Association Forum - Active Captain & EBoatCards

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Active Captain & EBoatCards

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

britinusa
Web Editor

Member Avatar

USA
5404 Posts

Initially Posted - 05/13/2015 : 12:42:24

Have you heard the news about the upcoming update to Active Captain and eBoatCards?

Here's a part of the news that I received by email.

>>> Getting Ready for Locations >>>

When we meet boaters on the docks for the first time, there's a very
common quote we frequently hear. It goes something like, "We love
ActiveCaptain, but we just haven't gotten into that e-cards thing yet."

We honestly don't mind hearing that.

eBoatCards is very immature. It was created to give a backbone to a
major set of new capabilities planned over the next 10 years. We've
taken a lot of time to get the security and privacy right and have built
a framework and server back-end that allows a lot of incredible
functionality to be released while supporting hundreds of thousands of
users.

We're now on the verge of fully releasing an exciting capability.

Locations allows you to watch and view the location of all the boaters
you know on one screen. You can leave it running and watch their
movements. You can see where they are docking or see the place they've
decided to anchor. And of course, you can always turn off the
broadcasting so no one can see where you are.

Locations is like AIS meeting SPOT, DeLorme, FourSquare, and a dozen
other where-am-I apps. But it's for boaters. It allows you to see your
friends wherever they are, along with other boats within a 5 nm radius,
all dependent on the privacy permissions each boater sets.

We've been using SPOT and DeLorme for a while. We love them. But those
systems typically only show one of your friends on the screen. That's OK
but it is much nicer to see all the people you know on one screen.

There are about 40,000 people on eBoatCards today. We started noticing
that we'd pass a boat on the waterway to find that they were listed in
eBoatCards about 30% of the time. We knew that would provide some really
good feedback when Locations was released.

Locations is a free Windows, Macintosh, Android, and iOS app. We allowed
about a hundred testers to use it over the last 2 weeks while waiting
for Apple to approve the iOS version for the iTunes App Store. If you'd
like to play with the early test version, grab it at:
https://activecaptain.com/locations

Please don't download the Android version unless you know how to
manually install an apk file. If that's not your thing, wait another
week for it to show up in the Google Play Store. We can't give apk
installation assistance. It'll just delay all the other great features
that are coming.

Here are the things to do to prepare for the full release of Locations:

1. Make sure you have your electronic boat card in eBoatCards. Just log
into eBoatCards.com with your ActiveCaptain account email/password and
it will automatically set everything up.

2. Select Account / Privacy Settings and check the first 3 settings.
They're all used for Locations.

3. Get your real boating friends in your friends list. This isn't like
Facebook. There's no contest to get a thousand friends. Instead, make
sure the people you really know are in your friends list. Here are some
of the best ways to find your friends:

- Email your boat name to your friends and tell them to look you up in
eBoatCards.

- Look up your friends - type their boat name or last name into the
search field located at the top of every screen. Click on their card and
then select the Add to Friends button in the upper right.

- Select Resources at the top and select Owner's Groups. There are a
couple of hundred boat owner's groups. Find the boat manufacturer group
for your boat, make it a favorite by clicking the star in the upper
right, and look around at the members to find others you know with your
type of boat. Go to their card and use the Add to Friends button.

4. Keep your own location current for others to watch. You can manually
set your location in your eBoatCard. Click Home and click on Location on
the left side. You can access a map of where your friends are and you
can manually set your current position.

You can also attach a DeLorme inReach or SPOT Messenger to your profile.
Any time you turn on those devices, eBoatCards will grab your location
and automatically record it. See this previous newsletter for the
details on that:
https://activecaptain.com/newsletters/2014-12-10.php

5. Run the new Locations app - either the test version out now or wait
for the full release in about a week. The app combines your friends and
nearby boats on one screen and updates their movements. In doing that,
it is uploading your location to the server to share it every 5 minutes.
The size of the data exchange is very small and only happens once every
5 minutes. Only friend data that changes is sent so the bandwidth needed
for this to work is tiny. This ability to exchange changing data in an
efficient way is a major part of the server code in eBoatCards and will
be used with many more of the capabilities that are coming.

This new app has a new mapping model complete with maps, nautical
charts, satellite imagery, and the ability to link to other map servers.
The existing testers report it to be surprisingly fast and we're really
proud of how well it works with new GPU support for high resolution and
blazing speed.

We've been using it non-stop for almost a month. It's great fun and gets
you involved with the cruising of your friends in a new way. It's fun to
see who's moving and watch them stop for the night.

For more information and help, see the Locations page:
https://activecaptain.com/locations

We're eagerly waiting for Apple to approve the iOS version. That will
mark the official release of all versions in the different app stores.

This will start to give you a view into why we've been spending so much
development effort on eBoatCards. You'll see how all the pieces start
working together making 1 + 1 = 5. And just wait until you see how the
small additions coming later this year will enable an even bigger wallop
of new capabilities.

This is only the very beginning.

We're getting more and more out of Active Captain.

The waterway guide now shows Active Captain data online

We use Garmin Home Port on our PC's & Laptops, it too shows Active Captain data.

Enjoy.

Paul

Joint Decision. (Sold)
PO C250WB 2005 Sail # 841.

Moved up to C34 Eximius

Updated August 2015

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
5434 Posts

Response Posted - 05/13/2015 : 19:45:20

OK Paul, I have Active Captain and I got the email today or yesterday, so now I have to log into another app to create eBoat Cards? And I need to tell my friends to download the apps so I can collaborate with them out on the water?
In concept, I like the idea because there are times when a buddy will tell me I was out on the Sound between 11am and 3pm, and so was I. Would have been nice to raft up for a beer or snack.
Do I have to be connected to the Internet?

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

britinusa
Web Editor

Members Avatar

USA
5404 Posts

Response Posted - 05/14/2015 : 11:04:56

Bruce, the Android app will not be released for about a week, but I think it does require a live cell data connection.

I'm looking forward to getting the app.

Paul