Garmin purchases Navionics

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fishandhunt/garmin-acquires-navionics-marine-charts/

Garmin is proud to announce that it has acquired Navionics S.p.A., a privately-held worldwide provider of electronic navigational charts and mobile applications for the marine industry.

Navionics has long been known as a leading supplier of highly accurate navigational charts and mobile applications for boaters. By combining Navionics’ content with Garmin’s BlueChart and LakeVü content, we will be able to offer the best available breadth and depth of coverage to our marine customers. Going forward, we plan to retain the Navionics brand and will continue to support Navionics’ existing customers.

“Since our founding, Navionics has been passionate about creating products that enhance the boating experience,” said Giuseppe Carnevali, Navionics founder and president. “Garmin shares our passion for serving the marine industry, and is an ideal company to carry the strong brand and reputation of Navionics into the future.”

In addition to a popular boating app, Navionics has developed an extensive repository of nautical charts for oceans, rivers, and lakes. Many of these charts have been developed with Navionics’ proprietary surveys, done both in the field and with remote sensing such as satellite imagery and airborne laser scanners.

Never mind…..

Well I hope it’s good news. Hopefully we will be able to use navionics in the garmin units soon and use the quick draw mapping to make them even more accurate. and I sure hope they dont mess with the app, that thing is awesome for ice fishing and a backup.

I’ll be surprised if they don’t discontinue the Lowrance and HB products.

biggill wrote:

I’ll be surprised if they don’t discontinue the Lowrance and HB products.

Same here. Look what Johnson did with Lakemaster, it worked. I wonder what Lowrance’s immediate future will look like without either of the big two mappers. I’m sure Lowrance was aware of the purchase ahead of time and already has a plan in the works in case they lose Navionics support.

biggill wrote:

I’ll be surprised if they don’t discontinue the Lowrance and HB products.

I’d be surprised if they did. First of all if you limit the freshwater market of Navionics to Garmin, in my opinion it would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. I am sure that Garmin is looking to increase market share however, at least in MN if you want accurate mapping you want either Lakemaster/Humminbird or Lowrance/Lowrance Insight maps (based on Lakemaster data) and of course those also link to a trolling motor, I am not sure Garmin links to anything. Last year Lowrance just introduced Sonar Charts Live based on the Navionics chip and I would guess that there is a long term contract to support this. It is a big deal with Navionics as they get a yearly update fee to stay current. I have a current Canada Navionics chip for my Lowrance and it works great for what I need it for. Garmin is a great product but I have an extensive setup with Lowrance and the accessories. Just like when Minnkota switched to Humminbird (I understand), I was forced to order a new Motorguide after being a 35 year loyal customer of Minnkota, foolish move but that’s my own opinion and my friends can tell you what that’s worth! Maybe for a majority of the market, it would work, I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see before renewing my Sonarcharts Live program what will happen, if nothing else I guess I had better take care of my year old chip that works in my Lowrance.

Good points David but if Garmin could force existing navionics owners to switch their electronics to Garmin, it would be win/win.

Anyone have any predictions as to what happens with the standalone app?

I sold my HDSs last spring to buy Humminbird Helixes. The only reason I switched was because I wanted the updated Lakemaster MN chip.

With the units being so equal across different brands, I think there’s definitely merit in some consumers choosing a brand based on the compatible mapping software.

I was going to sell one of my garmin units to buy a humminbird to run the lakemaster maps next to my other Garmin for sonar, because I have been really disappointed in the garmin maps. Now with this news, I will hold off until I hear if Garmin will offer the navionics maps. In the past I preferred the lakemaster maps over navionics, but maybe they have gotten better. Can’t be worse than Garmin maps on LOTW.

I have never had a situation on any of the lakes I fish where Navionics is more accurate than Lakemaster. As glitchy as some HB units can be, I will deal with it for a Lakemaster chip. I’m 100% positive there are others with the opposite opinion and would switch to Garmin if Navionics was proprietary.

biggill wrote:

Good points David but if Garmin could force existing navionics owners to switch their electronics to Garmin, it would be win/win.

I certainly will NOT be switching over to a different GPS brad because of a $100 map chip. I have all the chips I would ever need already. With the ability to make my own maps, along with other brands that do that same I see no point in pulling the plug over a mapchip limitation.

I will gladly keep my Lakemaster, Lowrance and Navionics chips and use them for many years to come. If Navionics is no longer supported on Lowrance, who well, their loss. I wont switch to Garmin because of it.
There are some features that I like with Garmin, but until they do the current things my Lowrance/Motorguide do, would never consider them.

I have Garmin units on my boat and while I fish mostly metro lakes they seem fairly accurate. Not dead on by any means but fairly accurate. I have experienced the mapping being a bit off with Navionics while on hardwater. I’m hoping that these two services merging will create improvements to both. Time will tell.

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>biggill wrote:</div>
Good points David but if Garmin could force existing navionics owners to switch their electronics to Garmin, it would be win/win.

I certainly will NOT be switching over to a different GPS brad because of a $100 map chip. I have all the chips I would ever need already. With the ability to make my own maps, along with other brands that do that same I see no point in pulling the plug over a mapchip limitation.

Are you using the Navionics to make your maps? I would hate to see that feature go away from my Lowrance/Navionics setup, and it’s my understanding you have to pay the annual fee to allow you to keep using this feature. Hopefully they continue to support that for those of us that have purchased this equipment.

311hemi wrote:

Are you using the Navionics to make your maps? I would hate to see that feature go away from my Lowrance/Navionics setup, and it’s my understanding you have to pay the annual fee to allow you to keep using this feature. Hopefully they continue to support that for those of us that have purchased this equipment.

No, I am not using Navionics currently since I have older units. I have been using the “record sonar, then upload to the GoFree Community” route thus far. I haven’t don’t a ton of it, but I did it in Canada where there was ZERO mapping from anyone. Worked pretty slick.
I agree if that ability was no longer supported by Navionics with Lowrance unit that would be a bummer, but I suspect that they are closing in on it for themselves as well.

ClownColor wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
I sold my HDSs last spring to buy Humminbird Helixes. The only reason I switched was because I wanted the updated Lakemaster MN chip.

With the units being so equal across different brands, I think there’s definitely merit in some consumers choosing a brand based on the compatible mapping software.

That was the only reason? Interesting. What did Lakemasters offer? Curious.

Yes, Lakemaster maps were the only reason for me to switch to Humminbird.

What did it offer? Almost every lake [with a pwa] in the area that I fish and live is mapped with ACCURATE 1′ contours. Navionics has a lot of 1′ contour lakes in the area as well, but they are so inaccurate that it’s laughable. Their maps look exactly like the old DNR maps from the 60s but with missing contours interpolated in and some pretty blue shading.

tswoboda wrote:

Yes, Lakemaster maps were the only reason for me to switch to Humminbird.

What did it offer? Almost every lake [with a pwa] in the area that I fish and live is mapped with ACCURATE 1′ contours. Navionics has a lot of 1′ contour lakes in the area as well, but they are so inaccurate that it’s laughable. Their maps look exactly like the old DNR maps from the 60s but with missing contours interpolated in and some pretty blue shading.

FYI Lakemaster chips were the basis for what became the Lowrance Lake Insight chips. Ive spend countless hours comparing them side by side and they are the same. The bonus is that the Lowrance chipset gives you all the coverage on one chip vs buying a “LOW/Rainy”, “Mississippi River” pool 123 chip. At $100 a crack plus for each of them the Lowrance chip was a far better deal, plus I didn’t have to make a kneejerk reaction and drop thousands on new GPS units.

CaptainMusky wrote:

FYI Lakemaster chips were the basis for what became the Lowrance Lake Insight chips. Ive spend countless hours comparing them side by side and they are the same. The bonus is that the Lowrance chipset gives you all the coverage on one chip vs buying a “LOW/Rainy”, “Mississippi River” pool 123 chip. At $100 a crack plus for each of them the Lowrance chip was a far better deal, plus I didn’t have to make a kneejerk reaction and drop thousands on new GPS units.

Thank you for sharing that info, and being that I ran Lowrance for 5 years – I already knew that. I had Lowrance Lake Insight chips in both of my HDS units, and yes they had the same data as the Lakemaster chips of 2011. Like I said I switched to Humminbird for the NEW Lakemaster MN chip that came out last winter. It added almost 40 1′ contour lakes within a 30 mile radius of my house, that’s a big deal to me.

And FYI I didn’t “make a kneejerk reaction and drop thousands”, I sold an HDS5 and HDS7 with chips for $650, bought a Helix 9 and chip for $550… actually made money on the deal. But thanks for your concern.