.

http://www.pdqwi-fi.com/collections...mbps-with-external-antenna?variant=1756306884

this cool little router is 12V and allows me to connect 4 devices by Ethernet. now i turn on my phone as a WiFi hotspot, the iPad and any other devices on board get Internet, and the Fusion and MFD's all talk to each other, and the devices connected by WiFi. very slick, and working really well. best part is i have great 4G coverage, so i never lose Internet access, and my work email continues to flow at all times.

if you're still reading this far, haven't fallen asleep on your keyboard, and actually care, let me know and I'll update with the config of the router since it wasn't straight forward. btw, the customer support at PDQ was excellent. and i don't have the MFD's installed yet, but it seems like that should be no big deal.

hope this helps someone else as obsessed as i was...
twarble
 
Does the Wifi AP automatically reconnect to the Phones' hotspot everytime you activate the hotspot ? Or do you need to have it accessible to push a button to re-connect ?

I'd be interested in the router config if I decide to go this route.

thanks
 
Automatically. I set it up with my phone's SSID and password, and it stores it. I have it tied to DC power, and I shut my DC off whenever I get off the boat, so it's working pretty good.
 
man i wish i was more smarter on this stuff. i just wanna watch a Vols game on my boat by picking it up over my device and connecting it to a TV. so what does AP stand for? I looked at the router and it says something about an external antenna, what did you do there?
 
yep...access point. basically a WiFi router that will give your device an IP address and access to the Internet.

might not be that simple. how are you getting your Vols games on your phone? an App of some sort? is it Audio only? or Video too? do any of your TV's have an Aux input jack somewhere? or do you have easy access to the backside of the TV you're thinking about? in the 45Y, they have a separate set of Aux inputs for the salon TV...that's what i'm wondering about...

more importantly...you sure you want to listen to the Vols games this year?? ;)

twarble
 
i must carefully consider if i want to continue this conversation. "are you sure you want to listen to the vols games this year??" cuts me deeply and i bleed orange. as you can imagine, the blood transfusions have been numerous over the past few years. and now my boatin' buddies are makin' me bleed! but maybe this will be our year.......:confused:

anyway, i'm also considering an ipad mini to be dedicated to the boat for music, navigation and whatever else i can dream up to use it for. i've also been looking at the Fusion stuff. right now i ain't got nuthin' so to to speak. a stereo, amp, speakers and iphone. a clean slate to start with. although we are on the river, i've never really looked to see if wifi is accessible while we are out and about. maybe in some spots and maybe not in others, i haven't a clue. we have a product available to us thru epb (which is our home internet and cable provider) called epbtogo. supposed to be able to pick up your home content on the go. somehow. to make things overly simple, if i can watch it at home i wanna watch it on the boat. use my ipad connected to the tv. tv has various inputs, i guess i need to look a little closer. all this stuff is complicated to me. so best to start from scratch. can't wait to read about your mod on the forum, i will be very interested to see how you made it all work. just wish i understood it a lot more than i do. i think i have a set of rabbit ears in the attic, maybe i'll start looking for them.....:eek:
 
sorry Tenn...couldn't resist, but know that i've suffered in agony over one of my teams plenty of times while aboard. ;)

you're starting something quite interesting. :) actually another side benefit of what i was doing, although we don't watch much TV aboard, i do have a smartTV in the cockpit, and should be able to do quite a few things over that as well. one of the things i made sure to do was to get the TV audio to play over the radio so that we could listen to football as well. to start answering some of your q's...

you don't need WiFi from the shore to get to the Internet. i use my smartphone. you can turn it into a hotspot, and use your Verizon/ATT/Sprint/whatever service to get Internet from that. for this reason, i didn't use the external antenna that most folks have been putting on their boats, and that this router will accept. i didn't want another 3 foot long antenna on the top of the boat, and i didn't want all of the issues that i mentioned earlier in this post. if i want Internet on the boat network, i turn on my phone's hotspot. otherwise, i leave it off. i purchased the 150Mbps version that you saw on that site. this router has an internal receiving antenna that can reach about 50 feet or so according to their support team, so it's plenty good for picking up my phone. besides, if i ever decide to upgrade to the Bahamas hopping roof-top antenna, this router can support it. :) if however you want WiFi from the shore instead, then you'll need the rooftop antenna. if that's the case, use this guy as his support is awesome!
http://islandtimepc.com/marine_wifi.html

i took a quick look at epbtogo...it's nothing more than using the TV stations app's to access content. this is an important distinction from 'watching what's on your tv' for one big reason. they get to control what you have access to. and unfortunately big money sports like college football...or at least NFL in my experience...can get blacked out on these app's quite often. are you sure you can watch your games on your iPad? if you haven't done it, got any buds that have so you know it's worth the work? i didn't notice an SEC channel app, or even a local sports app that they support, so not sure where you'd find them. might want to check this first.

since you boat local...can you get the games off of broadcast stations? an easier solution might be to upgrade your TV antenna on the roof to something stronger. i just took delivery of the latest Shakespeare to get HDTV of my local stations on board...
http://www.starmarinedepot.com/shak...-110vac.html?gclid=CK6OtdX09cUCFc6QHwod114A0A

to connect your iPad to your TV, you have 2 choices...either use an adapter to plug it directly into your TV...assuming you have easy access to the connections. or get an Apple TV and make sure you have WiFi onboard. here's the VGA adapter...
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC552ZM/B/apple-vga-adapter

they have a component one as well.

i'm guessing your head's spinning by now! ain't technology grand! ;)
twarble
 
actually, i fainted for a moment. but i'm coming back around now. we have watched a game before, from someone else's ipad to my tv. not sure how they were picking it up though. we have a digital antenna (glomex) and can often times pick up local channels (CBS is one that seems to carry a lot of sec games) and that is easy, do it all the time to watch SNL. never used my own stuff to try the hotspot/ipad to tv thing though. gotta get an ipad and dedicate it to the boat first. i'm weighing options on that right now (looking at the mini 2). epbtogo offers sec network according to what i saw, that would be desirable to get. if i use my phone for a hotspot, won't that eat up a lot of data by streaming a game??

tv sound thru the stereo would be cool but i thought that might be a bit difficult, do you have to run wires (two tv locations on the boat) or can that be done with a transmitter??

already talked to the guy at islandtimepc, agree he was really helpful and knowledgable. i'm still muddling thru all the options right now though. i'm finding it difficult to define all the things i want to be able to do, the equipment to do it with and the technical know how to make it all work together. maybe i need to start a list.....

1. music, played via ipad/iphone w/bluetooth or a plug in jack. We don't really use Pandora/Spotify type stuff, should we consider it??
2. navigation via the ipad
3. remote music control via the ipad/iphone would be cool.
4. tv thru the ipad, tv sound thru the stereo would be cool too.

and probably a few other things i haven't thought about but should.

I REALLY like the Fusion stuff and am trying to determine if the black box entertainment thing would do all we really need to do or not. if we had a remote in the cabin and one at the helm i don't see the need for anything else really. especially if the remote via ipad/iphone were an option. what exactly do you get with the UD750 that you don't with the BB300 besides the iphone compartment? i guess i need to do more research there. but it seems that a lot of these things would require the router, i like that it is 12 volt and you have already guinea pigged it.
 
couple quick questions based on your wish list...
1. are you playing music that's stored on the iPad/iPhone then?
2. what MFDs do you have, and what navigation program are you planning to use?
3. do you use satellite TV? or just over the air?

with regards to BB300, i didn't chose it for several reasons, but it may suit you depending. reasons i didn't...
1. only had 3 zones, i wanted 4 (roof, arch, stern, and salon)
2. two of the zones are speaker level outputs, not RCA outputs, so i would have had to convert to RCA since i don't use any speaker level outputs from the head-unit. also, the RCA outputs for Fusion are very high quality, so the sound quality is great, and a converter wouldn't have that. also, also...the UD750 (and a few others) allow you to disable the internal amplifier when you're not using the speaker level outputs allowing the head-unit to draw less power.
3. i had a full-sized head unit hole in my dash that i wanted to cover

let's start there...i need to see how you answer the above to i can walk you through a few of your other questions. hope this is helpin!
tw
 
music is stored on our devices, no CDs or anything else like that. no MFDs, i have a sitex colormax 11 for depth and navigation (uses cmap card) but would like to be able to use the ipad for the same thing, i think navx is what i've seen that worked really well on an ipad a dockmate is using. honestly i don't know that i would wanna replace the sitex if it took a dump, just seems to me like the ipad will do the same thing. we watch over the air tv (when not under the dock), we don't have any service at our new dock yet, some have already went with satelite but we ain't dock queens so i don't see the justification in signing up for anything like that.

i can get by with two zones so three will definitely do. hmm, outputs are a little confusing to me too. currently all my speakers are run out of the head unit to the 5 channel amp (Kenwood KMR700 black box), 4 speakers and a sub. so if the Fusion BB won't allow you to disable the internal amp would it be possible just to reconfigure my current set up, maybe run the sub and one pair off the 5 channel amp and the other two off the internal amp? i ain't really up to speed in that department either but i have a few buddies that could probably help me out in that category. and i can fabricate a trim plate to cover the existing head unit hole, then just install a remote into the trim plate. i think the main things with the head unit are i'd wanna be able to stream via bluetooth and have the convenience of the iphone/ipad remote. currently, the iphone has to be plugged into the aux input on the head unit which is inside the cabin. real PITA to have to go inside to do anything. an auxillary jack outside would be a huge improvement but we still have minimal control without having hands on the phone. gotta use the remote or head unit to control volume and radio functions and use the iphone to control the music. we are practically in the stone ages!!
 
ok then...let's look at your wish list...

1. music, played via ipad/iphone w/bluetooth or a plug in jack. We don't really use Pandora/Spotify type stuff, should we consider it??
2. navigation via the ipad
3. remote music control via the ipad/iphone would be cool.
4. tv thru the ipad, tv sound thru the stereo would be cool too.
Click to expand...

for 1...you're set with bluetooth, or the USB...both give you playlist, artist and anything else you would have access to. obviously AUX jack forces you to use the phone. personally, i just started using Pandora. i played with it for a few months with the free version...it inserts an add every 5 or 6 songs. but by rating songs, it got pretty good at playing great music without me having to fuss with it. i now pay the 5 bucks/month to go commercial free. when i want a specific song, i go to the iPod/phone. Pandora via USB to the Fusion will allow you to thumbs up/down any song, as well as fast forward.

for 2...you're all set. any Nav app will work, and i'll to avoid turning this into which app is best. ;) i will say that i use Navionics now, and will be switching to BlueChart...but that's only because I have the associated MFDs and will push routes from iPad to MFD. i have heard great things about NAVX.

for 3...now you have to install the WiFi router we discussed, but that's all it takes. pretty easy.

4...you have coax coming off of your antenna, and somewhere down below it gets split to the TV's. i would split it once more using the cable to the tv you care the least about, and then run the coax through a converter that gives you RCA audio outputs. then run the RCA to the head unit input. this is what i have...that would do the trick.
http://www.wayfairsupply.com/Terk-T...=75690249540&gclid=CIPRhYe5-cUCFUURHwod6bIASQ

i only use the antenna in, and the RCA outs on that.

i can get by with two zones so three will definitely do
Click to expand...
so just to clarify this means that you want 2 distinct volume levels. to do this, you either have to leave the BB300, or convert one of the speaker level outputs to RCA. you can do that with something like this...
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_142LOC80/Scosche-LOC80.html?tp=2001

you would wire the speaker wire side to the Zone 1 output of the head unit, and run the RCAs to your amp.

if you don't *need* 2 distinct levels of volume control, then you could just use Zone 3 RCAs and split them.

there's a separate Subwoofer RCA output on the BB300, so you should be good.

i don't think you'd want to run any of your speakers directly off of the head unit speaker level outputs (meaning wire them directly to the head unit) because they're only rated at 50Watts.

yep, if you stream football games over your phone as a hotspot, you're likely to burn through data quick! depending on what quality the picture is, it could be 2-3GB worth of data.

so, in short, i think you could get away with the BB300 based on your wish list. you'd need the WiFi router i mentioned to get your iPad remote working, but you'll have your zones, and the ability to run the TV audio over the stereo. sounds kinda neat. ;)

if you want to chat, feel free to PM me. i spent weeks researching all of this before i ran the first wire. ;)
tw
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top