Siren’s Calling

You might not be standing on your boat, but Siren Marine’s new Connected Boat app means you’re never far from it.

There was a time when sitting at your desk meant the closest you could come to being on your boat was daydreaming. Today, however, thanks to a healthy dose of modern tech—and Siren Marine—you can virtually board that boat anytime you’d like. Better yet, Siren can alert you if anything is amiss, put remote control of your boat’s systems into the palm of your hand, keep track of your engine’s maintenance needs, and more. You say that you want complete connectivity with your pride and joy? The Siren Marine Connected Boat app is the ticket.

In a nutshell, Siren Marine allows you to turn your vessel into a smart boat, more or less like Nest or Ring does for your home. The base station communicates with your phone, tablet, and even many smartwatches through an onboard device that is 4G/5G capable and can (optionally) even establish a link via satellite. The electronic eyes and ears on your boat are provided by either wireless or wired sensors. At any time, you can check the status of things such as tank levels and GPS position simply by opening up the app, and you can set up notifications for critical alerts such as high-bilge-water alarms and low-battery-charge levels. On the security side of things, you can add sensors that keep tabs on your boat with infrared or micro ePIR motion detection, canvas snap sensors, or magnetic reed switches, as well as having full geofencing functionality. Via the app, any or all of these can be set up to alert you with a notification when triggered—as well as to set off lights or alarms.

Of course, those smart-home systems don’t just monitor, but they also provide you remote control abilities, so you can change the thermostat or turn on the lights. And the Siren system delivers capabilities like these too. In fact, Siren Marine has been a pioneer in bringing digital switching platforms to the cloud and can communicate with your boat through NMEA2000. If your boat is rigged with a CZone digital switching system (look for more switching integration partners to arrive soon), you can turn on that air conditioner or turn off those lights from anywhere you have a cell connection. All it takes is a swipe of the app.

You say your boat was built in analog form, but you’d still like to have remote control? You can enjoy this level of access by adding DC accessory relays to the system, and bring those lights, pumps, or other 12-volt systems into the digital age. You can also add a remote battery switch to have the ability to wake up your boat or put it to bed at any time.

What all this boils down to is peace of mind. You always know the status of your boat, and you never have to fear walking down the dock to discover an unpleasant surprise such as dead batteries or flooded bilges. And that peace of mind is stronger than ever before, extending even to your boat’s powerplants, because the recently upgraded Connected Boat App has the ability to integrate with Yamaha’s Command Link Plus protocol. Now Siren can communicate not only with your boat, but with its Yamaha outboards as well. With the ability to “speak” Yamaha’s digital language, Siren can let you know when it’s time for scheduled maintenance, maintain service records, and communicate with digital rigging or steering components. In fact, you can even set the system to beam that engine data directly to your dealer.

The Siren 3 Pro system costs $797, monthly subscriptions go for $22, and you get the app for free. You can also explore the app at any time in demo mode to create a float plan or input DIY maintenance records. You’ll notice, however, that many high-end boatbuilders such as Grady-White, Regulator, SunCatcher and Skeeter are starting to incorporate the Siren 3 Pro into certain models as standard equipment. Why? Because having a connected boat makes your boating experience that much better. And most importantly, it means those dreaded surprises you might have had walking down the dock in years past are now ancient history.

For more information visit, sirenmarine.com.

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