[TG] Wifi interface with Axiom

[jamesfrankham]

Last month I installed a suite of Raymarine products—Axiom9, I70s, wind gear, itc5 and a P70s/ACU200/ type-1 drive for autopilot. It’s all working well as a closed system, but I was under the impression that I would be able to get data in and out of it more easily than it appears. So three queries;

1. Can I use my Axiom as a wifi gateway for my NMEA data/devices? I would like to build custom dashboards for a number of displays on board, including a navigation computer. It has all the necessary hardware so should be possible, but I haven’t discovered a way to do it other than buying a Yacht Devices gateway that has the same hardware but allows open access to network data.

2. I would like to send waypoints and routes to the Axiom from the navigation computer over the network or over the air rather than by a silly hardware transfer via SD card that means disassembling my dashboard to get to the rear of the unit. Again, the Axiom has all the hardware and network technology to do this, but I can figure out how.

3. The three apps—RayView, RayRemote and RayControl—all allow me to see what’s on the Axiom screen, but can’t really remotely operate it as you would on the display, to the point that they are almost entirely useless. Is there an update planned for this?

Very keen to get some information on the above. Regards, James

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello James,

Quote:1. Can I use my Axiom as a wifi gateway for my NMEA data/devices?

No, Axiom MFDs don't output navigation data over Wifi. There's not at this stage a mainstream standard comparable with IEC61162 (for wired marine navigational networks) for wireless ethernet applications, and we have a long-enough list of features that we want to introduce that we're not looking for extra projects to take on at this stage. We also have been involved in PC navigation applications before and found the effort/reward ratio very much skewed the wrong way and I don't think we have any plans in the near-future to go away from dedicated, marinised, specialised navigational devices.

Quote:I would like to send waypoints and routes to the Axiom from the navigation computer over the network or over the air rather than by a silly hardware transfer via SD card that means disassembling my dashboard to get to the rear of the unit.

You can either use the Navionics app on your mobile device (which syncs waypoints/routes with Raymarine displays over Wifi as long as both app and MFD chart card have active subscriptions), or you can get an external card reader (part A80585) which we offer so that you don't have to access the back of an Axiom or Axiom XL display like this. There is not yet any wireless standard (or proto-standard, such as SignalK) which, as far as I am aware, offers bulk waypoint transfer.

Quote:The three apps—RayView, RayRemote and RayControl—all allow me to see what’s on the Axiom screen, but can’t really remotely operate it as you would on the display

In what way? View is view-only by design, Remote is designed for phone-sized screens and therefore toggles between keypad and screen-repeater modes but should offer about as full a control mechanism as limited screen-size, Wifi signal and a free app will allow, whilst Control should give almost full control, with the same restrictions from screen-size and Wifi bandwidth. None of the apps offer pilot control for safety reasons, and there will always be a small lag in two-way comms and a reduction in the precision of the video display and touch-input location due to the scaling between your MFD's screen resolution and your device's.
These apps are provided as a convenience, but they're not designed, intended or suitable for use as a full second-station solution. Mobile devices and Wifi just aren't reliable enough (especially in a marine environment) for that.

Regards,
Tom