GPS, 3G and Satellite Loggers

It is more and more common that yachts have permanent satellite trackers installed. These are not normally part of the navigation system, but are extra GPOS receivers to enable the boat to be tracked from shore - i.e. in the case of the yacht being stolen.

The loggers record the position and the time at regular intervals. This can be every minute of in some cases as seldom as every day. Depending on how the positions are send from the GPS device to the program using the information, we can divide these trackers into three categories:

USB Loggers

A cable (or Bluetooth connection) is used to upload the data after the journey. This data can be uploaded to via the website.

3G Loggers

The data is stored on the GPS device itself and when within 3G/GPRS coverage, the data is transmitted over the internet - usually to some central server. Some of these devices can be configured to send the data directly to BoatLogger and in other cases BoatLogger can fetch from the server.

Satellite Loggers

The positions are of course obtained via GPS. Since the yacht can be far out at sea, satellites transmission is then used to send a message up to i.e. Iridium satellites and then downlinked to a satellite control center before it is send over the internet to some servers. The befit is naturally that it is possible to transmit no matter where you are in the world. deLorme inReach is an example of such loggers that BoatLogger can interface with.