Appareo’s Stratus Insight App Adds New ‘Relevant Traffic’ Feature

With Appareo’s latest update (5.17.0) to their Stratus Insight EFB app, the company is announcing the addition of a new “Relevant Traffic” feature to the app, which allows a user to easily filter ADS-B traffic based on range and altitude in relation to the user’s aircraft.

Appareo said the Relevant Traffic feature goes beyond simply hiding distant traffic by giving the user the ability to filter traffic at different ranges, both in nautical miles and altitude. The Stratus Insight EFB is part of the tightly-integrated hardware and software solution in use today by pilots at all skill levels. Appareo is offering a YouTube video that provides a walk-through of the Relevant Traffic feature and explains how pilots can benefit from it.

“Prior to Relevant Traffic, pilots had two options for the amount of aircraft traffic they could see: display all traffic, or hide very distant traffic—essentially the airliners,” said Kristofer Garberg, president of Appareo Aviation. “Pilots had to go into their app settings to turn this on and off. In Stratus Insight, we created an easier way to filter the amount of aircraft you see based on your position, and we placed an overlay icon called ‘Targets’ right on the map screen to make it very easy to toggle between the three settings.” Those three settings first show all traffic unrestricted, then with one tap displays only the traffic within 20 nm at 15,000 ft around you, with the next tap displaying traffic within 10 nm and 10,000 ft around your aircraft.

Garberg offered a look at how this new feature will work: “An example of how this feature can benefit you would be if you are leaving a small airport with little traffic around, you might want to have the traffic set to unrestricted, but then as you fly into busier airspace, you can step down the amount of distant traffic you see right on the map screen. Next, as you come into a very busy airport, you can bring it down another step to reduce the clutter and only see what is closest to you.”

The Stratus Insight app supports all generations of Stratus receivers (Stratus 1, 2, 1S/2S, 2i, 3, 3i) with a seamless experience. The company’s latest Stratus 3 receiver delivers subscription-free weather, dual-band ADS-B traffic, and WAAS GPS information to the EFB app, with built-in AHRS technology driving a responsive pitch and bank instrument within apps that support it. This functionality essentially creates a backup glass cockpit on a pilot’s iPad, providing an excellent tool for emergency situations.

While the Stratus Insight app offers many features that do not require an ADS-B receiver, an ADS-B In source, such as a Stratus receiver, is necessary to provide ADS-B traffic and ADS-B weather information to the app. The new Relevant Traffic feature requires an ADS-B In source.

Appareo also offers an Apple Watch version of their Insight EFB app, with many useful features, such as flight timer, metarss and tafs of nearby airports, weather radar, and a very important hypoxia warning system that connects with the heart rate monitor in the watch to warn a pilot of an accelerated heart rate, which is an early indication of hypoxia.

Stratus Insight’s new Relevant Traffic feature adds to the app’s suite of tools that already includes ATC Radio Transcription & Playback, Vertical Weather Profiles, a Smart Flight Plan tool, AHRS with synthetic vision, TAWS/Hazard Advisor and Alerts, Interactive Icing and Turbulence Layers, Avionics Connectivity and Terrain Profile View. Appareo offers a free 30-day trial of their Insight EFB app, with subscriptions priced at $9.99 monthly or $99.99 annually with no contract and option to cancel anytime.