Thread: Smart Boat
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Old 01-12-2020, 06:49 AM   #16
twistedtree
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City: Vermont
Join Date: Jan 2013
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I've done quite a bit of monitoring and alarming, but little to no automated action in response to anything. The monitoring is pretty reliable, but still starts to come unglued after it's been running for a month or so without restart. Same with internet connectivity, which monitoring, and certainly Alexa-schmexa automation, requires. So the bottom line is that I haven't encountered anything yet that's reliable enough to be comfortable automating. And I'm not thinking of a lot of things that I'd want to automate anyway.


Off hand, I can think of two things that I DO plan to automate in our boat.



One is auto generator start. If the boat is unattended at anchor or without shore power, or loses shore power, when the batteries get too low I want the generator to start and go through a recharge cycle. I have been doing this in an off-grid house fro 20 years now and am comfortable that it can be done with very high reliability.


The second thing is battery protection for LFP batteries. If things go wrong, like the generator doesn't start, I want my battery bank to disconnect before it gets damaged. But lots of alarms will have gone out before that happens, so I'll know that some intervention is required.


I think that's it.


To the OP, what kinds of "smartness" were you thinking of? You mention lights. So far I have yet to encounter a "smart" lighting system that doesn't just annoy me and make life more difficult. But I guess "difficult" is in the eye of the beholder.
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