Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | This planting season, I put my iPad Pro (other models should work) in my planting tractor. I downloaded the Free Ag Finiti app from the Apple app store into the iPad. My planting is done with an InCommand 1200 which deals with steering the tractor, monitoring the seed population and other items such as singulation etc., controls the planting sections, monitors my starter fertilizer and controls a spray system on the planter.
It is possible to get most of this information concerning aspects of planting into the Ag Finiti App on the iPad. Once in the iPad,it can be used for scouting etc. throughout the year. It is also possible to print these maps directly from the iPad to your computer printer if the printer has the proper capabilities. This can be done without using SMS. However, you would not have the editing and manipulative features available through SMS. The paper output map would in essence a screen shot of what is on the iPad.
The information on the InCommand 1200 gets transferred to the iPad Ag Finiti app wirelessly by one of three methods. 1) setup the InCommand 1200 as an access point. With this approach the InCommand becomes a limited hotspot of sorts and can be "discovered" on the iPad. 2) setup the iPad as a hotspot if it has cellular capabilities. 3) use another WiFi connection if one is available from yet some other device. I used the first method. The iPad needs to be in close proximity to the Ag Leader display for this to work. I believe that most of this is possible with an Ag Leader Integra as well. This would not be possible with the older Insights.
The transfer of data occurs when an event or field is changed on the InCommand 1200. The transfer can be manually invoked by the operator if desired. This worked quite well for me. I was able to hand carry the iPad with me for scouting or other reporting, such as certifying my crops and acres with FSA.
This was all free for me. This gets a bit confusing so hang on. The iPad Ag Finit app itself is free and downloadable from the Apple App Store. I did need to apply for a free license from Ag Leader in order to use it. I did not pay for the yearly subscription. By paying for the yearly subscription I would have been able to use Ag Leader's cloud website. This meant among other things that my maps would have been available to others or other devices that were allowed access to my account. My data would have been available to SMS without physically carrying the USB stick to a PC running SMS.
Because I did not pay the yearly fee, I am not able to share this information with others or other devices via the cloud. I must carry the USB stick to a computer running SMS to print out my maps and do other analysis as I have done in the past.
I will carry the iPad with me in the combine for harvest for occasional reference and to transfer yield data to it. Since the InCommand 1200 in the combine will have the planting data in it, the various planting maps (variety etc.) will be available on its screen. I've played with this somewhat in the dooryard and with the various choices for maps and views, I will be able to see about anything I can think of.
So I'm using Ag Finiti for free but in a rather limited arrangement. This seems to be sufficient for my needs. This should be possible for the original poster if the planting is done with an Ag Leader display such as an Integra with the wireless module or an InCommand. If the variety maps are created with some other type of display such as a 20/20 then the maps would need to go "through" SMS.
Those desiring to use Display Cast with Ag Leader 1200's which shows where other members of your operation are and what they are doing would need the yearly subscription to utilize the cloud. This would be very desirable for multiple units in the same field. For example, if two planters were planting in the same field. Each display could show the majority of the information from the other planter. This would be very helpful for AB lines, auto swath etc.
Those wishing to be able to transfer data from a display or displays wirelessly to the cloud would need the license if it is desirable to have a farm manager or adviser able to view the data in an office.
The iPad's GPS seems quite suitable if its antenna has a clear shot of the sky. It is not as accurate as far as showing my position inside a pickup or the combine cab. Other third party sources are available to improve the GPS location in these situations. l tried a Bad Elf product that literally plugged into the lightning port on my iPad. Inside a cab this was actually worse than the built in GPS on the iPad. It might be possible to use the second GPS output port on the combine GPS to feed it into the iPad. I have not investigated that.
Edited by tedbear 9/14/2017 08:01
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SMS to Ipad
