This is my OpenPlotter installation. This includes an OpenWRT router which supplies the boat with WiFi. Once any WiFi device with a web browser is connected to the ships lan viewing of the ships navigation data and chartplotter is easy. The Raspberry Pi is serving a webpage accessible by entering the Raspberry Pi's hostname in the URL - no knowledge of the DHCP ip address required. Upon reaching the webpage hyperlinks are provided which connect to the various ports and services which are open and running on the Raspberry Pi.
SignalK data stream is being published on port 3000 and is viewable from some of the webpages generated by the SignalK software package included with OpenPlotter
NMEA data stream is being published on port 10110
Since the OpenPlotter/Raspberry Pi is supposed to be a low power alternative to running a full fledged laptop navigation system I've intentionally set this up to run headless. No monitor, keyboard or mouse to reduce energy. A laptop with no specific software other than a web browser is mounted at the nav station. When not in use the lid is shut the laptop enters a low power standby state. When the lid is opened it immediately comes out of standby and picks up where ever it was left off. Since the OpenPlotter is a headless installation I've provided a means to interface and control the unit via a form of remote desktop called VNC. 2 instances of VNC server are running. One on port 5901 and one on port 5902. Both share the same desktop but 5901 is unpassworded and view only, 5902 is passworded and is interactive. Since they are shared, limitless clients can attach to these ports and all see/interact with the same desktop. In its native form VNC requires a VNC client which would mean that all/new/visiting devices would be required to install this "specialty" software. To avoid this I've found and installed a software product called noVNC which websockifies the VNC data found at port 590x to 688x. This allows connection to a VNC server without a VNC client software via a regular web browser. I have provided 2 links on the Raspberry Pi's website to each of these noVNC ports, one for view only and one for password/interactive.
Since all of the data streams are available at their respective ports any number of client software packages can easily pull the data streams. Android, Windows and Linux all have numerous applications which can interface with the data stream and even publish to the data stream. The laptop has OpenCPN installed and since it's processing power and speed are higher the overall experience is better. This isn't necessarily the ultimate intent though. One of the most powerful ways that I have found to setup the laptop is with a separate desktop which is used exclusively to display gages. Properly setup a dashboard with all of the ships information is readily available. In the future the addition of engine information, bilge level/counter, refrigerator temp, battery voltage, hatch position, etc is planned to be added.
OpenPlotter software website - www.sailoog.com/en/openplotter
Links to my other related videos:
OpenPlotter Hardware - • Openplotter hardware
OpenPlotter Software - • OpenPlotter software