d3kOS
Safety Features
d3kOS watches your boat so you don't have to watch every instrument. Six independent safety layers — collision avoidance, engine protection, anchor watch, cameras, weather, and alerts — working together whether you're at the helm, below deck, or ashore.
Forward Watch
A bow-mounted camera feeds live video to the d3kOS AI. Every frame is analysed in real time by a YOLOv8 computer vision model trained on marine objects. When a hazard appears ahead, it is detected, its distance estimated, and its GPS coordinates pushed to your chartplotter as an AIS-like target — all within 200 milliseconds.
Runs entirely on the Pi. No cloud. No internet required. Published as an open-source Signal K plugin — signalk-forward-watch.
- People in the water — swimmers, man overboard
- Approaching vessels and ships
- Kayaks and paddleboards
- Sailboats
- Navigation buoys
- Floating logs and debris
- Docks and fixed structures
- Unlit objects at night (IR camera)
Signal flow
Bow Camera (RTSP stream)
↓
YOLOv8 Object Detection
(people, vessels, debris)
↓
MiDaS Depth Estimation
(distance to object)
↓
GPS Coordinate Calculation
(bearing + distance → lat/lon)
↓
Signal K → NMEA 2000
↓
Chartplotter AIS overlay
Radar sees blips. Forward Watch tells you what it is.
Five more layers of protection
Engine Protection
Live engine monitoring via NMEA 2000 — coolant temperature, oil pressure, RPM, and battery voltage. The moment a value crosses a threshold, a plain-language critical alert fires on screen.
⛔ CRITICAL — COOLANT 108°C — REDUCE RPM NOW
Tapping a critical cell opens the AI Engine Diagnostic — Helm analyses the sensor readings and gives a specific recommendation for your engine.
Anchor Watch
Tap Set Anchor. d3kOS captures your GPS position and sets a 25-metre geofence around it. No configuration required — just tap and watch.
If the boat moves outside that radius — wind shift, dragging anchor, current — a Critical alert fires immediately and Helm AI announces the breach by voice.
Tap Clear Anchor to deactivate when you're ready to leave.
Marine Vision — Camera Monitoring
Up to four IP camera streams running simultaneously from the Pi. Position them at the stern, engine bay, dock lines, or anywhere you need eyes.
Marine Vision runs 24/7 in the background. Camera feeds are accessible from the dashboard and from the d3kOS mobile app over a secure peer-to-peer connection.
Weather — Wind, Wave & Radar
The Weather panel provides two full-screen views: Windy (wind speed, direction, and wave height, centred on your GPS position) and Radar (RainViewer precipitation — last 2 hours animated).
A slide-out conditions panel on the dashboard shows live wind speed, direction, temperature, and barometric pressure — updated from your NMEA 2000 instruments when underway.
Alerts that reach you — wherever you are
Every safety event in d3kOS fires an alert. How far it travels depends on your tier. Critical events — engine failure, anchor drag — are sent immediately, never batched.
- Engine — coolant temperature high
- Engine — oil pressure low
- Anchor drag / geofence breach
- Engine — RPM spike
- Battery voltage below threshold
- Motion detected — boat should be stationary
- Pi went offline (configurable threshold — default 30 min)
- Fix My Pi completed — report ready
- OTA update available
Each alert type can be toggled independently. Quiet hours configurable.
| Channel | T1 First Mate | T2 Skipper | T3 Captain |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-screen banner | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| SMS (Twilio) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
SMS delivers alerts to your phone even when you're not looking at a screen. Set your number in Settings — takes 30 seconds.
Built-in safety from day one
Every d3kOS installation includes engine monitoring, anchor watch, camera alerts, Forward Watch collision avoidance, and weather — at no extra cost. T2 adds SMS so critical alerts reach you even when you're not at the helm.