Sensor integration and the Orca Core

At the heart of Orca the marine co-pilot is the Orca Core, a smart navigation hub that connects to your boat via NMEA 2000. Orca Core broadcasts sensor data wirelessly so you can use your personal tablet and the Orca Display as fully featured navigation displays.

With an integrated high-sensitivity GPS, 9-axis IMU, and compass, the Orca Core can fully replace traditional NMEA 2000 GPS and compass units aboard.

At a glance

Built-in high accurate GPS, 9-axis inertial motion unit, and magnetic compass for accurate position tracking.
Bi-directional NMEA 2000 connection for reading and controlling sensors and instruments.
High-performance wireless gateway for connecting up to five wireless hand-held devices simultaneously.
Supported integrations: engine & trim, AIS, fuel, depth, and wind for a full overview of your boat status.

Connecting to the Orca Core

During installation, you paired your Orca Core to your account. After this, your Orca Display and your personal devices will automatically discover and connect to your paried Core when Orca is running.

Once connected, the instruments bar will show sensor and AIS data coming from the Orca Core.

Calibrating Orca Core sensors

It is recommended to calibrate the Motion Processor in the Orca Core after installing the Orca Core on your boat for the first time.

Calibration must be done at sea, as your vessel will need to do at least a 360-degree turn to calibrate its compass.

The Orca Application will automatically notify you if a calibration is needed when you connect to your Core. If you have dismissed this notification, open Main Menu > Settings > Orca Core and press Calibrate to begin calibration. After the calibration is complete, align your boat's direction with the Core's compass heading via Set compass offset.

Verifying your NMEA 2000 connected devices

You can diagnose and verify the status of the NMEA 2000 network on your boat.

In the Settings > Orca Core menu, press Connected Devices to view other devices connected to your NMEA 2000 network.

In this section, you can see the real-time data for every sensor.

If you don’t have any other devices connected to the network, you will see the sensors included in the Orca Core. These are Heading, Vessel motion, and Battery.

You have access to all the sensors during the navigation from the instruments panel.

Orca Core Settings

In addition to the functionality explained above. You may change some preferences on the behavior of the Orca Core:

Automatic connect to known Orca Cores - Enabled by default. Once you have connected to a Core. The Orca App will remember it and connect automatically to it the next time it finds it.
Updates - You may verify the current software version running on the Orca Core. You can also check if there are new software updates available for the Orca Core. It is recommended to install the recommended version and keep the Orca Core up to date. We release improvements and new features on a regular basis.
Diagnostics - This is an advanced menu used for debugging. If you have issues with your system, you should contact us and we may ask you to share this view with us.