Orca is a Norwegian company that has developed a truly innovative navigation system that now includes the territory of Italy among its maps. It all revolves around the proprietary smartphone application, which can be downloaded for free and can be expanded in its functions with very interesting additional paid elements.
The application for smartphones and tablets
The application
Orca
– available for free in the App Store and Google Play – is very intuitive and easy to set up. In just a few steps, after entering your vessel’s data, you are ready to use the many functions within it. From the interface, waypoints can be set and data and forecasts on weather, waves, and tides for the entire area covered by the manufacturer can be displayed. Also from the app, it is possible to search for marinas and buoy fields nearby or along the predetermined route, save routes and locations, and set an alert area to increase safety at anchorage. At the time of its launch in 2021, Orca covered the Northern European area, while it now covers almost 100 percent of Europe, the United States, and New Zealand, with full coverage of Italy. By integrating proprietary data with third-party data, Orca will reach 100 percent coverage by 2024.
With Orca Core, the smartphone becomes a complete chartplotter
Purchasing the hardware
Orca Core
for 449 euros you get full integration between boat and app, with the ability to connect all in on-board sensors and have them communicate wirelessly with the Orca app. The hardware takes up very little space (11.8 x 11.8 cm and 35 cm high) integrates several sensors inside, such as a very accurate GPS and compass, and is able to communicate with transducers, batteries, tanks, AIS, engine, anemometers, and all on-board sensors with NMEA 2000 connection. This makes it possible to make the Orca app a full-fledged chartplotter that can also control the autopilot.
There is also the additional display
As we have seen,
Orca Core
is 100 percent compatible with smartphones and tablets thanks to the proprietary application, but for those who want it, a display is also available at the price of 999 euros. It is a Lumen HDX display with 1000 nits brightness and a contrast ratio of 1200:1. This allows
Display 2
to deliver sharp images, with clear and sharp differences between light and dark, in sunlight, from any viewing angle and even while wearing polarized lenses. The screen has a diagonal size of 10 inches and a resolution of 220 ppi 1920X1080. An 8-core CPU and 4-core GPU accompany the 4 GB of RAM, offering excellent performance, managing to operate for up to 8 consecutive hours even at 55° temperatures. The display has Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity and 25W wireless charging; other applications such as the Chrome browser and Netflix are also installed inside.
