My current helm electronics setup...

[OA486AGC]

So my lower helm electronics currently consists of the following (photo attached):

Dual Simrad 12-inch touchscreen units, controlling radar, GPS, chart plotting, graph sounder, and autopilot. There is also a iPad to run Navionics...and iPhone cradle.

I am toying around with buying a new iPad Pro 12.9" to replace the old generation iPad.......or......buying a Mac mini or Mac Studio with 24" display and running it as a desktop at the lower helm. Part of me figures just get a new iPad and be done with it, and the other half thinks I should get a desktop setup to have easy access to email, Navionics, PredictWind.com, TrawlerForum.com, DeepZoom, ActiveCaptain, etc.

Am I overthinking things? Is what I currently have enough? Literally I swing back and forth and can't make up my mind. I tend to overdo things as a basic practice :lol:

What do others have set up at their main helm electronics wise? Are folks comfortable posting photos of their helm so I can get a glimpse of how others have their setup? We are a 48' Ocean Alexander PH w/ Flybridge. I have a 10" repeater screen up top BTW....

Thanks all!

 

[Gdavid]

So my lower helm electronics currently consists of the following (photo attached):

Dual Simrad 12-inch touchscreen units, controlling radar, GPS, chart plotting, graph sounder, and autopilot. There is also a iPad to run Navionics...and iPhone cradle.

I am toying around with buying a new iPad Pro 12.9" to replace the old generation iPad.......or......buying a Mac mini or Mac Studio with 24" display and running it as a desktop at the lower helm. Part of me figures just get a new iPad and be done with it, and the other half thinks I should get a desktop setup to have easy access to email, Navionics, PredictWind.com, TrawlerForum.com, DeepZoom, ActiveCaptain, etc.

Am I overthinking things? Is what I currently have enough? Literally I swing back and forth and can't make up my mind. I tend to overdo things as a basic practice :lol:

What do others have set up at their main helm electronics wise? Are folks comfortable posting photos of their helm so I can get a glimpse of how others have their setup? We are a 48' Ocean Alexander PH w/ Flybridge. I have a 10" repeater screen up top BTW....

Thanks all!

It sounds adequate to me but it really depends on how you use the boat. Are you using the ipad to mirror one of your simrad units using the navico app? If not, I would definitely recommend setting it up. It has limited usage at the station with the MFD you are mirroring but it is very useful for a second station that probably has fewer screens than your primary helm. It is a great reason to justify a newer and faster ipad but the older units do just fine.

I would consider adding the capability to feed data to your ipad via wifi in order to provide some redundance. The primary being depth and possibly AIS so if your simrad network (not the nmea) goes down, you have a pretty comprehensive MFD in your ipad.