Vela Navega Forum

Hi all.

I'm really happy with the NMEA4WIFI. Very good and affordable product. I run my navigation app from an Android tablet mounted in the companionway. The app has a couple of features that require access to internet. I have the option to tether my tablet to my (Android) cell phone mobile hot spot. Now, I'm a bit confused on how to stay connected to the NMEA4WIFI at the same time. Is it what the external network feature is for ? How do you setup the NMEA4WIFI in that context?

Maybe someone can explain. Thanks in advance.

Claude

Update: after a couple trials ans errors, it was fairly easy to get a connection to my cellular hotspot. It was easier than I initially thought. Did it thru the external network config in the NMEA4WIFI.

Sylvesterrednose wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 03, 2022 1:29 pm

Update: after a couple trials ans errors, it was fairly easy to get a connection to my cellular hotspot. It was easier than I initially thought. Did it thru the external network config in the NMEA4WIFI.

Hello Sylvester, just a question, could you please explain me how you did it?
to stay connected from tablet to both NMEA4WIFI and Andriod phone for internet?

??
thanks
Maurizo

Hi Maurizo ( and all others interested),

Take note that I am no expert on networks. After reading notes at the bottom of the NMEA4WIFI configuration page and a few posts elsewhere in this forum, I was still unsure what I needed to make this to work. Is a mobile phone hot spot like a wifi router ? do I need to enter an IP address for that hot spot ? How to retrieve it ? etc. Did a few searches on internet for that. Lots of newbie questions and some learning. Anyway, here is what worked for me.

Connect your tablet to your nmea4wifi device and go to the configuration page with ip 192.168.4.1 with your browser as usual. In the external network box, enter the SSID name and password you created for your hot spot. I left 0 in the IP address and that worked for me. Move lower on the page and click ALSO CONNECT TO EXTERNAL. Click SET.

You can now go back to your mobile phone and activate the hot spot if not done already. You can now connect the wifi of your tablet to your mobile phone hot spot.

Your navigation app should connect to your nmea and internet now.

Hope this helps.

Claude

Hello,

In addition to what Claude explained, once you wrote 0 on the external network IP, go to the Nmea4Wifi network using 192.168.4.1 and look to the IP that the smartphone (acting as a hotspot or a router) has given to the multiplexer. Then repeat the process using that IP instead of 0.

Then you can always use that fixed static address to connect to the multiplexer through the network created by the smartphone, that is today the hotspot.

Regards, Luis

Hi Luis,

Just curious to khow what is the advantage of using a static IP address over the one retrieved when you use 0 ?

Claude

Hi Claude,

There is a situation where you need to know the IP address of the multiplexer. I refer to the case you want to receive or to send data by TCP. You need to set the IP address of the multiplexer in the device that will communicate to the multiplexer. If you don't use TCP I think you can just use 0.

Regards, Luis

Hi Luis,

I see now. Thanks for explaining. I used UDP so far and 0 worked perfect in my case.

Claude

Hi,

I am replying to this thread because I'm considering purchase of the Nmea4Wifi. Please let me introduce myself and explain the situation. I am from the Netherlands and recently we got a new boat for which I want to update the configuration to suit my needs.
On our previous boat we had a vYacht wifi router, a device which I think is pretty similar to the Nmea4Wifi. Support for that device is virtually absent nowadays, which brought me here.
The vYacht router served as DHCP server for the connected clients. Internet came from a 4G access point, connected to the router over ethernet. While connected to the 4G device, the router retained it's DHCP functionality.
If I understand correctly the main difference between the vYacht and your device is that the Nmea4Wifi DHCP server is disabled once it is connected to a hot spot. In that scenario the hot spot becomes the DHCP server and the Nmea4Wifi becomes a client. Am I right?

Hello Cougar,

1) When the Nmea4Wifi only creates its wifi network you can connect your phone to the AP created by the multiplexer. In that case you will loose internet as the phone will be connected to the multiplexer and the multiplexer is not a modem (can not connect to the internet). The server/client concept is more related to TCP. Only one TCP connection is supported. The multiplexer acts as a TCP server. For example you can run a chart App on your phone. If using TCP you need to specify the IP address of the server (eg the multiplexer) as 192.168.4.1 on your App.

2) If you set your phone to act as an hotspot the multiplexer can be set to "also" connect to that hotspot. Your phone will not loose the internet connection and, at the same time, you can have data exchange between the multiplexer and your phone by WiFi. As in the previous case that exchange can use the TCP protocol. The multiplexer will receive an IP from the phone. You need to know that IP as the multiplexer will be the TCP server. The client (the App) should be set to use that IP to communicate to the server (multiplexer).

3) In case 1) the multiplexer acts as an AP (not as a router) and the phone acts as a STATION. In case 2) the phone as as a router (AP plus modem) and the multiplexer acts as a STATION. This is different front client and server.

Regards, Luis