It was an aside. Have one mail, saimail on the iPads as well as the laptops. RM does have a weather product but don't use it. Use a weather router so beyond gribs and the 500mb like voice and email. Find it helpful to avoid the snot as well as hunt for favorable winds/currents.
RM (As does everyone else) has reasonable WiFi so theoretically could helm from the dinghy with the lifeproofed iPad and/or the wireless remote.
Excuse my ignorance is there any tablet that could run the boat without a MFD already in place?
Understand there are still independent APs but not aware of any that will go to a waypoint nor steer a wind angle. Are there any that allow alarm zones? Even when under vane do like AIS and radar. Know if the bearing is changing things are usually ok but the VLCC and even the cruise ships put a big hole in the water so knowing closest distance is most helpful to me. Coastal find real-time depth very valuable. Even with crowd sourcing and updating via internet find both places with sandy bottoms, recent storms or not frequently visited can lead to surprises.
So you have a weather hardened tablet, independent depth, AWA/AWS, radar and AIS. I'm a idiot but would have trouble processing. Sure I have depth running on a small screen at the companionway when in soundings and the other stuff can be projected on the various small screens as well but when behind the wheel it's nice to look one place and see all you need.
I'm still waiting for the heads up display on wearable glasses controlled by voice +/or taps on the stems. The brain down below out of weather and damp. Have several so some could be worn by crew and some charging. Maybe a charge socket and wire if no spares easily at hand. Until then feel stuck running both tablets and MFDs.
I think you were addressing me, and there is a lot here to decompress, and I don't understand some of what you ask, but I'll try and answer some of it.
Is there any tablet that can run the boat without an MFD? I'm not sure what you mean by "running the boat".
There aren't any tablet apps that will operate commercial autopilots directly, although I think the open source PyPilot can be controlled by a tablet. The commercial manufacturers seem to have made a deliberate decision to not allow control of AP's even from their own apps. Strangely, most of them make wireless remotes that can control the AP, but still don't allow apps to do so. Radar is also a weak point with apps, although OpenCPN has radar drivers for Navico and Garmin (for the computer application - I'm not sure about the tablet app).
Otherwise, tablet apps can do a lot.
Understand there are still independent APs but not aware of any that will go to a waypoint nor steer a wind angle.
This might be semantics. ALL AP's are independent. They only become "dependent" when they are connected by a communication cable, but they don't become slaves when they are. If I pulled the communication plug from ours, it would operate as before, only it would not have wind or waypoint data. It would still be connected to its rudder reference, compass, and control head. One could choose to wire those units on the shared main communication bus, but it would be trivial to connect them directly to the AP if required. However, to get waypoint and wind data, that information needs to be exposed to the AP. It has always been this way, and is a logical constraint, unless the AP becomes the plotter and wind instrument also.
Our AP alarms for many things, including shallow depth, slow speed, and others. Way more things than I like it alerting me to (voltage, holding tank level, high GPS HDOP, etc - just kidding about the holding tank), so we have almost all of them turned off. The tablet can also alert to AIS targets based on criteria, and many other things. Not sure why one would want their AP doing all that.
So you have a weather hardened tablet, independent depth, AWA/AWS, radar and AIS. I'm a idiot but would have trouble processing. Sure I have depth running on a small screen at the companionway when in soundings and the other stuff can be projected on the various small screens as well but when behind the wheel it's nice to look one place and see all you need.
I might not understand this one. All transducer data on N2K are independent. Depth, wind, speed, etc all just throw their data on the bus for anything that wants to use it. Some tablet apps do a very good job of integrating these data so they exist in a holistic view. More than just a bunch of small data boxes.
For example, some present AWA and TWA, along with AWS and TWS as vector lines coming into your boat (or away from, depending on perspective). Barbs or vector length show the speeds, while the vector angles show the angles. Depth is almost always a data box, but how else would one use that datum? AIS, of course, is shown as targets, and some apps do an excellent job of visually presenting the CPA crossing situation. Radar is rare on a tablet, and this is where they don't work well.
I'm still waiting for the heads up display on wearable glasses controlled by voice +/or taps on the stems. The brain down below out of weather and damp. Have several so some could be worn by crew and some charging. Maybe a charge socket and wire if no spares easily at hand. Until then feel stuck running both tablets and MFDs.
I'm waiting also, but for different reasons than you. I think heads up displays will excel at augmented reality, not at just another way of presenting data. Imagine looking at a shore line and having a radar overlay on it. Imagine looking down at your engine while in the cockpit and seeing it operating in real time (cameras in the engine room) with relevant parameter data. How about marking dangers in the water ahead just by looking at them and your AP makes the dodge? Maybe looking at a boat and having the VHF hail them? The possibilities are endless for augmenting human functions.
I mean, I hit the age where I have to now wear the damn things to see, so they might as well do something more useful...
Mark