The annual Marine Equipment Trade Show (METS) held in Holland is considered a must-attend event for many builders and designers. Given the “equipment” designation in the name, however, it’s particularly focused on helping electronics, rigging, deck gear, clothing and crew accessories, and other manufacturers network.
It’s also where the annual DAME (Design Award METS) prizewinners are announced. Introduced in 1991, the DAME competition recognizes the best-designed products among new marine equipment and accessories in a variety of categories, as deemed by an independent judges panel. At last week’s METS, Palladium Technologies edged out more than 50 other products for the marine-software award for its iSiMON wireless-monitoring app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
If you’re as obsessed with your iPhone or iPod as most people are, then you’ll appreciate iSiMON. I got a demo of it in the spring and was thoroughly impressed. Designed for captains and crew, it lets them call up information on everything from a yacht’s engines and gensets to tank and bilge levels, batteries, the air-conditioning system, and more. The menu is intuitive and attractive, and it can switch from portrait to landscape mode.
Captains and crew can access information on iSiMON whether they’re onboard or heading ashore in the tender, limited only by as far as the wireless modem will transmit. Equally – if not more – important, iSiMON coordinates with Palladium’s SiMON monitoring and controls system to send alarm notifications to the iPhone or iPod. Between automatic visual notification, a siren-like sound, and vibration, the captain or crew won’t be able to miss the message. They can then press the touchscreen to activate remote control over the pumps or other yacht’s functions.
iSiMON is reportedly the first and still the only non-Web-based monitoring program for yachts that works with the iPhone and iPod. Palladium Technologies says it recently added new displays and control views to the application and has more in store for the future.
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