Article by Pat Schrawder
MARINE ELECTRONICS WHAT’S NEW OR HOT FOR 2013
Sadly, last season stood out for the fact that marine electronics’ manufacturers did not produce much that was new. Perhaps, and most likely, it was the stalled economy, higher gas prices or economic uncertainty but, whatever the reason, there just wasn’t much that was new. While the economy continues to struggle, it seems that marine equipment companies this year have decided they must come out with some new or improved items in order to stay in the running with their competition. Setting aside my personal preferences, I’ll try to give you a complete overview of what is hot and what is new for 2013.
Companies come and go but there are a few that appear to be in it for the long haul, so I will concentrate on only those. In my opinion, the top major full-line manufacturers right now (in alphabetical order) are: Furuno, Garmin, Lowrance, Raymarine and Simrad. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a close look at what each brand is bragging about in 2013. If there is time, we’ll cover some of the other new items on the market as well looking at what’s happening in the charting world. So let’s take a quick look at some of what’s ahead.
FURUNO
This year, Furuno introduced two new models for the smaller boat market, the GP1670F and 1870F with new styling, C-Map 4D cartography and a built-in GPS antenna. Both units include their “Accu-fish” fish size analyzer and exclusive bottom discrimination technology. They also added the availability of the 200WX Ultrasonic Weather Station by Airmar providing live weather data with no moving parts as an add-on to their popular 3D and TZTouch displays.
GARMIN
One look at Garmin this year and you will be struck by the large number of new products, all the way from integrated flight deck equipment for experimental aircraft to electronic dog training collars. However, in the marine division, they are touting their new GPSMAP8000 series of GPS/plotter/fish finder units. Starting at 8-inches and going as far up as 19-inches for their BlackBox 8500 units, they promote their “pinch-to-zoom” touchscreens and their new “Smartmode” operating systems.
LOWRANCE
Still primarily considered by many a brand that is designed for more in-shore and/or lake use, Lowrance keeps expanding their lines to include more sophisticated and higher priced items. This season, they are promoting their new HDS Gen2 Touchscreen MFD’s (multi-function displays) that are an improved version of the previous HD Gen units.
Available in 7-inch, 9-inch and 12-inch models, they feature something they call “StructureScan®” HD Sonar Imaging that is now built-in to the head unit eliminating the need to mount a separate box.
RAYMARINE
In February of this year, Raymarine introduced their new CHIRP powered “Dragonfly™” Sonar/GPS with High Resolution “downvision” sonar imaging. These models use Navionics MicroSD charts in the silver and gold format. They also introduced two new models in their new a-series MFD’s. The new a65 and a67 units come with built-in Wi-FI to allow the user to control their displays from a Smartphone and/or tablet.
SIMRAD
This year Simrad has concentrated on software enhancements to their popular series of MFD’s. They have added “Insight Planner™”, PC software for marine navigation planning that allows you to create routes, waypoints and points of interest on your computer and transfer them to your MFD using a standard SD card. They also have “Insight Genesis™”, which is an on-line service providing the ability to create customized contour maps from your own sonar logs. In addition, they offer “GoFree™” wireless solutions with support for “WIFI-1™”.
In the weeks ahead, we’ll take a closer look at each of these. Since you will be hearing a lot about CHIRP, sonar technology, Wi-Fi and charting options, we’ll first examine the new terms and technologies that you need to understand to become a smart marine electronics shopper.
Pat and her husband, Larry are owners of L&L Marine Electronics on Golf Course Road in West Ocean City, MD.
