Vanemar has a new system for remote vessel monitoring and in our test we found it to be the easiest to set up and use of several we have tested. The process was simple. I located a spot for the hub and connected it to the starter battery, placed the GPS in a spot facing the sky but protected inside a hatch (even though it is completely weather proof, I wanted to hide it). After turning it on, I followed the procedure to link it via Bluetooth to a phone and then started powering up sensors for hatch openings, battery voltage, bilge water level, motion and smoke detectors. All of them showed up in the app as soon as they were powered on, and the app facilitated renaming them appropriately; “main” bilge hatch, bilge water, “forward” console hatch, whatever names we chose. And, of course, the system locates your boat on a map via GPS and notifies you if it leaves a predetermined geo fence. You can connect as many as 20 sensors to the system. When cellular or WIFI connectivity is out of range, the hub connects to Starlink.
Vanemar also provided a NMEA 2000 hub and I connected that to the NMEA backbone on board. Once powered up, the device read all the engine diagnostics like RPM, Voltage and water pressure, plus fuel level and reported them to the app.
Once everything was up and running in the onboard wireless connections, the app allowed me to subscribe to a monitoring service came online almost immediately
Vanemar Gateway 2 Hub
The hub called Vanemar Gateway 2 ($549; vanemar.com), comes with a GPS antenna and plenty of power cord to reach a batter. Both stainless steel screws and 3M adhesive Velcro-like adhesive fasteners give easy options for mounting. I chose the adhesive hook and loop pads and after cleaning the mounting surface with acetone, they adhered rock solid.
Sensors
A multitude of sensors are available and using multiple hatch entries ($89) each is easily done and just as easily identified in the app. Motion sensors ($89), smoke detectors ($109), magnetic hatch sensors ($89), bilge water detectors and alarm ($99), battery sensor ($139) and smart plug ($109) all connect wirelessly and quickly.
NMEA 2000 Hub
This is the miracle device that lets you know the second your motor has voltage and when the ignition is activated. It connected to a knuckle on the powered NMEA backbone and basically set itself up to report engine operations.
