Best 5 Tips to Choose Networked Marine Electronics for Your Boat
Electronics mediums like smartphones and the internet have made the world smaller. People living at a distance of an ocean can easily connect through mobile devices and the web. Marine electronics today help boaters navigate easily and establish networking with people on other boats and shores quickly. That’s why many companies have started manufacturing useful products like boat autopilots, GPS systems, Chartplotter displays, marine radio, and more. It resulted in a plethora of options while looking for marine electronics. To help you choose the right ones for your fishing boat, we have listed some of the best tips here. Let’s find them out.
1. Decide Based on The Type of Your Boat
The summer boating season is here. You must have the proper knowledge about the available marine supply in your area. Not every boat requires every gadget out there in the market. Based on the type of your vessel (like a fishing boat, sailing boat, or cruising boat), you can sensibly choose the right brand and equipment. For example, if you are looking for the most accurate boat GPS for sale, you can try out the Lowrance sensors & networking systems. Brands like Simrad, Lowrance, and others constantly bring new, innovative fishing electronics to match your boating style and needs.
2. What You Need – A Fishfinder, Chartplotter or a MultiFunction Display?
A Chartplotter is extremely useful for large boats that go far from the shore areas regularly. This GPS navigation system shows you the top-quality marine maps on the screen. It also displays your vessel’s positions on the chart. You can even connect this marine equipment with a black box sonar and a transducer. It would add a fishfinder capability into it. Marine chart plotters are available in different budgets and styles.
Fishfinders are the ideal choice for anglers having small boats. The particular function of such devices is to show an image of the fish and other aqua species below your vessel. Remember that the fishfinders do not cover the GPS, and in most cases, you can’t connect them with other devices. They work independently. Similarly, depth finders (AKA depth sounders) give you information about the depth of the water you are currently on.
The work of Multifunction Display (MFD) is to perform as a hub of your vessel’s entire electronics system. In other words, MFD works as the electronic brain of your boat. When you can do simple networking of MFD by reading/viewing some references, a professional boat service provider can help you build a full-fledged networking system around your MFD.
3. Decide Whether You Want to Upgrade with the System? OR NOT?
The boating industry is continuously evolving, and we can find a plethora of new, upgraded marine electronics in the market. You need to check whether your marine electronics are old or from different manufacturers? If you have such a combination of products on your vessel, a problem might create if one of these devices fails in the system.
Some manufacturers still use the old school NMEA 0183 standard to build devices like fishfinders and more. However, the upgraded technology, increasing user demands, and improvements in devices require companies to adopt newer measures. Like Lowrance, Simrad, and others, the top brands build marine systems for boats by following the NMEA 2000 networking protocol. It means you get a plug-and-play connection from such products with certified specifications.
4. How Would You Want to Enter Data – Using Touchscreen or a Keypad?
When you wear gloves, it is easier to use the traditional push-button system for the operation. Besides, the chart plotters, MFDs and smartphones might not work correctly if they are wet or the weather is freezing. In good condition and environment, they can detect the tiniest electrical charges, though. You can have two choices for touchscreen systems; single touch and multi-touch. Based on your device and comfort, you can pick the right option from them.
5. How Deep You Will Go in the water?
Don’t worry. We’re not asking about Scooba diving. Many navigation devices come with preloaded maps of the inland, coastal areas, and international waters. You also can add more maps to the device to cover your boating/fishing area and make navigation easier. There are also combos available of marine chart plotters and fishfinders.
Conclusion
Just ask the angler in you where you want to take your boat and what you want to do with it. These questions to yourself will ease your task of selecting the right networked marine electronics. Alberni Power and Marine have the best sorted marine supply on Vancouver Island. We will help you break down the list of the systems you would need depending on your location in Canada, boat type & size, outboard specification, and usage.