Garmin aquired Navionics

skennelly

http://newsroom.garmin.com/press-release/featured-releases/garmin-acquires-navionics

Dude_Himself

All good things must end... :-(

Stodge

I look at it the other way.  Now I can get Navonics on my Garmin plotter.  

Dude_Himself

I have the Navionics SD card in my VesselView, with a networked GPS receiver. If they turn off Navionics, or require a Garmin to run it, I'm out.

Stodge

Navinoics works on several brands of GPS.  I doubt Garmin would do something to limit what brands can use Navinoics.  I'd expect it to go the other way since Garmin one of the few GPS brand that can't use it that they get added to the list.

Liberty44140

Agree with Stodge, Garmin is swimming in money due to their affordable and better technology. I don’t see them goofing up Navionics. Hope that it is a nice compliment to the line. 

reneechris14

Not really sure how I feel about this. Garmin chart plotters are the only ones to come preloaded with charts. Most other plotters  use Navinoics chips ($199). This always made Garmin a better deal.
Garmin acquired Active Captain a couple mounts back and now there are cost to use it. Always been free for years.

Dream_Inn

Yeah, I wasn't happy about the active captain costing money.  It was actually decent, I'm sure because it was free so many people could use it. 

Stodge

reneechris14 said:

Not really sure how I feel about this. Garmin chart plotters are the only ones to come preloaded with charts. Most other plotters  use Navinoics chips ($199). This always made Garmin a better deal.
Garmin acquired Active Captain a couple mounts back and now there are cost to use it. Always been free for years.

Actually the pre-loaded charts are available on Garmin, but not included in all.  I picked up a 721 and had to get the Garmin Blue Chart chip and keep it in the unit to access it.  It's brother the 741 is the same plotter with built-in charts.

The Navionics charts are akin to the Garmin G2 Vision chip, which allows auto routing.  So having that Navionics chip on a non-Garmin let you auto route.

I prefer the Garmin interface.  as soon as I could justify it I switched the plotter in the 342 from a Lowrance to a Garmin even though I had invested in the Navionics chips the month before for our Lake Huron trip.  But I think it would be nice to have the option to use either the G2 vision or the Navionics chip in my Garmin plotter for auto route etc.

Stodge

Dream_Inn said:

Yeah, I wasn't happy about the active captain costing money.  It was actually decent, I'm sure because it was free so many people could use it. 

I'm confused.  I have not paid anything for access to Active Captain and can still log in and see the live map and marina info.  What is it you have to pay for?

reneechris14

Yes @Stodge you are correct on my lap top login and use is the same but on my phone the icon changed and says you can down maps ($). I use plan2nav on my phone to scope out places and that has the active caption info. Plan2nav was a one time fee for down load of maps, did than 5years ago this also allows 3 applications (or phones,tablets) it is not a yearly subscription like navionics app.

Stodge

@reneechris14 Ah ok.  I don't use any phone or tablet based apps.  I do use Active Captain on the PC to research marinas/locations. 

I use Navionics Web App for routing ideas.  There is a round-about way to get a route from Navionics Web to Google Earth and then to a GPX format.  But the resulting route make my plotter puke.

And I use HomePort to create/manage routes and to save tracks.  

I brought my laptop on our Lake Huron trip with all my research/charts/routes etc as a backup for the data on the plotter.