Using your iPhone to provide GPS to SeaNav on a Wifi only iPad or MacBook

There is a really useful app called gps2ip that lets you share your gps position from your iPhone to SeaNav running on your iPad or MacBook when they are both on the same wifi network or the iPad is connected to your iPhone’s Hotspot. This is a way to get GPS on a Wifi only iPad or MacBook without having to use an external GPS dongle.
Here are instructions on how to set it up. If your iPhone and iPad are on the same Wifi network use Socket mode (the simplest and just 3 steps). If you are using your iPhone Hotspot connection please follow the Hotspot UDP push connection instructions further below.
Using local Wifi network
1. Download  gps2ip to your iPhone from the App Store and start GPS2IP. Note the iPhone Server IP address and Port number ( 192.168.1.107 and 11123 in the example  below). Here is a link gps2ip on the App Store.
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3. Tap the i button bottom right to go into GPS2IP settings, scroll down and check GPS2IP is in Socket mode (Socket – the default on a fresh install) and that it is set to run in background so you don’t lose the GPS if you go to another app or the iPhone screen times off.
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3. Go into SeaNav Settings on your iPad, Select the AIS, GPS and NMEA Link setting. Tap TCP to select it, enter the Port (11123) and Host IP address (192.168.1.107) noted from GPS2IP on your iPhone and then tap Start and the GPS data will start flowing.

  If not – go back and re-start gps2ip. and try again.

P.S. Please make sure your iPhone/iPad time is correct to within 30s  – we ignore external gps data if it is more than 30s outside of the time the iphone thinks it is……

Using iPhone Hotspot
If you are using your iPhone hotspot you should use UDP push mode. GPS2IP will push the gps data to the IP address and port of your iPad. You can use Bluetooth or Wifi to make the hotspot connection to the iPhone. Bluetooth will use less power but have a shorter range. Here are instructions for setting up in UDP push mode.
Connect your iPad to your iPhone hotspot using either Wifi or Bluetooth.
To use bluetooth first pair your iPad with your iPhone.
1. Download  gps2ip to your iPhone from the App Store. Here is a link gps2ip
2a. Wifi hotspot connection:- Connect your iPad to your iPhone’s hotspot via Wif settings. On your iPad lookup its IP address – go to Apple Settings/Wifi/ on your iPad, tap the i next to the Wifi connection  to your iPhone and copy down the IP address e.g. 192.168.1.110
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2b. Bluetooth hotspot connection
Pair your iPad to your iPhone using Bluetooth settings.  See Apple’s guide here
Check and note your ethernet IP address using the Ethernet settings on your iPad – Bluetooth PAN
3. On your iPhone , launch gps2ip and set it to use UDP push.
Tap the cogwheels icon  to the right of the UDP Push row and set the IP address of your iPad and leave the port number as the default e.g. 11123.
7. Go back to your iPad and in SeaNav go to settings/AIS & GPS Link/, select UDP and enter the port number 11123 (as set in gps2ip). Then tap Start. Go back to GPS2IP on your iPhone and Enable GPS2IP by the top slide switch (it’s important to enable GPS2IP after the iPad is already listening (Started). you should then see gps data scroll past. Tap done and your iPad will now use the live GPS position, speed and course from your iPhone 🙂

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