I have CE on my iPhone and iPad. The AIS data displayed is from the Vesper Marine XB-8000 device.
Is the magnetic heading displayed in CE coming from the iPhone/iPad or from the AIS device?
Thanks
If your Vesper is providing a heading, then Coastal Explorer should be using that. You can tell what device is providing the heading at any time by tapping on the HDG sensor status panel in your instruments which will popup something like this:
In this case, there is a compass on an NMEA 0183 Over UDP port that is providing the heading as well as an NMEA 2000 heading sensor that is a “backup” and the “Internal Sensor” which represents the compass built-in to the iPad or iPhone. The list of devices you see will depend on which of your configured devices are providing heading information.
Brad: I understand the HDG sensor panel when using CE on my iPhone but do not understand the “Internal Sensor” option when using CE on my iPad. The iPhone has a magnetometer but iPads do not have magnetometers, to my knowledge. My iPhone 11 came with an Apple Compass app but my iPad 6th generation did not.
Thanks
I don’t know what type of heading sensor iPads have, and it might be different for different models, but they do have something. From an app’s perspective, though, the OS either provides a heading or it doesn’t and there’s no way to tell where it came from. All it can tell is that it came from the OS and (sometimes) how precise the OS thinks it is.
By the way, the same goes for positions when using “Internal Sensor”. There is no way for Coastal Explorer (or any app) to know if a position came from a GPS internal to the iPad or iPhone, or from a Bluetooth GPS, or even from cell phone tower triangulation or IP address-based guesses. In all cases, the OS decides which position to use and provides a little information about how precise it thinks it is to the app.
By default Coastal Explorer will always prefer headings and positions from sensors other than the “Internal Sensor” and will only use those if nothing else is available.