Mercury Smartcraft, worth the money?

I am looking at getting a Merc. who out there has Smartcraft gauges?

Are they worth it?

Also if you got them on your boat, what did they charge you?

According to my Mercury dealer, the Smartcraft gauges are a Mercury only setup, you can’t hook up to a NMEA2000 network such as Lowrancenet or the like. I still run a Mercury and am hoping for a few new adapters to come out from Lowrance. From what I have heard the Smartcraft gauges are kind of expensive.

I have smartcraft 1100 on a 225 pro xs. Well worth the money. It was around $225 installed with a new boat purchase. I mainly got it because I wanted to see the internal water temp. I had heard a few Opti’s blowing due to stuck thermostat/cold seize. It displays many things at the push of a button. For what I paid I feel its well worth it.

I was checking into them, they can troll your motor down lower than the throttle can and the incriments to raise and lower trolling speed is more accurate than the throttle.

I had the Smartcraft gauges on a Opti 150. The ability to troll down to lower, and more accruate, speeds was nice. I had trouble with one of the gauges hanging up, the only way to clear it was to unplug the gauge from the back.

How do you change the RPMs” I have Smart Craft Gauge and it shows RPM’s, etc. but do they all drop the rpms? If so how does one do this?

John O, I have the same trouble with my Smartcraft gauges. One or the other gauge, sometimes stays on after I shut down. But I have a 12V disconnect switch that I flip off then on, and it clears it for me.
Ripper, do you still have the manual for the Smartcraft gauges? It was a seperate manual on mine, just covering the gauges, and there is nothing in the main motor manual.
As far as is it worth the money? I say yes. I had a “98” Opti 150, that didn’t have it, cause I thought that it wasn’t worth the money. I now have a “02” Opti 150 that does. I dont have a kicker motor because I can troll down to 450 RPM, (Normal idle is 550 RPM) and that will push my 2090 @ 0.8 MPH on the GPS and no wind. For me, that is the slowest I need to go at night, on Mille Lacs, in November! Give me a PM and we can swap phone numbers, and maybe I can talk you through the procedure for the RPM set. Or if I can find it, (Could take a while!) I could make a copy of the pages needed in the manual, and send/fax them to you.

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I have smartcraft 1100 on a 225 pro xs. Well worth the money. It was around $225 installed with a new boat purchase. I mainly got it because I wanted to see the internal water temp. I had heard a few Opti’s blowing due to stuck thermostat/cold seize. It displays many things at the push of a button. For what I paid I feel its well worth it.

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Eric, Aren’t there multiple flavors of the smart craft gauges available. I was thinking the $225.00 was the “cheap” model, basically readouts only. Then you step up into the “expensive” gauges that allow you to adjust lots of setting and deeper views into the system. Seems like I’ve been told these gauges were in the $800.00 range. Please don’t quote me on any of the numbers, as this conversation was a bit ago when a good friend was shopping Mercs.

It’s a pretty slick set up.

I trolled with a guy that had smartcraft gauges on his 115 Opti.

There are different ones I know. The one i have will readout about 15 different options. For some I would need to install sensors, etc. I don’t know if I have a lower end model or a high end model. It just seems that there is way more than what I would ever need to have.