The sailoQ micro 1.6 is the evolution of our GPS speed log: the same simplicity as the 1.5, but even better prepared for real life on board. We keep improving!
The micro 1.5 proved we were on the right track: simple, small and doing only what it needs to do. With the 1.6 we have kept that philosophy and thoroughly reinforced everything that makes it work better on board.
What’s new in version 1.6:
- Improved power supply. We have completely redesigned the 12 V input circuit. A boat’s electrical system is far from clean: spikes, voltage drops when starting the engine, noise from other equipment… The board now handles all of this much better and delivers stable power to the rest of the circuit.
- Improved GPS antenna. Better satellite reception, faster position fix and steadier speed data, even with the board inside its enclosure and mounted on a bulkhead.
- NMEA sentence filtering. The device discards incomplete or corrupted sentences before processing them, so only valid, useful data reaches the microprocessor. Port usage has dropped from 64 % to 16 %, four times less load.
- Better receive buffer. We have enlarged and optimised the buffer that receives GPS data, so no information is lost even when many messages arrive in a row.
- Expanded data bus. More capacity to communicate with other devices, and the board is ready for future expansions.
New software for the 1.6
The 1.6 shares its platform with the 1.5, so its software builds on the micro’s and has been adapted to take advantage of all these improvements. The big news is the diagnostics and controltool, which reports much more clearly what the device is doing at any time (GPS status, data reception, start-up…), so if in doubt it’s easy to see what’s happening and where.
And of course, a new custom enclosure with the sailoQ logo, for a clean and professional installation.
In the video you can see it working with a Raymarine Bidata display: at start-up it runs the calibration test, ramps the speed up and back to zero, and from then on shows GPS speed just like a good old speed log. No paddle wheel, no marine growth, no maintenance.
We hope you like it. As always, we’d love to hear any suggestions or anything you’d like to see in the device.
Now available in our shop: sailoQ cube-micro