Smartphone on Boat

smartphone in barca news 1

The smartphone can be an aid to the needs of navigation, what is its role? Could you replace the cutter? Nav-Station tries to answer...

Nav-Station in the age of Smartphones

Smartphone in Barca n.1
Smartphone in Barca n.2
Smartphone in Barca n.3
Smartphone in Barca n.4

Nav-Station follows with interest the evolution of the use of smartphones in the nautical sector and invites today to make some reflections. Ours is a world that is rapidly changing and it is necessary to identify new rules and principles, so that this advent of high technology is translated into concrete benefits, even for lovers of the sea.

Today it is admirable that the new generation has found a sixth sense in the diligent use of smartphones. There is no doubt that these smartphones or tablets can also help in navigation and that these people also benefit in the use of the boat.

But the same people, besides having to know the practice of traditional nautical charts, must also know how to use a real plotter, born, studied, designed and built to navigate in the sea and really able to perform those operations to help the nautical charts.

You go by sea in the right clothes and when the sea conditions become harsh, smartphones take cover. Nav-Station is the right dress, born, studied, designed and built in Italy to be a real nautical GPS, or a simple unit able to navigate the sea, even when smartphones are sheltered.

Some competitors have designed plotters that can delegate some features to smartphones. Nav-Station believes that the two technologies are distinct, very different to keep away from each other, but certainly both useful in their separate roles.

There are also other competitors who try to make the user find some of the features in smartphones, such as the touchscreen display. Smartphones need to reduce the size to a minimum and it is understandable that you sacrifice the keyboard, while Nav-Station believes that those few centimeters needed to allocate a keyboard, are a necessary sacrifice for the sake of security and the best chance that pressing that key will occur the expected function.

Nav-Station does not believe that the advent of smartphones even on boats is just a fashion, but a real new way of navigating. The nautical GPS is an aid to navigation and does not replace traditional maps, the smartphone can also be an aid to navigation, but does not replace the features of the plotter, while the smart-plotters are hybrids that have no objective location except that of trying to compete with smartphones or tablets.