Anchor AlarmSettings reference
The Settings tab gathers every preference plus your installed regions and
the data-sources page.
A segmented bar across the top splits the screen into six tabs so you can
jump straight to the family of preferences you want instead of scrolling:
centre, command-cluster edge, seamark density, GPS track precision, Layer
Defaults & Zoom), screen-wake policy, track style, tile-fetching engine.
alarm sound + test, GPS tracking mode, power consumption, Backup & Sync,
privacy, Help & Manuals, and the About card with your live build number).
route parameters, waypoint options, voyage / TSS alarms, the shallow-water
alarm, live GPS status, and Simulator Mode.
Wi-Fi gateway, or a Bluetooth pod, plus live diagnostics.
remote services (e.g. NHC tropical cyclones with a Test connection button).
Backup & Sync is not here — it lives under the Safe Anchor tab.
preset + per-quantity overrides), app language, and the About card.
Sections within each tab, in the order you see them:
Chart Appearance
The Chart tab's only appearance control is one toggle:
between its day and night variants automatically as your device's
light/dark appearance setting changes. Turn it off to keep whichever
palette you picked regardless of the system theme.
The base map style and the depth color palette are not set here.
They live in the in-chart Chart Layers → Maps panel — open the chart,
tap the layers control, and pick from the day/night map and palette grids.
See Chart layers.
Units & Measurement
Lives under the General tab. Two layers:
quantity at once to a coherent system. Maritime convention is preserved
in every preset: distance defaults to nautical miles and speed to knots.
pickers when you need to override the preset: Depth, Distance,
Short distance, Speed, Wave height, Air temperature,
Water temperature, Pressure, Vessel dimensions, Anchor
rode / chain, Volume, and Coordinates.
Every other tab and overlay follows these settings.
App Language
screens are written in. The app ships 13 languages: English, Türkçe,
Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Español, Ελληνικά, Hrvatski, Português,
Svenska, Norsk bokmål, Dansk, and Suomi. Each is listed in its own script so
you can spot your language even when the current one is unfamiliar.
to override it just inside AnchorQueen.
screens only switch to the new language on the next launch. Number, date, and
unit formatting update immediately.
Navigation
you prefer. Tap the row to open the Tab Order editor, then hold the
handle on the right of any tab and drag it up or down. The tab bar
updates the moment you lift your finger. Tap Reset in the top-right
corner to restore the factory order. Your arrangement is saved
automatically and survives app restarts. See
saves a point. Shorter is more detailed; longer is smaller files.
Safety Alarms
Under the Nav tab, alongside the voyage alarms:
against the flow, or anchor inside a
Traffic Separation Scheme (COLREGS Rule 10). On by
default; advisory cases raise an amber banner, violations a red one.
too little water under your keel. Uses your boat's draft from the
vessel profile. This alarm is visual only —
a red on-screen banner, no sound. (Moved here from the Safe Anchor tab.)
alarm fires. When the alarm is sounding you can Silence (30 m) it, then
Resume before that window ends.
Screen
while AnchorQueen is open. A navigation app is useless if the chart
goes dark mid-passage, so AnchorQueen lets you opt out of the standard
auto-lock without changing your device-wide setting.
external power. This is the default: ideal for a phone or iPad
cradled on a 12 V outlet at the helm, while a handheld in your
pocket still sleeps.
foreground. Best for long legs where the device is permanently
powered; expect heavier battery drain otherwise.
Backgrounding the app always restores normal sleep behaviour, so the
device can rest between sessions regardless of which mode you pick.
Track Style
Under the Chart tab, below Screen Wake. A live preview at the top
of the section redraws as you change any control, so you can see the result
before you leave Settings.
line shades from slow to fast along the track).
colour ramp across each passage's own min–max speed; Fixed uses a
constant 0–12 kn scale so colours mean the same speed on every track.
recent run stands out.
Auto-record voyages (also on the Chart tab, in the Map section) —
when on, a track recording starts automatically when navigation begins and
saves when the voyage ends.
Tile Engine
Under the Chart tab, at the bottom. Picks how chart tiles are fetched:
→ network cache, using pre-downloaded offline tiles when available. The
right choice for offline use.
built-in HTTP engine, with no offline cache support.
A caption under the picker spells out the trade-off for whichever engine is
selected.
Waypoint Naming
your saved marks read like "Turtle Cove" instead of coordinates.
Cluster behavior
bottom-left for thumb-friendly one-handed use.
Installed Regions
A collapsible list of every chart region you have
installed, grouped by sea or continent. Each row shows:
Get More Regions at the bottom jumps to the
Browse Region Data (also at the bottom of the regions area) opens a
low-level inspector for the installed data — region manifests, NavGrid
files, and MBTiles metadata. Double-tap any file to inspect it. It's a
diagnostic surface; you don't need it for everyday use.
Safe Anchor (Anchor Watch Settings)
The Safe Anchor tab now hosts the full Anchor Watch settings inline —
no longer a separate sheet. From top to bottom: the Launch section (see
below), Permissions status, the
alarm sound + alarm test, the GPS tracking mode (Real Time vs.
Moving Average) and Power Consumption (Balanced vs. Highest),
Backup & Sync (see [#backup](#backup)), crash-reporting privacy,
Help & Manuals, and the About card. See
SafeAnchor for what each does.
Radar screen — the classic anchor alarm —
every time it starts, instead of the Chart. Handy if you use AnchorQueen
primarily as an anchor alarm. (When an anchor watch was armed at your
last session, the app returns to SafeAnchor regardless of this setting.)
the 5-second countdown lock the phone and switch it to silent (or turn
on a Focus). The test alarm must still sound — that is the
Critical Alert doing its job. If it stays silent,
enable iOS Settings → Notifications → AnchorQueen → Critical Alerts.
Run this once before trusting the watch overnight.
Manual link, both opening in your browser.
installed version and build number — quote these to support), and, where
ad consent is required (mainly EEA/UK), a Manage Ad Consent button that
reopens the consent dialog so you can change your choice.
The shallow-water alarm now lives under the [Nav](#navigation) tab (see
[Safety Alarms](#safety-alarms)), and the Instruments data source moved to
its own [NMEA](#instruments) sub-tab.
Simulator Mode
Override your real GPS with a position you drop on the chart — useful for
demos, planning a passage from the dock, or testing the anchor watch
without leaving the marina.
panel docks at the bottom of the chart.
on the right-edge controls). It drops the simulated vessel at the chart
centre instantly when that point is over water; over land it asks you to
centre on water first. Tap SIM again (it glows orange while active) to
end the simulation.
you left it after any movement) is restored the next time you enable
Simulator Mode. When off, each session starts fresh at the map centre.
On the chart a helm console docks at the bottom. Your boat appears with
its name and symbol, drawn to its real length the same way AIS
traffic is — so a large vessel reads bigger than a small one and scales
with zoom (dimensions come from your vessel profile).
The console lets you:
then tap to place the vessel there.
slider. The boat eases up to speed like a real hull rather than jumping.
round at a realistic rate), Steady holds the current heading,
Reverse comes about, To compass steers the way the device points,
All stop brings her to a halt.
the passage unfold. Turn it off to pan freely.
Simulator Mode off in Settings → Nav.
Tap the console header to collapse it to a compact autopilot strip —
a big course-to-steer with −10 / −1 / +1 / +10 port (red) and starboard
(green) keys for one-handed course tweaks while sailing. Tap it again to
re-open the full helm.
> Simulator Mode replaces your position everywhere — the chart, the GPS
> HUD, track recording, and the anchor watch all follow the simulated boat.
> Your compass heading stays real — only the position is faked. Turn it
off to return to live GPS.
NMEA — Instruments
The NMEA sub-tab (marked Beta in the segmented bar) is the instrument
data source. By default AnchorQueen reads your position from the device's
Built-in GPS. If your boat has NMEA instruments, point the app at them here
to get masthead wind, a depth sounder, and a fixed-mount GPS.
needed; the right choice for most phones and tablets.
gateway that broadcasts NMEA sentences.
the SafeAnchor guide for the full walkthrough.
192.168.4.1) and Port (default 10110; Signal K servers use 3000).
advertising themselves on the boat network, or type the host and port. Try
Test Server connects to the public demo server immediately so you can see
the link working with no boat hardware.
Signal K Position (use the server's own-vessel fix as the chart and
SafeAnchor live position), Use TLS (wss) (leave off for a boat-network
server), and Access Token for a server with security switched on.
Signal K Position is off by default. When enabled, device GPS automatically
resumes if the server delivers no valid position for 30 seconds.
your pod in the list to select it. Bluetooth instruments share no
common standard, so just pick your device and Apply.
dropout. Shown for the NMEA sources only.
Wind, and the last NMEA sentence so you can confirm data is flowing.
depth (labelled with what it is measured from), wind with its angle and
whether it is true or apparent, speed through water, sea temperature, and
how long ago the last update arrived. These update as the data arrives.
can see what went wrong without a computer aboard.
> NMEA data needs a Wi-Fi gateway, Bluetooth pod, or Signal K server on your
boat. With none of those, keep Built-in GPS.
Backup & Sync
> Where to find it: Backup & Sync is a row under the Safe Anchor
> tab (in its Data section), not under the Settings Data tab.
Open Safe Anchor → Backup & Sync to reach the controls below.
Keep your captain marks, routes, and boat profile safe and consistent
across devices.
across every device signed in to the same account. Shows the sync
status (Synced · time, Syncing…, or an error) with a Sync Now
button for an immediate push.
file is AES-encrypted and the same passphrase is required to
restore it. Leave it empty for an unencrypted backup.
save off-device.
data: marks and routes are added or updated, never deleted.
Data Sources & Partners
A read-only sheet listing every provider whose data feeds the app —
OpenStreetMap and MapLibre, ESRI and Mapbox, NOAA and national met
services, Wikipedia, Global Fishing Watch, and others — with links to each
provider's website.
Services
Advanced diagnostics. The most useful is the NHC connection test which
checks whether the National Hurricane Center cyclone feed is reachable.
Help — the manual and release notes
Under the General tab, above the About card, are two entries into the
documentation that ships with the app. Both work with no connection.
same way this book is (Start here, The tabs, Reference, *Release
notes*), and a search field that looks inside every page and takes you
to the exact section, not just the page.
From there, Earlier releases lists the notes for every previous version
the app knows about, so you can catch up after skipping an update. The
version you have installed is marked Installed.
The manual is translated into the same languages as the app. If a page has
not been translated yet, it is shown in English with a note saying so — the
manual never hides a page because a translation is missing. The language
follows your [App Language](#language) setting.
The same manual is reachable from the sidebar — see
About card
AnchorQueen shows version information in two places:
version and build number. Quote this when you contact support.
static label), Map Data (OpenStreetMap), Mode (GPS Only ·
Offline), and Map Engine (MapLibre GL). It does not track your build
number; use the Safe Anchor card for that.
Your Cached Tiles size is shown separately, under the Data tab's
Storage section; it is calculated in the background and reads
"Calculating…" briefly on first load.
If something goes wrong
chart refreshes labels on next draw.
(switch sub-modes once) and try again.