Offwind reads wind, boat speed, depth, heading, position and AIS from the boat's own instruments. It talks to the gateway or processor that puts them on the boat's Wi-Fi, or to a Bluetooth sensor. Nothing has to be installed on the boat beyond what is already there.
Everything about instruments lives under Boat. In Plan it is the Boat tab. From the cockpit, open More, then Open Plan, then Boat. The passage keeps running while you are there.
The first time
- Join the boat's Wi-Fi. Connect the phone to the network your gateway or processor is on, in the phone's own Settings.
- Open Connections. Under Boat, press Connections. The screen is titled Instruments.
- Read the explanation. The first visit shows Connect to your boat's instruments: what Offwind will look for, and that it never sends anything to your instruments unless you turn on output. Press Continue.
- Allow Local Network access. iOS then asks whether Offwind may find and connect to devices on your local network. Allow it. Without it Offwind cannot see the boat network at all.
From then on, Offwind searches by itself for a minute each time the app comes to the front and each time the phone joins a network.
What connects by itself
With Connect to recognised processors automatically on, which it is to start with, Offwind connects without asking when it is sure what a device is:
- an Orca Core, by its network name or the data it sends;
- a Sailmon processor, when it answers Offwind's request;
- a Signal K server, when it announces itself on the network;
- a Yacht Devices or Actisense gateway, when it is on that maker's usual port and the data coming off it is in the format that port speaks.
Each automatic connection shows a notice at the top of the list, such as Connected automatically to Orca Core, with Turn off and OK. Turn off closes that connection and Offwind remembers not to open it again on this network. Output is always off on a connection made this way.
If one device can be reached several ways, Offwind picks the richest: Signal K or Orca Core over NMEA 2000 frames, and those over NMEA 0183. A device you already have a connection to is left alone.
What waits for you
A device Offwind can see but cannot identify for certain, such as an open NMEA port, appears under Found on this network with its address and the protocol it seems to speak. Press it to open a connection form already filled in, check it, and press Save.
Press Search this network to look again, or to look for Bluetooth sensors, which are only searched for when you ask. Press Stop searching when you are done.
To add a connection yourself, press Add connection. See Add a gateway by hand.
Reading the list
Each connection has a colored dot and a line of status under its name:
- Green, Connected, with the values per second and how many bad sentences there were.
- Amber, Connecting, Waiting to retry, or No data for 12 s when the stream has gone quiet.
- Red, Needs attention, with the reason in plain words, such as Local Network access being off or a server needing approval.
Press a connection to open it. Its Status section counts Bytes, Values, Checksum failures, Unreadable and Not decoded sentences, lists the most recent problems, and has Retry now.
Swipe a connection left to Delete it, which you then confirm, or to Turn off an automatic one.
When more than one source has the same value
A boat often has two sources of the same thing, such as GPS from the plotter and from the phone, or the same wind arriving through two gateways. Offwind keeps one value per channel. When the preferred source goes quiet it fails over to the next one, and moves back once the first has been steady again for a while. Values that go quiet are shown as stale rather than as current.
Limits
- The phone must be on the same network as the gateway. Offwind does not reach instruments over the internet.
- This version cannot receive UDP broadcast or multicast. If your gateway broadcasts, set it to send over TCP, or to send UDP directly to the phone's address.
- With the app in the background, connections keep running only while a track is recording. Otherwise they show Paused in background and pick up again when you return to the app.