Follow your favorite vessels around the world with sQuidd.io

If you are familiar with the sQuidd.io plugin for OpenCPN, you have probably used the popular Log Sharing feature, which allows you to follow a select number of boats around the world right on your navigation Chart, as well as send regular position updates from your own boat so that others can see where you are.

With the introduction of the new web site, we have added a couple of useful features to make the user experience a bit smoother than previously:

- the process of adding and deleting boats to your follow list has been streamlined significantly. You can now just tap on the follow this vessel button on each boat's page on squiddio (which you can locate by searching on the vessel's name or MMSI from the home page, or find in the Vessels section of a Point of Interest (POI) web page etc).  (Conversely, just tap on the Unfollow button at any time to delete the vessel from your follow list.)

- you can now follow the boats in your follow list directly on the web site, when you are not using OpenCPN. Just select the relevant option from the Layers pull down on the map in the Home Page.

Remember that you can only follow vessels that are either:

- sharing their position through the sQuidd.io OCPN plugin

- broadcasting their positions through and AIS transponder (provided the signal is picked up by an extensive network of land station)

More on how to set up and use the Vessel Follow feature on our FAQ

Not your grandfather's sQuidd.io!!

Let's face it...the squidd.io site had grown a little old and a little stale. It was high time for a change, so change it we did. And what an upgrade it is!

Take a look at the new web site: you will immediately notice an entirely new paradigm: the home page, the center of the application, has been replaced with a map that features multiple spatial data layers that can be selected on and off. 

Of course, the ever-growing repository of 30K+ navigational POIs (points of interest, such as marinas, harbors, ports, anchorages etc) is still the centerpiece of sQuiddio, but we have made it a lot easier to explore the database by dragging the map and zooming in and out.  It's also become a lot easier to add, edit and delete POIs, a process that was admittedly a bit clunky and counter intuitive in the old web site.

We have also added a number of layers that had become popular features of sQuiddio in the past, but were not available in a cohesive and comprehensive manner: satellite maps, which can now be easily downloaded in bulk for a specific area, vessels in your Follow List, which you can now create an update with just a tap (gone is the old cumbersome invitation process), weather beacons, AIS Navigation Aids etc. 

Finally, we took advantage of the redesign to make the web site a lot faster, responsive, and suitable for the variety of devices being used by the sea-going community of squiddio users.

In a nutshell....easier to use, a lot faster and more importantly, a lot more useful!

Take the new squidd.io site for a spin and send us your thoughts!