I read that NMEA has released a new version 3.0 with many new PGN’s. How will that impact CE and can CE take advantage of this new version? Will NEMO be able to use any of the newly added PGN’s? I understand the interoperability between devices is greatly improved. From the NMEA news release it seems this might open the doors to new software control of network devices. In any case, it sounds interesting for marine electronics.
NMEA 2000 Version 3 adds new PGNs for controlling lighting and a few new mostly non-navigation-related sensor types. All of the PGNs from earlier versions are still used in version 3. It will probably take a while for manufacturers to start selling devices that use these new PGNs, but even then it’s not clear how useful they will be for Coastal Explorer users other than possibly providing a few new instruments.
The Nemo Gateway won’t directly “use” any of the new PGNs as it really only “uses” the PGNs that have NMEA 0183 equivalents when it is configured to perform translations. It will, however, pass the new PGNs on to Coastal Explorer if they are being used on the NMEA 200 network.
The “improved interoperability” is not really a change to how NMEA 2000 works, but rather to how devices are tested for compatibility. That should be a good thing for NMEA 2000 overall, but we are not aware of any compatibility problems with Coastal Explorer or the Nemo Gateway, so it shouldn’t have any noticeable impact on our products.
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