Location & Away Mode

Where the boat is, whether it moved, and whether anyone should be aboard.

Where the position comes from

A boat's position can come from:

  • A DockNeighbor GPS tracker — a small sensor that stays aboard and reports the boat's position through the station. Give it a view of the sky; see Hardware setup.
  • A partner device (Weekender and up) — a chartplotter's NMEA feed, or the GPS in a Peplink, Cradlepoint or GL.iNet router already on the boat's network, read by the station.
  • This phone's GPS — the simplest start, and what the anchor alarm on Free uses. A phone source is bound to the phone that created it, so your laptop can never quietly substitute its own position for the boat's.
  • A manual pin — tap the map or type coordinates. Fine for "here's my slip"; not armable for the anchor watch, since a pin can't drag.

Live feeds are smart about cadence: positions are saved when the boat actually moves (~10 m) and reported on meaningful movement (~25 m, at most every 30 s) — so a dragging boat reports every half minute while a boat at rest stays quiet.

Privacy: the phone reports its position only while the app is open; a tracker or partner feed reports through the station, and the cloud watches what was reported. Position history is kept at your plan's retention like any other reading, and there are no analytics or tracking SDKs anywhere in DockNeighbor. Details: privacy policy.

Away Mode’s vessel moved alarm

Choose Away and DockNeighbor puts a circle around where you left the boat: the slip, the mooring, the storage row. If the boat's live position leaves it, everyone on the boat hears about it. Away is available on every paid plan — Dockside and up.

How Away Mode's vessel moved alarm works Away Mode — a circle around where you left the boat ⛵ center: where it was when Away Mode turned on ⛵ Vessel moved the boat left without you — push to everyone on the boat 👋 Away Mode: Aboard, Away or Anchor — movement that's normal with you there becomes worth an alarm when nobody should be aboard.
Away Mode marks where you left the boat; the live GPS feed proves it moved.

Worth knowing: the center is where the boat was when Away turned on (the live feed proves it moved — arming requires a GPS source to exist).

Aboard, Away and Anchor

Tell DockNeighbor whether the boat is Aboard, Away or at Anchor, and alerting adapts: Away arms the vessel moved alarm when you leave, and movement that's routine with you there becomes worth an alarm when nobody should be aboard. The mode is manual today — set it from the Away Mode card (Away is Dockside+).

Location sharing

Share your position with the people you pick — family following a passage, a partner meeting you at the ramp — on every plan, including Free. Friends who accept see where the boat is now.

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