I have an Airmar 220WX weather station. In addition to chart plotter and PC, I send its NMEA 0183 data to a Digital Yacht Wi-Fi gateway in station mode. The data is then available on the boats Wi-Fi via the PepWave router access point. We use the NMEA Remote app to display the data on our iPhones while on the boat. All works great. What would be even better is if there was a dedicated display that could take the data from Wi-Fi and display it in an always on format. Does anyone know how to do this?
We have also tried a typical Accurite weather station which does this, but like others of its kind, it is using some kind of radio signal from its exterior unit, not Wi-Fi. We don’t trust it as much as the Airmar, its exterior unit signal is unreliable and it requires batteries usually in need of replacement.
I guess we could hard wire the Airmar signal to a display, but since it is already on Wi-Fi it would be nice to use it that way.
Hi Frank,
I can think of a few ways to do this. Some require additional software, while others don’t but might not meet your goals. The simplest way I could think would be to use a tablet like an iPad or Android device and use the NMEA Remote app you’re already using, and stick it on a wall somewhere.
A more complicated version would be to install a small computer on your network like a Raspberry Pi and run some software that would allow for more customizable displays such as Grafana, or even dedicated apps like WilhelmSK and run those on a tablet, on a screen connected to the small computer, etc.
I’ve written before about some of these computers and solutions:
However, your solutions pretty much much need a “tablet” for the display. Nothing wrong with this except the cost. The tablet comes with way more capabilities than needed to run NMEA Remote, or similar.
Not all of my suggestions included a tablet. The last one was to use a screen with a small low power computer like the Raspberry Pi included in the articles. Those screens are really inexpensive, and meet your requirement of a dedicated display.
You could also look at e-ink displays, or other cheaper similar displays. Almost all would require some sort of computer or software behind them to display the weather.
The Rapsberry Pi solutions you detail seem to involve a NMEA 2000 network which I don’t have. Is that necesssary? My Airmar weather data is available on my Wi-Fi network in NMEA 0183. Isn’t there a way to use it directly as is done with the iPhone app? I gather that a Raspberry Pi could connect to my Wi-Fi. Could it then run the NMEA Remote app? Or, better still Airmar’s Weather Caster software so that I would have the same display as on my PC?
What about Arduino, is that an alternative to Raspberry Pi for my purpose?