I use a BR1 to connect to starlink for my WAN on a sailboat… works great. But I also want to be able to reach my boat’s chartplotter which is a Garmin GPSMAP 1243. Garmin devices reside on their own network which is available via wifi, so I connect to it via a wifi-as-WAN link on the BR1. That works well too… I can ping devices on the Garmin network.
The issue is that the ultimate use is to run a Garmin app called ActiveCaptain that let’s you connect to devices on that network. It does so by sending a broadcast message polling for devices (like Apple’s bonjour service), but by default broadcast messages don’t cross WAN boundaries.
Does anyone know how to configure the BR1 to allow broadcast messages from the LAN to be forwarded to the Garmin WAN connection?
LAN <> WAN broadcast no.
LAN <> LAN/VPN broadcast yes - using UDP Relay in the Advanced section.
So the question is why are you on the LAN of the BR1? Is it convenience only to access the Garmin over wifi?
Or are you accessing the LAN remotely via a pepVPN connection?
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The BR1 LAN is for everything else… sailor’s equipment like phones and computers as well as other boat equipment that can peacefully coexist. Oh, and Starlink connectivity via its WAN connection for internet access (we are not using the Starlink router).
Garmin equipment needs to be on its own LAN, hence my using wifi-as-WAN to reach it from the BR1 network.
The goal is to run the ActiveCaptain app on a laptop on the BR1 LAN and access the Garmin LAN.
What we are doing now as a work around is to connect to the BR1 or the Garmin wifi network separately. We’d like to avoid having to change networks on laptops and phones just to use the ActiveCaptain app.
Without knowing physical cabling restrictions, I would recommend adding a VLAN to the BR1 and getting that VLAN presented to the garmin network.
Seems it would be tidier that way. then you can route between the networks and turn on UDP relay.
If cabling in a connection to the garmin network is challenging then you could consider a wifi to ethernet bridge / repeater.
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Hi Martin,
I was able to get the two networks talking over ethernet by creating a VLAN on the br1 that connects to the garmin network. I can ping devices in the garmin network from the br1.
The challenge now is that the app I need to use uses a broadcast message for discovering the garmin device it will connect to.
Is there a way to allow broadcast messages on the br1 LAN to reach the garmin VLAN?
Yes. UDP Broadcast / Multicast relay in Advanced > Misc. Settings > UDP Relay
The question then becomes which port and address of course.
I would start with Multicast DNS (mDNS) so configure a rule like this below and see if that makes it all work.
If ActiveCaptain still cannot find the chartplotter, try adding another relay for port 1900 (UPnP discovery).
Some Garmin devices also use 239.255.255.250 for SSDP discovery, so you might need an additional rule for that.
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