Introduction
Sentinel monitoring gives you a complete view of your boat's status and history right on your phone. The solution comes with a Boat monitor device (BM) which is a standalone telematics control unit that needs to be installed onboard.
BM monitors basic boat status through wired sensors, networked NMEA 2000 sensors and Bluetooth wireless sensors while it also offers a certain level of remote control through local, wireless or NMEA 2000 based switches.
First year subscription usually comes bundled with the device, after that you can renew your subscription in our web shop. In some cases you get a 1 month free trial subscription when buying the device. In this case you need to purchase a subscription after the trial has ended. Once subscription expires, you can no longer use real-time monitoring capability.
Basic theory of operation
The boat data gets updated frequently while the boat is moving to make sure the route and sensor data are accurate. But when the boat is not moving, the data only updates every 20 minutes, unless some safety related event occurs (such as door opens, shore power disconnects, motion is detected...).
Therefore, any non-critical changes in sensor values can take up to 20 minutes to be visible in the app. You can always toggle one of the safety inputs to force an update of the complete sensor range. You can even toggle one of the remote switches inside the mobile app to achieve that.
Boat monitor uses cellular connection, which means it can send live data when it's approximately within 15 miles from the nearest land, as long as the area of the land is covered with mobile signal. When a device loses network coverage the data is stored and uploaded when mobile network connection is restored.
If for some reason the normal operation is not restored, even though the boat is located in the area where the mobile network coverage is confirmed to be normal, please report it to our support team.
Subscription
Your basic license lets you keep track of your boat's location and data from 10 sensors or switches (data-points) at the same time, and you'll get alarms based on this data. If you need to monitor more things on your boat, you can add more by buying a subscription on our website.
You can choose which sensors you want to use at any time by going to the "Edit sensors" feature on our website or mobile app, as explained in this guide.
If you've connected a different type of sensor to the Boat monitor, you can also change the sensor type. For more information, please follow this guide.
Deselected sensors are not shown in the sensor screen and alarms from these sensors are muted.
Sensors
Generally, sensors can be split in three major categories: locally attached sensors, Bluetooth sensors and NMEA 2000 sensors. Locally attached sensors are the ones which are available when Boat monitor is installed and different wires are used according to installation schematics. Supported Bluetooth sensors can be paired to the device using the pairing procedure from our mobile app. NMEA 2000 sensors are obtained from boat Instruments.
Locally attached sensors:
Battery voltage 1,2,3,4 (analog inputs)
Bilge (digital input)
Door switch or PIR motion sensor (digital input)
Shore power (digital input)
Supported Bluetooth sensors:
- Sentinel hubs
- Torqeedo motors
- Battery monitors
- Calypso wind instrument
- and more.
Contact us for more info on this topic
NMEA sensors:
- we support all standard NMEA data from various sources onboard, such as CZone, Raymarine, Garmin, simrad, various engine gateways...
Please refer to NMEA section below for more information.
NMEA
CZone integration
By connecting the BM to a CZone system you get remote access to CZone remote switching and alarms (CZone license required). Once connected, the app will show the remote switches available in your CZone configuration. But remember, only remote switches set up to work with third-party devices will show up in the app. If you change how the switches work in your CZone system, use the "Refresh switching configuration" feature in the Edit switches screen to sync it with the app. You can read more on CZone integration setup here.
CZone alarms are sent as soon as they happen. But in the Sentinel app, you need to acknowledge them on the CZone side before they can be sent to the app again (though this might change in the future).
We also support other switching systems like empirbus using the standard NMEA remote switching implementation.
Getting started & Mobile application overview
Our mobile app works on Android and iOS. Here's how to get started:
Install the app.
Create a user account.
Link your Boat monitor (BM) device to your account by tapping the "+" button and scanning the device's QR code.
Once connected, you'll see the main boat screen. It shows your boat's GPS position and settings for Geofence, Door & Motion alerts.
To access more boat info and settings, tap "Details" in the center of the screen. Here, you can change the boat name, check your subscription, pair Bluetooth devices, and more.
If you run into issues, tap the three dots in the top right corner of the "Details" page and use “Report Issue” function. Our support team will contact you via email you used to register your account.
At the bottom of the screen, you'll find the main navigation. It includes Boat screen, Alerts, Switches, and More.
The Alerts screen shows active alerts, and a red bubble indicates pending alerts. You can also check alert history by tapping on the Show History button. Please refer to the "Alerts" section below for more information on app's behaviour.
The Trip screen stores your route history
The "More" menu has Sensors, Switches, and Guest users.
In the Sensors screen, you can view and edit the sensor readouts based on your subscription. You can choose different sensors by tapping "Edit" in the top right corner. This screen makes it easy to select or deselect sensors.
Guest users are for sharing limited access to your boat. They can't change important settings, but they can see sensor values, trips, and your boat's current status.
For more information, please follow this guide.
Alerts
To avoid getting too many alerts, the user has to clear them manually before he can receive new ones from the same sensor. If you forget to clear them, don't worry, because they will automatically go away after 14 days. So, you'll get a reminder in 14 days if you've forgotten to clear one.
Remember, each user of the boat has to clear their own alerts to get new ones. This rule also applies to guest users.
If you're not getting alerts on your phone even though the sensor values are correct, here are a few things to check:
Make sure there are no pending alerts from that sensor.
Confirm that alerts for the sensors you want are not turned off.
Check if your alert limit value is set according to your needs.