The Virtual Tactician

Audio feedback, fast transmission rates and smoothing of wind data give a new approach to sailboat navigation that is easy to set up...

1. Audio: Your tablet/phone can connect on Bluetooth to the wireless, solar-powered SailTimer Wind Instrument™. But the screen may be hard to see in bright sun out on the water. And you may not have hands free to fiddle with it while sailing, or a place to mount it. Fortunately, Audio Navigation™ solves this in the SailTimer Wind Gauge and tacking apps. You can put the tablet/phone away safe and dry, with the screen dimmed to reduce battery consumption and heat. Audio feedback lets you hear wind conditions and boat speed with a simple tap on the screen, or any time conditions change by more than a set amount.

3. Smoothing wireless wind data: averaging the incoming data can smooth out any jumpiness or dampen oscillations from waves. A new version of the SailTimer API - WMM (v. 1.3.7) has just been updated in the Android app store that now smooths over a set number of transmissions (instead of over seconds), for the very high transmission rates that the Wind Instrument can now provide. For example, if transmitting at 10 Hz, you can average over the most recent 3 or 4 transmissions as in the screenshot below. The transmissions are still very fast at 10 Hz but will now be averaged over 1/3 second, making them beautifully smooth and quick.