iKommunicate

'Maakt NMEA-signalen geschikt voor de Internet Of Things aan boord!

iKommunicate is Digital Yacht's NMEA to Signal K gateway which brings the internet of things to anything afloat and will introduce a new generation of interfacing and applications to the marine electronic's world.

Things are changing in the world of marine electronic interfacing with the introduction of a new open source platform called Signal K. It's been developing quietly over the past few years by a group of enthusiastic and very bright developers and boaters and is now ready for wide scale implementation. The name comes from the original Signal K (kilo) flag which indicates "I want to communicate"!

Signal K aims to be the next generation solution for marine data exchange. It is intended to be used not only for communication between instruments and sensors on board a single vessel, but also to allow for sharing of data between multiple boats, aids to navigation, ports, marinas, etc. It is designed to be easily implemented by web and mobile applications and to connect boats and ships to the Internet of Things Afloat.

Many of you will be familiar with NMEA data standards which have been prevalent over the past 30 years. While reliable and proven, they are slow and also expensive to develop for as there are legal, certification and documentation costs. These standards were developed when the instruments on the average boat were much simpler and less capable. Today's world is a lot more connected and there are huge benefits of tablet, PC and smartphone integration for data displays, applications, sharing and control. However, we don't see the NMEA standard disappearing over night but equally a new format is needed for the next advance in applications. In fact, the combination of NMEA and Signal K on board is the best technical opportunity. That's where iKommunicate comes in - a full featured NMEA to Signal K gateway and server allowing existing marine electronics to integrate with Signal K apps.

Out of the box, iKommunicate can do some really clever things
?Converts NMEA0183 and NMEA2000 to the new Signal K Open Data format
?Includes two Web Apps; iKompass and Instrument Panel so that you can look at the Signal K data
?Re-transmits all of the NMEA0183 and some of the NMEA2000 data it receives in to TCP or UDP network data
?Can host other Web Apps and documents (PDFs, JPGs, etc.) on its 8GB micro SD Card

With data in Signal K format, it becomes incredibly easy to write apps to make boating more fun, affordable and safe. We've produced a simple SDK at our www.ikommunicate.com site to help budding developers. Popular apps could include
?Logging - log your engine data and track any changes over time - a gradually rising water or oil temperature can be diagnosed prior to becoming an expensive problem
?Twitter and Facebook integration - create your own Facebook logbook and share your boating experience with friends. Auto tweet your boats position for an easy tracking solution
?Integrate with hobby hardware platforms like Raspberry Pi to create a custom alarm or monitoring platform for you boat.

In fact, the sky is the limit!