NMEA 2000 is the new standard developed by navigation instrument suppliers such as Simrad, Raymarine, Furuno, Garmin, Lowrance, etc. and replaces the NMEA 0183 serial 4800 baud interface that has been in use since the 1980’s. It is a standard that is open to all manufacturers that become a member of the NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) and that pay a fee to obtain the standard.

The NMEA 2000 standard is based on a 250 kBit/s CAN bus connection.

As a service to the “open” software community we are releasing a number of utilities that will allow analysis of packets that are transmitted on a NMEA 2000 bus. This packet logger software is available under an creative commons license.