Touchscreen Monitors with Front Brightness Control

I’m in the final stages of my project and was convinced on doing a computer and TZ Pro setup rather than another TZT2 device. The navnet integration is really cool! I found a great fanless computer with lots of power but am struggling on monitors. Has anyone found a good supplier of touch screen monitors that have brightness control easy to access? I started looking at IP65 but frankly on a 54ft boat and having a TZT2 as a backup I don’t think I need that in the pilot house (feel free to tell me it’s a boat and everything gets wet

AC

Big Bay?

I have had good luck with Litemax/Navpixel. They are still very expensive compared to commercial monitors, but are 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of the equivalent from Furuno, Hatteland, etc.

The advantage, and why I ultimately spent the $$, is in a number of areas, in no particular order:

- 1000 nit, full daylight visibility. To me this still matters even in a pilot house. When the sun is low and in front of you, moving your sight from outside to the monitors will make the monitors much easier to see with 1000 nits. Otherwise you eyes need to adjust quite a bit. The same is true when there is glare coming in from other angles on the screens. You pay handsomely for the brightness, but I think it's worth every penny in this application.

- Dimming smooth dimming to full black. Most monitors dim just a bit, then go black. That's not helpful for dusk and night operation. Lots of people compensate by making light filtering screens that fit over the monitors. I'd rather have a cleaner solution, and full dim to black does that.

- A dedicated dimmer knob. This is really like as compared to fumbling around in menus and pressing buttons that you can't see or distinguish from one another. You can quickly and easily find the knob by feel.

- Display modes that respect and preserve the incoming video aspect ratio. This only matters with certain devices, but when you need it, you really need it. If, for example, you plan to use the monitor to display a black box radar or many of the black box chart plotters, those devices have fixed video output resolution. 100% of the commercial monitors that I have tried take the incoming video and stretch it to fit the screen in one way or another. The result is a distorted chart or radar image with range rings that are oval rather than round, and perspective and scaling that is all off. It simply doesn't work with commercial monitors.

Take a look at the Comark line if you want something very heavy duty. Seen them in use on workboats in the Gulf. No need for sunlight visible in the PH, I used a bank of 300nit Acer monitors for years, seldom at full brightness. How big a display? If you don't want need industrial strength, then something like Acer, Dell LG or Samsung works just fine.

As Twistedtree alluded, one question is do you plan to have a setup that is good for night cruising, including the ceiling mounted red helm lights that preserve night vision? If you do, then you might want the displays also to be able to shift to night mode.
I'm not familiar with Navnet, but just throwing this thought out there as something to consider...

Thanks all, for true night visibility I will still have a TZT2, Furuno 1935 radar, furuno depth sounder, etc so I don’t need it to be perfect but dimming to easily use at dusk is important.
I’ll start with the ones TwistedTree suggested. I think I’ll need 2 15” ones

TwistedTree the info on those particular monitors is very helpful to me so THANKS for posting.

Dimming on a touch screen monitor should be available both on the computer and TZ menus as well as the monitors own on screen settings. Not sure if a separate knob or control is really necessary anymore.