There are hardly any modern boat engines that can do without electronic control. In most cases, the necessary data is exchanged between the individual engine and drive components via a so-called CAN bus (Controller Area Network).
area network).
Instead of the arm-thick cable harnesses used in the past, a thin control cable is now sufficient, which each individual control unit can access and analyse the data as required.
This also explains why, for example, engine and navigation instrumentation are becoming more and more integrated and today even the chart plotter can display the engine speed or cooling water temperature if it is connected to the data bus.
Conversely, the motor electronics know how fast the boat is travelling or how much fuel is left in the tank - networking is the keyword.
Based on this technology, Volvo Penta is now taking the next step and opening up access to the engine and drive data for external mobile display devices such as smartphones or tablet computers via "Easy Connect". This is made possible by an additional Bluetooth module, the "NMEA 2000 Easy Connect Interface".
