PiLot

The PiLot is a Raspberry Pi based system for boating. It's used with any device having a browser and wifi. It's completely autonomous and works perfectly without internet access. All data is fully controlled by the owner, as it's stored locally in simple formats and thus easily accessible.

Features:

Maps

Offline maps (osm and openseamap)
GPS Position on the map
Historic track on the map
Course and speed over ground vector
Waypoints on the map, showing distance, bearing and ETA
POIs (points of interest): manage manually and import from OSM
Anchor alarm

Routes

Define an unlimited number of routes
Each route can have any number of waypoints
The route shows total distance, distance and bearing between each waypoint

GPS data

Position
COG (course over ground)
SOG (speed over ground)
VMC (velocity made good on course)
XTE (cross track error)

Logbook

Create logbook entries automatically fed with meteo and GPS data
Select boat setup (engine, sails etc, freely configurable) for each logbook entry
Create a logbook entry with one click, e.g. when leaving port or setting sails
Visualize the boat setup with freely configurable boat images

Diary

Show logbook, diary text, track and photos for one day on the diary page

Meteo

Show actual and historic sensor data
Temperature
Air pressure, with 48h barograph and trend indicator
Humidity
Moon phase

Entertainment

Games
eBook library

Other

User interface language: english or german
Export track as GPX, CSV, JSON or tabular data
Import TCX data
Download offline maps for any desired region and detail level
Publish diary data to any other pilot
Online live tracking
Configurable Boattime (when moving from one timezone to the other)
User management with specific permission levels
Night mode
Responsive user interface adapting to all sizes of screens

Screenshots

Map with route, waypoint information, track, position and cog-vector:

Navigation data with waypoints:

Diary page:

Meteo page with all environment sensor data:

Mobile views

Getting started

For users

If you have a bit of time and curiosity, you can set up your own PiLot at no cost (except the hardware). You will end up having a free and open system to plan, track and relive your adventures on the water.

BE AWARE that the PiLot does in no way replace neither reliable, professional navigation equipment nor up-to-date charts. The PiLot might be wrong, or might even fail entirely.

See Getting started for Users for further details.

For developers

If you feel like contributing to the PiLot ecosystem, then you are more than welcome. It's just HTML, vanilla Javascript and dotnet core with C#. No bloat, no frameworks, just straightforward code. All you need is your favourite IDE, the dotnet SDK, a webserver (such as nginx) and git. See Getting started for developers for further details.

Using the PiLot on a kayak at night (for those who can't afford a proper yacht):