Nobletec Navigator vs. Rose Point

I am in the process of upgrading an older Nobletec navigation system.

I would love the hear about the experience of anyone running the new Nobletec Navigator. Especially with peripheral devices, ei AIS, Radar, autopilot.

Thinking back to my initial installation and what a project it was getting everything to interface.

How about Rose Point, again interfacing with multiple devices?

Just wondering what I'm getting myself into?

Can't compare it to Nobletec, but we run Rose Point Coastal Explorer with the new user interface, interfaced to a Vesper XB 6000 AIS transciever. On Windows 7-64. Excellent! Have not yet tried to control the autopilot with CE, but friends do this.

Malahide

Three years ago we had the same question. At that time it was Trident and not Navigator vs CE.

Both will do fine, but since we have Furuno NN3 and were going with a Furuno AP we went with Trident. We do have a Simrad AIS connected. Our very smart instrument tech was undecided too but at that time after a discussion with both at the Seattle Boat Show he advised Trident for radar compatibility which CE couldn't do.

Again, both do well, but the plotter is only part of the overall system. The Trident has done well, but it is on a stand alone dedicated laptop. Multi use laptops can create issues. We have a 12 year old Nobletec VNS on its own laptop and it has performed without incident.

Hi Malahide,

I'm currently operating Coastal Explorer (CE), V3, on a NUC PC running 64-bit Win 7 operating system. I interfaced a Standard Horizon GX2200 (GPS and AIS) to CE, and my Comnav 1001 autopilot. All interfaces were straight forward, particularly because of the GREAT tech support of CE.

I do not transpond on AIS (receive only), and do not have a radar interface, both because of personal preference. I plan to upgrade CE to version 4 this spring, so can't comment on the current user interface with CE, although I expect the upgrade to be reasonably painless. I have only about a year on my autopilot interface, and like it very much. I will say there are issues with the AP interface that fall on Comnav's side of the fence ("interesting" software logic when selecting a route to navigate!!) which I'm learning to deal with.

Guess this is a three-thumbs-up endorsement of CE. Not wanting or needing many bells and whistles in my computer navigation, I'm a happy boy. I particularly enjoy the real-time (given the accessibility to the WWW) updating of my charts (both NOAA and CHS, vector plus raster) in my local area (PNW-CAN-AK) that CE provides.

Regards,

Pete

ps-thanks for keeping Ursa Major chugging on into the future. Not an easy task, but one well worth doing. Wish I could do the same!

I run Navigator v3 on a Windows 10 desktop and a MacBookPro (win 10 also). I much prefer using the PC compared to NN3D on a large MFD )on the flybridge. I have Comnav AIS, Furuno NavPilot and Furuno radar. The latter is connected via ethernet Cat5 to a switch, so either the PC or laptop (or both) can display radar. It all works very well, very easy to control the displays with the mouse.

My configuration mistake was using NMEA 0183. The NavPilot is connected to the MFD, which outputs NMEA 0183 to an Actisense mutiplexor. This works well in combining multiple 0183 inputs for USB connection to the PC. But it would have been better to feed NMEA 2000 to the PC.

Rose Point has a NEMO gateway that looks to be a really great piece of kit. I have never tried CE, so can't really compare the two nav products.

I can't comment on Nobeltec, but I've been running Coastal Explorer for quite a while and love it. I was a beta tester for Rose Points Nemo Gateway so I've been using that for quite some time as well. With the Nemo wired in to a cheap wifi router ($30) I have all my NMEA 0183/2000 data broadcast wirelessly to my Surface Pro tablet running CE. The only thing I don't have feeding CE is my radar, but other than that I couldn't be happier with the setup.

Thanks for all the first hand reports. I'm looking forward to the boat show!

I'll chime in in favor of CE. Nobletec and MaxSea are now one in the same, and I used MaxSea a few years ago for about a year and never warmed to it. Despite the 'Time Zero" moniker, it was painfully slow, too forever to boot up, and was very inflexible interfacing to 3rd part hardware. After switching the CE, I never looked back. I'm sure MaxSea has improved, and it's the only thing that can display Furuno radar and fish finder images.

CE is fast, easy to use, and does an outstanding job of interfacing to 3rd party hardware, and especially good with their Nemo interface. One thing that CE does better than anything else I've seen is intelligently support multiple instruments. I have a sat compass (position and heading), another GPS, a magnetic heading sensor, two depth sounders, an AIS transponder, two radars, and an autopilot, all interfaced to CE. You can tell it which sensors are primary and which are secondary. In fact you can rank an arbitrary number of each device type, and it will automatically use the highest priority device, and drop down if that one fails. It works equally well with 0183 and NMEA 2000, which can't be said for many products. And you get all that for under $400.

We are very pleased Coastal Explorer. It came with the boat. We did a license transfer, and an upgrade. The folks at C. E. are great to work with.
Could not be happier.

I used CE, Raymarine and Navionics on a 12" Ipad. They all work well. The Raymarine and the CE both drive my Simrad AP equally well. Ipad is a no go.


CE does a better job than the Raymarine for AIS targeting and course predictions.


Raymarine does Radar overlay, CE does this if you buy the correct radar.


CE can be displayed on a 24" screen for little money.


Computers are the most fragile then ipads, MFD's are very robust and can surive on open flybridegs.


As you can tell I love back up systems. Why settle for one when they cost so little, $800 for a computer and CE, $300 for Ipad mini and Navionics.


On my last delivery from LA to Seattle was done soley with the navionics on the Ipad.

I've used CE at work for several years now, and I really like it. It's an extremely stable and reliable program. Very user friendly.

I've never had to do any of the setup or installation on it, since we have a technician for that sort of thing, but day to day, it's excellent.

I’ve been really interested in CE but wondered about radar integration. Their website offers very little to go on. I just upgraded to a Garmin HD radar but don’t know it’s it’s compatible.

I've been a CE user for more than 10 years and can't think of a better way to navigate. I have radar overlay with a Garmin chartplotter and I am not a fan of overlays. If I integrated a radar with CE I would not run it as an overlay but as a separate window. When I run radar it is as a separate window. It seems to me it is too easy to lose a target in the chartplotter display in overlay than in a dedicated radar window. The NEMO is great because it eliminated the problem of using USB devices with CE.


Tom

What Mac are you guys running successfully? Obviously running Boot Camp. Many macs don't have dedicated video cards???

I have to agree with tp. I find using radar overlay to be more of a gimmick. I find too much detail is lost using overlay. I much prefer having two monitors, one for plotting and one for radar.

Helen Marie said:

We are very pleased Coastal Explorer. It came with the boat. We did a license transfer, and an upgrade. The folks at C. E. are great to work with.
Could not be happier.

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I've been using CE for the past two seasons, after being away from boating for the entirety of the GPS/plotter revolution.

I was, however, "messing about" in airborne applications, as my department at the University of Alaska was central to the development of what is now known as ADS-B.

So here's the cool feature: When I called Rose Point to ask when my charting subscription expires, I was told: "Never. We get the data from the government, and we don't believe in charging you for something we get for free." Contrast that with Jeppesen, who have been sucking hundreds of dollars out of my wallet per annum to update my aircraft GPS's with government-provided data.

Which leads us to the question: is that practice true for all of the marine providers or is it a special Coastal Explorer feature?

tiltrider1 said:

I have to agree with tp. I find using radar overlay to be more of a gimmick. I find too much detail is lost using overlay. I much prefer having two monitors, one for plotting and one for radar.

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+2

My radar experience is 30 years in ATC, where "chart overlay" meant a few reference lines which could be used to orient to detailed charts available nearby. ...with varying levels of detail selectable to reduce clutter.

Malahide, I recently bought a trawler (Selene) with outdated Nobeltec software. Not sure what version but it was no longer supported. I replaced with CE running on a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet PC. I too opted for the Vesper XB-8000 for both AIS and GPS and streamed to a MS data hub that powers the tablet. An HDMI cable relays everything from the tablet to a 19” Furuno monitor which I use as my primary monitor. The CE program is easier to use (more intuitive with more features) than Nobeltec Navigator which I used on my previous boat, a Willard 40 Trawler. Most importantly, Rose Point customer service is outstanding.

Airstream345 said:

I’ve been really interested in CE but wondered about radar integration. Their website offers very little to go on. I just upgraded to a Garmin HD radar but don’t know it’s it’s compatible.

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Going to the boat show? Drop by their spot up stairs.

I have used CE on a laptop for the past 2 years cruising the Inside Passage and SE Alaska. I love it. I also have 2 MFD. For navigation, I found CE far superior. I will be uploading the next version this spring. It came out last summer and I didn't want to up grade then have to "re-learn" it on the cruise.


BTW, I have yet to integrate anything to CE. I would like to have AIS on my CE. CE guys are at the Seattle boat show and will discuss it with you for as long as you wish. They have great customer service.

Miltech makes a NMEA to wifi box. Hook it up to your AIS NMEA port, log you pc into the WiFi and you have AIS on CE.

tpbrady said:

I've been a CE user for more than 10 years and can't think of a better way to navigate. I have radar overlay with a Garmin chartplotter and I am not a fan of overlays. If I integrated a radar with CE I would not run it as an overlay but as a separate window. When I run radar it is as a separate window. It seems to me it is too easy to lose a target in the chartplotter display in overlay than in a dedicated radar window. The NEMO is great because it eliminated the problem of using USB devices with CE.


Tom

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As other's have said, CE is great. Originally, I had wanted it to also integrate the radar, but after a dew thousand miles, I really like them separate now.
It helps with your situational awareness, especially at night, in difficult situations because your brain in forced to reconcile the two inputs.

I have a dedicated computer with solid state drive and two Samsung LCD 24" monitors which will work with 12 volts. This system is now 4 years old with almost 20k+ miles and nary a problem.