OpenMarine

How about adding support for a rotary encoder in tinypilot, like on the Furuno 711 or Simrad AP48 ?

i don't know how it works in furuno or simrad, but would this encoder rotate in both directions with clicks and also be able to press like a button? What would pressing do? Same as auto button engage disengaged? Or menu button? Or a hybrid of these functions?

Do you have a specific part? It's difficult to make these waterproof.

I have made the buttons programmable from the web, and now with the new hat design there are 15 pins for buttons, so certainly could allow assigning a rotary encoder to 2 or 3 inputs, but it needs this as a special option to decode the inputs correctly counting steps and direction.

I think most rotary encoders work the same way - 2 pulse trains when rotated, each click is one pulse, and the phase determines direction. 
Pressing could be optional, and used as an ordinary button.
I agree that waterproofing would be difficult, but in many cases that is not a big problem - since not all installations need to be waterproof.
Here is a part from ebay;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/KY-040-Encoder-...SwphNfTZJ1

great idea, i also think that a rotarty control would be an awesome option :-) great to steer with the AP engaged :-)
the rotary control also would be a nice menu control with push to select. waterproofing necessary...

the blink marine powertrack looks nice: https://blinkmarine.com/products/powertrack/
but expensive and so on...

Where can I get a waterproof rotary encoder?