Navionics+ (with additional Powell info as well)

S

Sunbeam

Active member
I just bought a new chartplotter (yay, finally!) and for "additional charts" (beyond what comes on it) it uses Navionics. I wanted to buy a chart for Powell, and found out about these two "Hotmaps" options. The Hotmaps charts go by region, with around a half dozen regions in the US/Canada (i.e. SW US, etc.)

1) Navionics Premium Western Lakes, part number NAV-MSD/PREM-W6

2) Navionics Platinum Western Lakes, part number NAV-MSD/HMPT-W6

The Platinum has everything that the Premium has, plus the following:
--Community Edits
--Satellite Overlay
--3D View
--Panoramic Lake Photos
--1-foot contours on lakes where HD is available (includes Powell)

But then I read about Navionics+ on Wayne's Words, but didn't totally get all the ins and outs, and how it related to the above chips. It is a subscription service, more or less. So I called Navionics and spoke to the really helpful Eric, and here is what I now understand.

First, here is a link to the Navionics+ page for the basics:

http://www.navionics.com/en/navionics-plus

How the Navionics+ works is that you first buy a special Navionics+ blank chip, that physically comes to you. It lists for around $179 now. This is a 2GB chip. Then you go in through a program (on computer, not on iPad) and you can highlight various lakes (or I think coastal areas too) on a map (kind of like you do with the Navionics iPad app) and load them onto your chip. You can pick and choose any lakes you want in the US and Canada (vs. buying regions as with the Hotmaps above). You can also go online and remove/replace with other maps (the waypoint and etc. data is saved on your plotter). There are some advantages to the Hotmaps though: For example the Platinum Hotmaps has satellite views (like birds-eye photographs of the surface) for Powell, but the + does not. But the + does have many of the features of the Hotmaps.

The first year of Navionics+ is free (you just buy the chip), and subsequent years are $99. This presumes you keep using the same chip, or you could buy another chip if you wanted to.

I think I'm going to buy a Hotmaps chip for Powell, but I'm going to consider the Navionics+ for future, especially if I "skip around" to various lakes that aren't all in one Hotmaps region (although perhaps iPad app is enough for those -- will have to see how it all goes).

I figured that if I wasn't totally clear on how it worked, perhaps others weren't either. Of course double check any of this before purchasing, etc.

Sunbeam
 
Wow, you scared me for a minute there Sunbeam. I bought Navionics + last spring and installed it. It's great because as you said, you can choose what areas you would like mapping for as long as you stay within the confines of the allowable memory. I chose the area between Portland north to BC including Desolation Sound and Princess Louisa as well as the open ocean areas.

What scared me is that it sounded like I have to pay $99 each year for the subscription. However, the subscription, called Fresh Data is optional and I chose not to add the subscription. The mapping is very good, looking much like the Navionics Gold mapping. It doesn't include all the fancy graphics and 3D that the Platinum packages offer.

I would highly recommend Navionics +.
 
I guess I could have said it better - thanks for pointing that out. As I understand it, you only have to "re-up" the $99 each year if you want the chip to still be dynamic - in other words, so you can keep switching areas around, adding new ones, or updating the charts.

So say you joined for one year (and the first year is free), then on day 364 you have "XYZ" dataset on your chip, you still have that XYZ for life, but just the chip goes "static" in terms o f what you can change through the Navionics site. So you have what you have.

Then you can re-up for $99 and keep the original chip dynamic (add, subtract, update), or you can buy a new chip (~$179) and the $99 re-up and keep your static old chip plus start a new one.

Since I hope to keep going to Powell in years to come, and I think the satellite view might be fun to have, I think I'm going to buy the HotMap platinum chip for that region; but for other places I may go with the Navionics+ (depending on how much I like the built-in coastal charts in my new plotter and/or go to other inland lakes).
 
This comment is specific to Lake Powell, but relates to other bodies of water.

one foot contours! with community edits. Have you looked at a chart of Powell with one foot contours? The Navionics chart app for I pad has this labeled as "sonar" This is so busy, that it is difficult to use for navigation (the regular Navionics is 20 foot contour, which is much better, unless you happen to be a professional bass fisherman!

Community edits, means that other pros can send their data (depth/vs GPS), back to Navionics, and that will appear on updated charts, and on the person who sent in the data's chat.

3 D or bird eye's view--in my opinion worthless. Labeling of the canyons would be great--but few charts do that. Back to numbered buoys and paper charts, which work very well.

What is important on Lake Powell, is visual, both reading the water and reading the land. Looking for the shoal spots by the water color--not what a chart plotter shows.

Navionics is nice to have, but like all of the charts--has some errors--the more contours, most likely the more errors.

For example--there is only blue over the castle rock cut. Why not upgraded channel?

Skipper charts are based on Topo maps and I think give perhaps a better picture, but with wide contours.

I'll fire up my Garmin with the latest HD charts when I launch the boat--but the Blue Chart app, which I updated a month ago, is now not showing the lake, and there is a message asking if I want to update the charts (for a fee). There seems to be an assumption that you have a wifi spot right before you launch, so you have the latest updates--or nothing.
 
I checked your summary and it looks very good. I was unaware that you had to download the data for the plus chip. Hopefully you can load your entire selected region to the card.

If you have a large number of users updating your local area with fresh data the SonarCharts option is pretty cool.

I check each year the chart changes for the Potomac River on the NOAA site and there are very few real useful updates. The optional extended download capability to me then becomes truly optional.

if they are limiting you to a region I do not understand why they don't just put that region on the card when you buy it.

Oh well they are offering the user a lot of options and that is a good thing.

Gee after I posted I saw that I was not responding to the entire thread.

I boat on the Potomac and 90% of the river is between 0 and 30 feet. Having the one foot gradients is great for fishing even though we are not pro's. finding a cut or a hump that is not on the 20 foot dispersion can be key to saving gas and time looking for one. For lake powell with its steep drops and deep water yeah not so much.
 
thataway":37r2fvv6 said:
This comment is specific to Lake Powell, but relates to other bodies of water.

one foot contours! with community edits. Have you looked at a chart of Powell with one foot contours? The Navionics chart app for I pad has this labeled as "sonar" This is so busy, that it is difficult to use for navigation (the regular Navionics is 20 foot contour, which is much better, unless you happen to be a professional bass fisherman!
Click to expand...

Whew, glad I came back here to look, as I was just about to order the Platinum Hotmaps chip. I want to get something, as the charts that come in my new chartpotter do not include Powell. I do have Navionics on the iPad, but would like to use my new chartplotter!

So if I buy the Platinum Hotmaps chip, do I HAVE to use the 1 foot contours? Or can I "step back" to more widely spaced contours? Starting to panic slightly as time is getting short, and I'll be removing my old Garmin 2006c (which does have Powell charts on it, thanks to another generous C-Brat)

thataway":37r2fvv6 said:
3 D or bird eye's view--in my opinion worthless. Labeling of the canyons would be great--but few charts do that. Back to numbered buoys and paper charts, which work very well.
Click to expand...

Okay, well the overhead photos were my main reason for going with Platinum (plus a couple of other things). Maybe that would have been a big mistake. I guess I was thinking that i would have the chart on a specific Canyon or marina or whatever, and then switch to birds-eye-photo view, and "see" it that way. Maybe it doesn't work that way? Or it's not as nifty as it sounds?

I did put a name/label/waypoint for each canyon mouth on my Garmin, but I won't have that this year.

So... maybe I'll do Navionics+ and then just download the Powell area. Or get the Premium Hotmaps chip. Just when you think you have it all figured out... :cry
 
potomac_brat":28zwvzek said:
if they are limiting you to a region I do not understand why they don't just put that region on the card when you buy it.
Click to expand...

The Navionics+ does not limit you to a region; in fact I'd say it's ideally suited for those who boat in a wide variety of areas. (If just boating in one area, might as well just get the Platinum chip for that area?)

With the Navionics+ you can download charts from anywhere, as long as you don't go over the 2GBsize limit of the chip (card). Even then you can "throw some away" and change to other ones as long as your subscription is current. When the subscription runs out, if you don't renew, you end up with whatever is on the card at that time.
 
better check the FAQ's on the site about the region limit.

quote

Q. How many regions can I buy? Can I download data from one region and data from another region onto the same card? How does the store know which region I have?
A. Only one of the seven regions can be associated with each card. If you need more than one region, you will have to buy multiple cards.
 
Wow, that is completely at odds with what Eric at Navionics explained to me. And it seems to somewhat go against the whole advantage of it. I mean, if you are only going to have one area, you can just buy that chip (and for the price of the Navionics+ bare ship, you can get a Platinum chip).

The way Eric had explained it to me ("you can mix and match lakes and coastal charts from anywhere in the US and Canada") it made perfect sense and I was about to buy one and join up.

Edited to add: Okay, just went to the Navionics+ site and I think I see the mixup. Yes, you can only download charts from one region, BUT, the U.S. and Canada is all one region. So this seems it would only be a problem if you also wanted charts for another region (not just the US and Canada).

Or do you see another gotcha?
 
i have seen faq's not keep up with the business side and maybe it changed. i would call them up again and ask about the FAQ on the site and see if policy has changed. what they told you makes a lot more sense than what the FAQ's say.

edit: sorry to cause you the stress. i am in the market for a new chart card and have been studying this product also. now it makes a lot of sense for the plus card. i have been looking at the platinum product and there are multiple regions for that card just in the US. that must have been where i steered you wrong.
 
See my edit in the post just above yours. Yes, you can only do one region, but the US and Canada (plus it looks the The Bahamas) are all one region. So unless you are trying to download Europe, Austrlaia, etc. it should work like how I first understood it.
 
I went ahead and bought the Navionics+ chip, and when it arrived I set it up and put Lake Powell on it. In that process I came up with some questions, so this morning I called Navionics again and spoke to the ever-helpful Eric. I learned a few things - some of which we had discussed here - so I thought I would come back and update the thread.

First of all, the size of the chip and a basic idea of what you can fit on it. The chip is 2GB, which is about the size of one Premium chip (Platinum chips are more like 15GB, but that's mostly due to the aerial photography). I loaded up Lake Powell (with all three information categories you can select) and it is 104MB. I then "sailed" over to the St. John's area of Florida and put a square around a good percentage of central Florida to see how large that would be. It came to around 300mb (I didn't download it now though). So from that you can see that it would be possible to fit quite a few areas on the chip (of course dependent on how large you make your squares). If anyone has downloaded areas of Navionics on an iPad, it works about the same way with highlighting an area and sizing it to what you want.

On the year/membership/data thing: The way it works is that you get your first year of Navionics+ free along with buying the chip/card. During that year you can add/subtract/change/update as much as you like. This includes "freshening" the charts you have with newest data. At the end of the year, however you have the card, it becomes completely static. No changing areas, no "freshening."

I wanted to compare this to simply buying a Premium chip (say for Powell). In this way, the Premium (dedicated area) chip is the same (i.e. you cannot update it after one year).

There are a couple of things on the Navionics+ chip that are not on the Premium chip. I forget which ones now though (darnit). I think it was community edits and sonar logs.

I asked about the sonar logs (you can upload data to their database, and you get the sonar log data of others to download). I wanted to know how/if these were vetted. After all, I presume a chart expert makes the charts, but how do I know "Joe Shmoe's" sounder logs are accurate? As it turns out, they do vet the sonar logs before republishing them. They do not vet or edit the Community Edits (something like active captain). This makes sense - of course if someone says a certain marina is fantastic, you know that's an opinion and you may not agree. I just wanted to make sure my chip wasn't going to get loaded up with data from someone whose depth sounder was on the fritz.

Another thing Eric told me was that even if you don't renew the Navionics+ right away when the year is up, you can jump back in and update it later (not sure how much later, but he used the example of months).

The year: I noticed when I went to load up the Powell info that my year started at that time. So if you get a chip like this in December and don't plan on boating until May, you might want to hold off loading it up until April, so you don't "lose" five months of updating time.

Lastly, when I went to select my chartplotter, it wasn't listed. I asked Eric about that and he said that it should be (it's relatively new), and he sent a note off to the appropriate people plus took my e-mail address to let me know when it gets added to the list. In the meantime I selected a related plotter, and he said it should be fine. It's not about screen size, etc. but more about them not allowing you to download stuff that would not work on your plotter.

So far, I'm seeing a lot of advantages to Navionics+ for my use (trailering to various locations in the US and Canada), and only one downside (needing to have a computer and Internet connection to get it set up vs. just a chip comes and you plug it in). Who knows if I will still feel this way at the end of the year, but I'm going to try it and find out.
 
I'm willing to bet that if you had an SD card reader, you can mount the card on your computer and make a copy of what is on the card and then reload the card from the saved version. That would allow you to download a 2GB region (say the entire PacNW) and save it to your hard drive. Then you could down load another 2GB from a different region (say the east coast) and save it to your hard drive. If this worked, you could get all the data you wanted and store it locally for reloads at a later date. This might be worth a try during the subscription year.
 
Interesting stuff Sunbeam... but just to clarify, above you stated the following:

On the year/membership/data thing: The way it works is that you get your first year of Navionics+ free along with buying the chip/card. During that year you can add/subtract/change/update as much as you like. This includes "freshening" the charts you have with newest data. At the end of the year, however you have the card, it becomes completely static. No changing areas, no "freshening."
Click to expand...

By that I assume you mean "at the end of the year.... it becomes completely static" if you do NOT pay the yearly $99 membership fee every year, right?

And, as long as you continue to pay the yearly $99 membership fee you can continue to receive updates as needed.

Is this correct?

Thanks,
Dan, Tanya, and Hannah on C-Renity
 
Yes, that is correct.

Here is a summary as I understand it:

First, you buy the card (~$179), and you get one year of "free" Navionics+ membership. You can add/subtract/freshen to your heart's content (within the US/Canada region, presuming that is the one you selected).

Then at the end of the year you have two choices:

a) You do nothing and the card becomes static at that point in time (you can still use it on your plotter, just like any card, but you can no longer change it with new data from the Navionics website).

b) You renew for $99 and you can go on using it as you did the first year (add/subtract/freshen at will on the Navionics site).

Alternatively you can let it "expire" at the end of the first year but then still renew later on - although I'm not sure how much time you have. It sounded like weeks/months, but I did not ask if there was a limit.
 
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