Garmin Connext and Flight Stream

We already have something like that with our GRT Horizon HXr EFIS. Using their proprietary app, we convert our Android tablet into a remote EFIS (we use the Nexus 7 in the back cockpit of our RV-8A). We can also remotely tune the radio, change waypoints, etc.

It's a great set up.
 
I was about to have it installed until the shop told me I had to use Garmin Pilot app. I've got $150 into Foreflight and $900 into a stratus. If it had been a universal app, I would have installed it though.
 
FF will have to reverse engineer it, just like everybody else, of course who are they to talk, Stratus works on what else?
 
teejayevans said:
FF will have to reverse engineer it, just like everybody else, of course who are they to talk, Stratus works on what else?
Click to expand...

Garmin is good about patented proprietary protocols, we'll see what the do here.
 
I recently had the Flight Stream 210 installed to feed my GNS 530W in my Arrow 200. I use the iPad mini to display the data from the GNS 530 and GDL 88D ADS-B boxes. The ability to pre-plan flights using Garmin's Pilot app on the iPad then quickly upload the flight plan to the GNS 530W is great! Also you can enter victor airways in Pilot then all the waypoints along the airway automatically are loaded into the GNS box. Saves a lot of knob twisting. I am still getting used to in-flight mods to the flight path via "rubber banding" and then updating the GNS flight plan and hence the autopilot. New "user waypoints" from the rubber-banded flight plan mod seem to become semi-permanent in the GNS even though I subsequently remove them from Pilot so one has to manually delete them from the GNS box...at least as far as I can determine now! The GDL-88D traffic displays tail numbers on the iPad but not the GNS box, which I was told about early on. FIS-B weather display on the GNS and iPad is considerably more "blocky" than on my Garmin 396 with XM weather. The synthetic vision display from the FLight Stream 210 on my iPad is neat! Even the runway stripes show on takeoff and landing. Sometimes getting the FS 210 and iPad to acknowledge each other via Blue Tooth on start-up is a bit quirky but usually quickly resolved by shutting down the iPad after the FS 210 is already up. Installation tech setup the GNS box to always default to the iPad on startup. More details as I learn them!!
 
Have you been able to use Flight Stream's GPS position to drive any other iPad mapping applications?

Garmin support told me that Flight Stream's GPS signal simply feeds iOS's Location Services and that any iPad app that consumes Location Services can use Flight Stream's GPS position.

Please let us know if this appears to be true based on your experience.

Thx.
 
WellSys...I experimented with the Flight Stream last evening and for at least one iPad app ("Map With Me") the GPS position from the Flight Stream did work ok. My iPad mini does NOT have cell coverage therefore no built in GPS. So if your app has the map database already loaded (not all do, some rely on internet coverage at the time of use) then I think it should work ok. Hope this helps! Sorry it took so long for the reply.
 
I heard if you have aspen avionics you can use foreflight to enter in airways into the gps, change frequencies, etc. Not sure about the details, but just something I heard from someone
 
Arrow76R said:
I recently had the Flight Stream 210 installed to feed my GNS 530W in my Arrow 200. I use the iPad mini to display the data from the GNS 530 and GDL 88D ADS-B boxes. The ability to pre-plan flights using Garmin's Pilot app on the iPad then quickly upload the flight plan to the GNS 530W is great! Also you can enter victor airways in Pilot then all the waypoints along the airway automatically are loaded into the GNS box. Saves a lot of knob twisting. I am still getting used to in-flight mods to the flight path via "rubber banding" and then updating the GNS flight plan and hence the autopilot. New "user waypoints" from the rubber-banded flight plan mod seem to become semi-permanent in the GNS even though I subsequently remove them from Pilot so one has to manually delete them from the GNS box...at least as far as I can determine now! The GDL-88D traffic displays tail numbers on the iPad but not the GNS box, which I was told about early on. FIS-B weather display on the GNS and iPad is considerably more "blocky" than on my Garmin 396 with XM weather. The synthetic vision display from the FLight Stream 210 on my iPad is neat! Even the runway stripes show on takeoff and landing. Sometimes getting the FS 210 and iPad to acknowledge each other via Blue Tooth on start-up is a bit quirky but usually quickly resolved by shutting down the iPad after the FS 210 is already up. Installation tech setup the GNS box to always default to the iPad on startup. More details as I learn them!!
Click to expand...


Excellent, good to know, I think it's a great solution to the GNS box interface issues. If you go to rubber band to a VOR, does it use the VOR or create a user waypoint there?
 
You MAY be able to upload from FF to Aspen BUT that won't do much good as my understanding is that Garmin "broke" the ability to upload from the Aspen to/from the GNS430/530s. Probably did it knowing they were coming out with Flightstream 110/210 units. I was planning on going down the Aspen Connect route till I learned of this and if you look in Aspen's website you'll see there have been no updates about this product since 2013.

JC150 said:
I heard if you have aspen avionics you can use foreflight to enter in airways into the gps, change frequencies, etc. Not sure about the details, but just something I heard from someone
Click to expand...
 
Regarding the FS 210 and "rubber-banding", the application asks you if you want to use a 'User defined waypoint" or it gives you the nearest "real" fixes, e.g. VOR, intersections, etc....

jrt
 
Arrow76R said:
Regarding the FS 210 and "rubber-banding", the application asks you if you want to use a 'User defined waypoint" or it gives you the nearest "real" fixes, e.g. VOR, intersections, etc....

jrt
Click to expand...

Cool, so you whip it close and it prompts/asks, perfect.
 
So does this tilt the scales in the Foreflight vs. Garmin Pilot debate?
 
labbadabba said:
So does this tilt the scales in the Foreflight vs. Garmin Pilot debate?
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If you are going GTN, GP has same interface, if going GDL 88 and you have a iPad, I think FS and GP combo is a huge plus, especially for those with smaller screens (650,430), if no Garmin in the panel you can either way.
When I tried to use FF, they wanted $ before allowing me to download charts during the trial period, WTF, so I removed it and been happy with GP ever since
 
labbadabba said:
So does this tilt the scales in the Foreflight vs. Garmin Pilot debate?
Click to expand...

What tilted the scales for me to GP was I hated FF's sectional chart only as the base map. Garmin has their own cleaner map and offers the sectional as an option. I like to have the choice. The sectional is just too cluttered for most of my flying. TMI.

The second thing that tilted the scales to GP was that I also have the Area 796 and I wanted ADS-B weather displayed on that as well as the iPad. I had to buy the GDL39-3D t do that. That knocked FF out completely.

Gene
 
labbadabba said:
So does this tilt the scales in the Foreflight vs. Garmin Pilot debate?
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If you fly fly a plane that is equipped with this capability, most definitely it its t solid to Garmin Pilot. I would expect many 430/530 equipped planes will get it, we'll see how reality goes. I definitely would have put it in the 310 to control the 430w.
 
dans2992 said:
I'm thinking Foreflight teamed up with them on that decision...
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Henning said:
Yeah, I'm betting there's an exclusive contract involved.
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No, and no. Appareo is afraid they'll incur a lot of costs supporting multiple developers, and that playing with the smaller fish won't sell any more units. Simple business decision.

ForeFlight has chosen to focus on other features rather than spending development time supporting multiple hardware devices. Adding support isn't as easy as flipping a switch, there is no standard for ADS-B device communications so it's just as hard to support the second, third, etc. devices as it is the first. Were there a standard, the story would be different here. Again, a simple business decision, but a separate one. I don't think either ForeFlight or Appareo would gain any real advantage from an exclusive contract.
 
I think not supporting Garmin Pilot at this point is a mistake on their part, because I'm betting a lot of the FS units get sold to mate to 430/530 units and they'll lose a lot of market share to the GDL-39.

That the industry couldn't settle on using NMEA standard communications confuses me.:confused::dunno:
 
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josephbelt01 said:
If someone would create a device and write some code to allow ForeFlight to interface with the new Garmin units I believe they'd have a lot of sales over the next few years. ForeFlight may end up having to do that so people don't jump to Garmin Pilot out of necessity. It would suck to have a new Garmin in the plane that won't sync to your tablet.


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Where they are going to lose market share to Garmin Pilot is the ability to upload flight plans and clearance amendments from the iPad to the 435/530/650/750 and their kin.
 
Henning said:
I think not supporting Garmin Pilot at this point is a mistake on their part, because I'm betting a lot of the FS units get sold to mate to 430/530 units and they'll lose a lot of market share to the GDL-39.
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??? How are they not supporting Garmin Pilot? That's ALL they support.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
??? How are they not supporting Garmin Pilot? That's ALL they support.
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I think he meant FF not supporting a Garmin FS. FF will just reverse engineer the WIFI interface, I'd be surprised if they were not trying do as we speak
 
I'm going to an IFD 440 and ditching the seventh circle of Garmin proprietary hell ASAP.
 
josephbelt01 said:
Oh hell. What did I do... I think we're saying there's no technical reason why Garmin, Stratus, etc can't produce apps and devices with standardized output for the sake of interoperability. It's all, like, 1s and 0s and stuff...


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Of course not, no reason at all all the different equipment can't intercommunicate. In the marine end Garmin when they first started had all proprietary outputs, win 2 years they were putting out NMEA 0183 code strings like everyone else, apparently they were losing too much market share.
 
josephbelt01 said:
Oh hell. What did I do... I think we're saying there's no technical reason why Garmin, Stratus, etc can't produce apps and devices with standardized output for the sake of interoperability. It's all, like, 1s and 0s and stuff...


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Click to expand...


1. There is no standard or standards body, the government could step in and create one, but then innovative will be limited. Do you really want that?
2. What is the incentive for them to do so?
3. By controlling the interface they can change it at will without caring if break Acme avionics box.
 
Henning said:
Of course not, no reason at all all the different equipment can't intercommunicate. In the marine end Garmin when they first started had all proprietary outputs, win 2 years they were putting out NMEA 0183 code strings like everyone else, apparently they were losing too much market share.
Click to expand...


Not much anymore, they have their own proprietary Ethernet bus thingy, I'm starting see more non GPS Garmin stuff now too, like radar,etc
Apple follows the same business model.
IBM went with the open model, they lost the PC market in 5 years.
Business wise close systems are better, if you can maintain functionality y
ou will continue to be successful
 
teejayevans said:
Not much anymore, they have their own proprietary Ethernet bus thingy, I'm starting see more non GPS Garmin stuff now too, like radar,etc
Apple follows the same business model.
IBM went with the open model, they lost the PC market in 5 years.
Business wise close systems are better, if you can maintain functionality y
ou will continue to be successful
Click to expand...

As far as I know Garmin uses the same digital Scitex radar scanners everybody else uses, and all their maritime gear is on NMEA code strings. I'm pretty sure you can integrate the new Garmin stuff with a PC as well.
 
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