Garmin vs Simrad

[Seevee]

This has been discussed before but here's an update on deciding what to get.

Goal is an upper and lower chart plotter, sonar, forward sonar and autopilot... and perhaps radar later.

What I'm seeing with Simrad:
The design of their new MFDs, especially the Evo3 and more intuitive and more flexible than Garmin, and with knob control they seem faster.
I have an option to enlarge the characters on the Simrad, so I can read them when bouncing around in rough water.
Simrads tech support is still painfully slow, but they do return calls. (but this is a busy time for all, and Garmin is also slow).
Simrads warranty and replacement time is a crap shoot and can take up to 3 weeks, which is slow. And after the warranty is over the cost is 50% of the list price of the unit to fix! (Have friends than have dealt with this).
Simrads sonar and autopilot seem superior, based on tech support, sales and users.
Simrads package is about $2000 cheaper.
Big issue: lack of reasonable and good support

What I'm seeing with Garmin
Still excellent support
Still stuck with one chart source, but it's very good. However, they have dumbed it down, and have taken the identifying numbers off the channel markers! (However, they put them back as an option, in the latest update).
There is no way to enlarge the numbers on the chart so the only way I can quickly tell that shallow water is close is to have the low water numbers show up in red, which is a nice feature that Simrad doesn't do a good job with.
I love the auto routing (which Simrad doesn't have), but would like an option to tell it to run the inter coastal instead of it usually directing off shore.
I discussed warranty at length with a tech and still good service 7 to 10 day turn on in or out of warranty.
Big issue: The numbers and characters on the chart are just too small.

Warranty Issues
Both give a 2 yr warranty
Both say they can turn a unit in 7 to 10 days, but Simrad has had issue with this before so not a good track record (friends experience).
Simrad offers and extended warranty which Garmin does not, but expensive at $175 a year vs. Garmin’s $550 (IF you need it).
Both have a option to get a replacement unit shipped right away, but Simrad requires you to have the original unit installed by a certified installer, and Garmin does not.
Out of warranty: Simrad will charge a flat rate of one half the price of the unit! So that’s $1750 to fix a 12” Evo 3 unit. But at that flat rate, you can get a new unit (if one is available). Garmins flat rate is $550.


========

I really would like to try the Simrad, and probably will, for a few BIG reasons to me. First is I can read the characters, and just tired of squinting to see them on my Garmins. Also, the new Evo screen is a fair amount easier to use and set up than the Garmin, and the display is really bright and clear. And I’m impressed with the Forward scan that Simrad has, which is the cheapest on the market. Saw a photo of the actual display taken in the same water I boat in and it was crystal clear. From comment here, I suspect the Echo Pilot is a better unit, but 4 times the price.

Comments?

 

[Conrad]

We've had a Simrad system on board Blue Sky since early 2013. NSE12 MFD, auto pilot, Structurescan, 4G radar.

Really like the display, which uses navionics, my preferred chart system.

The structurescan is okay but should be used as an entertainment tool rather than a proper depthsounder. (Only goes to 350' and has been somewhat intermittent)

The Broadband 4G radar is good up to about 15 miles, which suits us perfectly for where we cruise. Great images, but short on some features like leaving trails on targets (it doesn't) or holding a northup heading (it always default to heading up)

No problems other than the missing features.

Our vessel came with a Garmin 2010C system which we had to remove as we couldn't get charts for it any more, which was a big downside.

 

[twistedtree]

I spent a lot of money to install Simrad on my boat. 6 months later I spent a lot of money to remove it all. There was a long list of things that did not operate as advertised, and Simrad was unable to fix any of them, or even provide a plan, commitment, or date to fix any of them.

It's coming up on three years now, and I don't believe a single one of the reported issues have been fixed. So I would not buy Simrad, and hence would go with Garmin.

 

[Sealife]

My customer service experience with Simrad was very poor. I will not be installing any new products from them.

 

[catalinajack]

I spent a lot of money to install Simrad on my boat. 6 months later I spent a lot of money to remove it all. There was a long list of things that did not operate as advertised, and Simrad was unable to fix any of them, or even provide a plan, commitment, or date to fix any of them.

It's coming up on three years now, and I don't believe a single one of the reported issues have been fixed. So I would not buy Simrad, and hence would go with Garmin.

And my experience was just the opposite. Installed a full suite of Simrad components. Plug and play, no glitches, all work just fine.

 

[Bruce B]

We have experienced a couple of glitches with the Garmin suite installed on our new boat and; Garmin customer service is incredibly easy to contact. They quickly determined that the issue was a new faulty component. That component was replaced instantly.
I'm sold on the customer service side! Huge improvement over my experience with Raymarine...
The gear is easy to use and works well. I'd say it has exceeded my expectations.
Bruce

 

[BandB]

Customer Service will win me over every time.

 

[GFC]

I've had a Simrad, two Garmins and now Raymarine on my boats. I like the Garmins and I'd probably stick with them on the two Boston Whalers their system is on.


The bigger boat has a Raymarine setup (GPS Plotter/radar) and I like it. It's maybe not quite as user friendly and intuitive as the Garmin, but I like it.


I'd probably not buy a Simrad system again. There were some issues with it that I was able to address with their software engineers that I understand they have now fixed, but IMHO they should have fixed those issues before they released it.

 

[BandB]

I've had a Simrad, two Garmins and now Raymarine on my boats. I like the Garmins and I'd probably stick with them on the two Boston Whalers their system is on.


The bigger boat has a Raymarine setup (GPS Plotter/radar) and I like it. It's maybe not quite as user friendly and intuitive as the Garmin, but I like it.


I'd probably not buy a Simrad system again. There were some issues with it that I was able to address with their software engineers that I understand they have now fixed, but IMHO they should have fixed those issues before they released it.

My preference is Furuno. However, one place we've seen Garmin really excel is Inland lakes and rivers. For most, that isn't an issue, but may be valuable to some.

 

[catalinajack]

I've had a Simrad, two Garmins and now Raymarine on my boats. I like the Garmins and I'd probably stick with them on the two Boston Whalers their system is on.

The bigger boat has a Raymarine setup (GPS Plotter/radar) and I like it. It's maybe not quite as user friendly and intuitive as the Garmin, but I like it.

I'd probably not buy a Simrad system again. There were some issues with it that I was able to address with their software engineers that I understand they have now fixed, but IMHO they should have fixed those issues before they released it.

Fixed before issued? I understand the frustration including that of twistedtree. If Simrad had known of the issues they would have been fixed beforehand. Software development requires extensive testing. The problem is that the testers must try, note the word try, to imagine every possible permutation of the use of the software driving a system. It is literally impossible to deploy new softwar free of bugs. Invariably, when new software is deployed "bugs" are encountered and through user feedback the bugs are corrected. My guess is that twistedtree was an early adopter; hence, more unidentified bugs. I came along much later after the bugs were fixed. No problems. It seems so simple but it is not.

 

[BruceK]

Contacting Garmin USA direct over a Garmin Australia lack of service(and worse) produced instant results. Garmin Australia were immediately as helpful as they should have been. Even at this distance I would vouch for the USA standards of service. The Aussie one not so much,unless applying an electrified cattle prod.

 

[twistedtree]

Fixed before issued? I understand the frustration including that of twistedtree. If Simrad had known of the issues they would have been fixed beforehand. Software development requires extensive testing. The problem is that the testers must try, note the word try, to imagine every possible permutation of the use of the software driving a system. It is literally impossible to deploy new softwar free of bugs. Invariably, when new software is deployed "bugs" are encountered and through user feedback the bugs are corrected. My guess is that twistedtree was an early adopter; hence, more unidentified bugs. I came along much later after the bugs were fixed. No problems. It seems so simple but it is not.

All the products I was using had been out for at least a year, and many of them had been out for several years. If you read many user accounts of Simrad products, you will quickly conclude that they rush products to market, often with significant known issues and promises to fix them "soon". And there have been several instances of updates that break basic functionality, don't work with some of the current transducers, etc. They are clearly more interested in selling new stuff rather than cleaning up issues with existing products. But if their stuff works in your configuration and for your use, it is nicely done. It's just a crap shoot whether it will do what you need/expect.

I certainly agree that all products have bugs, but some have more than others, and some companies place more value on product quality before it's sold, where others place more emphasis on time to market.

If Simrad had been able to give me a plan to fix the issues, I probably would have stuck with them. But their priorities were elsewhere, and continue to be. And by the way "we aren't going to fix it" is often an acceptable answer. I had sorted the problems into nuisances, important things to fix but not urgent, and things that needed to be fixed before I'd go to sea. As best I can tell, all these issues still exist in the current products since none of them have had updates except the MFDs.

 

[BandB]

Software development requires extensive testing. The problem is that the testers must try, note the word try, to imagine every possible permutation of the use of the software driving a system. It is literally impossible to deploy new softwar free of bugs. Invariably, when new software is deployed "bugs" are encountered and through user feedback the bugs are corrected. .

I know that is the conventional wisdom, but I strongly disagree with the statement that it's impossible to deploy new software free of bugs. We developed software internally all the time and I didn't accept bugs so didn't have them. We did do extensive "rainy day" testing. I was considered a pro at breaking a system. Perhaps it's a warped mind that helps. For someone building software for the public, in addition to the testing they can always have some beta users. The key is the testing. One of the favorites I remember was pre-testing several of us were around the computer with it being demonstrated. I simply said enter a negative number in that field. The response was "no one would ever enter negative." I said, "Oh, someone will so do it." Needless to say that didn't work out well.

Just like on a retail software nothing can destroy it as quickly as poor testing and bugs, when implementing software in a business, nothing can lose the users faster than bugs and their opinion of the software will be largely based on the first day of use.

Now, your comment and the practices of many companies are the reason I will never be a first user. Typically, I want a product that has been out at least 6 months. I'll let the other purchasers be their beta users and sort out the problems. Even something as simple as a cell phone, I want to see at least a month worth of reviews. Apple has had a recent history of not quite ready new phones and releasing software updates after a short period.

 

[sean9c]

Tried to buy Simrad R2009 display and 4G radar earlier this year. After 2-1/2 months of broken delivery promises, just bald faced lies of when it would ship, I finally gave up and bought Furuno. I'm not going to deal with a company with that level of customer service.

 

[fishpcb]

I have all Garmin and love it.
My friend is a Simrad guy.
He has 2 new in the box NSS evo2 12" units for sale.
$4500 obo for both
I would have tried them but just installed the new Garmin.

 

[Drake]

Customer Service will win me over every time.

Me too, and we have had great experience with Garmin. There are certainly things about their products that I would change, but the customer service compensates for lots of negatives.

 

[Bigsfish]

Three years ago I bought a new boat after have my old one 22 years. I check out all the various companies and decided that I wanted the same name on the plotter, radar, depth finder, ect so they would talk to each other (yeah I know that shouldn't be a problem today).

After deciding I liked Garmin the best (probably because I was familiar with them) I then went to my dealer that I've used for more than 40 years and got his opinions as he sells all the various brands and has his own techs to do repairs. He said Garmin and I told him to do the installation. Damn I was smart to do that.

 

[Delfin]

This has been discussed before but here's an update on deciding what to get.

Goal is an upper and lower chart plotter, sonar, forward sonar and autopilot... and perhaps radar later.

What I'm seeing with Simrad:
The design of their new MFDs, especially the Evo3 and more intuitive and more flexible than Garmin, and with knob control they seem faster.
I have an option to enlarge the characters on the Simrad, so I can read them when bouncing around in rough water.
Simrads tech support is still painfully slow, but they do return calls. (but this is a busy time for all, and Garmin is also slow).
Simrads warranty and replacement time is a crap shoot and can take up to 3 weeks, which is slow. And after the warranty is over the cost is 50% of the list price of the unit to fix! (Have friends than have dealt with this).
Simrads sonar and autopilot seem superior, based on tech support, sales and users.
Simrads package is about $2000 cheaper.
Big issue: lack of reasonable and good support

What I'm seeing with Garmin
Still excellent support
Still stuck with one chart source, but it's very good. However, they have dumbed it down, and have taken the identifying numbers off the channel markers! (However, they put them back as an option, in the latest update).
There is no way to enlarge the numbers on the chart so the only way I can quickly tell that shallow water is close is to have the low water numbers show up in red, which is a nice feature that Simrad doesn't do a good job with.
I love the auto routing (which Simrad doesn't have), but would like an option to tell it to run the inter coastal instead of it usually directing off shore.
I discussed warranty at length with a tech and still good service 7 to 10 day turn on in or out of warranty.
Big issue: The numbers and characters on the chart are just too small.

Warranty Issues
Both give a 2 yr warranty
Both say they can turn a unit in 7 to 10 days, but Simrad has had issue with this before so not a good track record (friends experience).
Simrad offers and extended warranty which Garmin does not, but expensive at $175 a year vs. Garmin’s $550 (IF you need it).
Both have a option to get a replacement unit shipped right away, but Simrad requires you to have the original unit installed by a certified installer, and Garmin does not.
Out of warranty: Simrad will charge a flat rate of one half the price of the unit! So that’s $1750 to fix a 12” Evo 3 unit. But at that flat rate, you can get a new unit (if one is available). Garmins flat rate is $550.


========

I really would like to try the Simrad, and probably will, for a few BIG reasons to me. First is I can read the characters, and just tired of squinting to see them on my Garmins. Also, the new Evo screen is a fair amount easier to use and set up than the Garmin, and the display is really bright and clear. And I’m impressed with the Forward scan that Simrad has, which is the cheapest on the market. Saw a photo of the actual display taken in the same water I boat in and it was crystal clear. From comment here, I suspect the Echo Pilot is a better unit, but 4 times the price.

Comments?

One caution on Simrad is that when they bring out a new product, they may toss all spare parts, effectively forcing you to buy their new product if you have a problem. This happened to me 3 years after purchasing one of their rather expensive radar units. It refused to turn on and when I called Simrad I was told that even though it had been purchased fairly recently, there were no longer any spares available. I connected with a tech support person at Koden looking for a solution, who said he used to work for Simrad and had seen them simply round can all spare parts for older units when they brought out a new one. Thankfully, I found that if I did a hard reboot of the unit I could get my unit to light up. A pain, but better than buying a new system.

I have no experience with Garmin, but I would never, ever buy another Simrad product again.

 

[Britannia]

On the topic of creating "bug free" software: For single applications it is somewhat easier to test and ensure that it operates correctly. Once you start networking devices, transducers, etc, it becomes more complicated and harder to test. When you get to "standards" such as NMEA 2000 you can find that there are ambiguities that different manufacturers interpret differently. Stuff can end up breaking and no one will take responsibility - each claiming their implementation is correct. As the complexity of our boat systems continues to increase so does the opportunity for defects to creep in.

Richard

 

[Pau Hana]

I'm not a fan of Navico (Lowrance/Simrad/B&G) gear, especially for larger boats.

In order, I'd go Raymarine, then Furuno, then Garmin. Garmin is last due to its proprietary charting systems, and limited support for its legacy gear.

Furuno is great gear, but spendy and not very intuitive.

Raymarine is easy to use, has cutting edge technology, uses freeware charts as well as Navionics, and is simple to integrate.

 

[Seevee]

All the products I was using had been out for at least a year, and many of them had been out for several years. If you read many user accounts of Simrad products, you will quickly conclude that they rush products to market, often with significant known issues and promises to fix them "soon". And there have been several instances of updates that break basic functionality, don't work with some of the current transducers, etc. They are clearly more interested in selling new stuff rather than cleaning up issues with existing products. But if their stuff works in your configuration and for your use, it is nicely done. It's just a crap shoot whether it will do what you need/expect.

I certainly agree that all products have bugs, but some have more than others, and some companies place more value on product quality before it's sold, where others place more emphasis on time to market.

If Simrad had been able to give me a plan to fix the issues, I probably would have stuck with them. But their priorities were elsewhere, and continue to be. And by the way "we aren't going to fix it" is often an acceptable answer. I had sorted the problems into nuisances, important things to fix but not urgent, and things that needed to be fixed before I'd go to sea. As best I can tell, all these issues still exist in the current products since none of them have had updates except the MFDs.

Twisted,
Interesting post. What issues did you have, and what units had the problems?

I am really leaning toward Simrad but now getting second thoughts again.... hard to decide. The main thing I like with Simrad is that one can read the charts with the Easy View, which enlarges the characters by 50%.

 

[Bruce B]

I'm not a fan of Navico (Lowrance/Simrad/B&G) gear, especially for larger boats.

In order, I'd go Raymarine, then Furuno, then Garmin. Garmin is last due to its proprietary charting systems, and limited support for its legacy gear.

Furuno is great gear, but spendy and not very intuitive.

Raymarine is easy to use, has cutting edge technology, uses freeware charts as well as Navionics, and is simple to integrate.

Have you tried getting Raymarine "legacy gear" like an E-120 plotter to connect to one of their new radomes? Or perhaps get an E-120 power supply board replaced recently?
The same vintage Garmin plotter will connect to a new Fantome radar...just sayin!

All companies have devices that become unsupported legacy gear, sometimes far too soon... I'd guess that Furuno is perhaps the leader in legacy support but even they have issues with gear. The screens on the TZT Touch units delaminate and according to the tech guy I spoke to at Furuno when trying to decide between Garmin and Furuno, the TZT 9 units have all kinds of issues...

There is no correct answer! Like BandB said earlier its all about customer service or how the company responds WHEN something doesn't work as expected.

Furuno has a great reputation as does Garmin. Raymarine was always nice to me once I got through but...I've spent waaaayyyyy too much time on hold waiting for them to answer or call back. That had not changed as of last fall when I spent some time trying to get an answer about an issue on our last boat.

I've been pretty vocal about my dislike of Raymarine and I will say that the final iteration of the electronics package was very good and was easily the most reliable Ray gear we had ever had. I am simply tired of the company.

Bruce

 

[ranger58sb]

I know that is the conventional wisdom, but I strongly disagree with the statement that it's impossible to deploy new software free of bugs. We developed software internally all the time and I didn't accept bugs so didn't have them. We did do extensive "rainy day" testing. I was considered a pro at breaking a system. Perhaps it's a warped mind that helps. For someone building software for the public, in addition to the testing they can always have some beta users. The key is the testing. One of the favorites I remember was pre-testing several of us were around the computer with it being demonstrated. I simply said enter a negative number in that field. The response was "no one would ever enter negative." I said, "Oh, someone will so do it." Needless to say that didn't work out well.

Nah, betcha you just didn't find the bugs that were there. You're right that normal testers would assume users wouldn't do some things... But then again, even our most creative testers couldn't anticipate all of the ham-handed user actions.

Even if a deployed system is thought to be bug free... I wouldn't label it as such. I might call it "pretty good"...

None of the software I had control of was for commercial sale. We did extensive pre-deployment testing, and the products were always usable from the git-go... but our users had primary mission to accomplish, the software was to become mission critical, the allowed testing period was therefore limited to a specific amount of time per the development/delivery timeline (barring catastrophic findings)... so it was a matter of doing the best we could... and then leaping all over bug reports as quickly as possible, afterwards. Luckily there usually weren't too many.

We were more often inundated with requests for additional features... which was OK with us. Usually those addressed use cases the original design group wasn't able to anticipate, and the products needed a few power users to get some hands-on time before those new use cases began to surface...

-Chris

 

[ranger58sb]

Furuno is great gear, but spendy and not very intuitive.

I don't really understand why many people say Furuno gear isn't very intuitive. Our controls are mostly straightforward, and a couple minutes reading the manual was about all it took to figure out how to work maybe 95-98% of the features, the ones we use routinely.

I've had to read portions of the manual again a couple times, usually about specific functions I'd never used before, but even that hasn't been much of a chore.

I can't compare with most other brands, but our previous experience with a non-networked Raymarine plotter wasn't much different.

-Chris

 

[Bigsfish]

Chris

95% of the features. Amazing. I'll bet I don't know how to use (or need to) 25% of the features in my machine (my phone too). My dad always told me that simple was good so nothing would brake, he always bought simple cars: heater and AM radio. I think he was correct. LOL

 

[ranger58sb]

Chris

95% of the features. Amazing. I'll bet I don't know how to use (or need to) 25% of the features in my machine (my phone too). My dad always told me that simple was good so nothing would brake, he always bought simple cars: heater and AM radio. I think he was correct. LOL

And the heater and radio were optional, too.



My grammar wasn't perfect. I meant 95-98% of the features we actually use.

Not sure I could do the math on included features that we never or almost-never use. Some of the occasional use features, I've had to read about. Partly to learn why I might want to use that kind of feature in the first place, but then sometimes the "how to" part as well.

During some of my manual reading, I did find one thing that doesn't seem to work... but it has to do with DSC-related output sentences from the (non-Furuno) radios... and I can't tell from external wiring whether the radio output wires actually go to the MFD, or elsewhere. (Everything's mostly covered in rubber boots...)

Next time I'm near the installer's shop, I expect I'll have them trace that one. As it turns out, this was one of those features I didn't know I might want... didn't discover it might exist until about 8 years after the initial installation... and I'm still not sure I might want it.

-Chris

 

[sunchaser]

My Furuno gear, lots of it, has been trouble free for 6 years. As I keep adding to it, I use a very smart tech who is on the phone with Furuno as new systems are added and field tested. Furuno's backward compatibility is very good.

Avoiding install issues and DIY mistakes play a huge role in a trouble free system. Plug and play sales BS by an overzealous DIYer or less than capable IT guy is a great sales gimmick, but in reality watch out. In many cases the integration of stuff that was not thought of by the developer dooms a system, especially in the wrong hands.

My hardware failures have been a Raymarine radar (failed after 6 years - power board engineering was not water proof) and Simrad AP (failed after 9 years due to internal voltage issues). Both since replaced by Furuno.

MFD chart plotting for us is of secondary importance since we utilize Nobeltec/Trident. So pick a provider and set it up right. Then attempt to keep from adding incompatible gizmos.

 

[Bigsfish]

Chris

Actually what pissed my dad off was they wouldn't allow him to delete the heater, it was an option early but changed over time. He lived in southeast Florida and only drove short distances, my mom's car had the options that were always breaking.

 

[Pau Hana]

Chris

Actually what pissed my dad off was they wouldn't allow him to delete the heater, it was an option early but changed over time. He lived in southeast Florida and only drove short distances, my mom's car had the options that were always breaking.

Wrong thread?

 

[twistedtree]

Twisted,

Interesting post. What issues did you have, and what units had the problems?



I am really leaning toward Simrad but now getting second thoughts again.... hard to decide. The main thing I like with Simrad is that one can read the charts with the Easy View, which enlarges the characters by 50%.

You can read all about it on MVTanglewood.com. No need to repeat it all here.

I realize that in many situation an MFD is the only practical solution, but I would encourage you to really challenge the assumption that you need one. Completely dumping the whole MFD concept was the best move I made in my electronics. MFDs are at the heart of vendor lock-in, and vendor lock-in is what causes you to suffer with some piece of gear that sucks even though everything else is OK, because you don't want to rip everything out because of one bad element and switch to another vendor to wind up with a different bad element. Dump the MFD, and now you can pick best of breed for each device/function, and interface strictly with industry standard interfaces and protocols.

From what I've seen, all the big vendors have issues if you buy into their whole package.

Furuno has superior radars, sounders, auto pilots , and support, but I don't like the MFDs

Simrad's radars are unfit for navigation, their sounders are mediocre, support is poor, and there are lots of less critical bugs that collectively make for a poor sense of quality. Hardware reliability appears poor too. They are the only vendor with huge sales on refurbished equipment every year - not a good indicator of quality in the field. But when it works, it's a well thought out system that is easy to use.

People seem to really like Garmin and that means a lot. But single source charts is a complete non-starter for me. And they are very distinctly consumer focused which doesn't fit well with with larger boats. I want a vendor who operates in the commercial market too. I did consider them for my Grady, but they didn't even make the first cut for my trawler which is intended to travel internationally.

Raymarine is a big question mark for me. When I was last selecting equipment, they were on death's door with a $10m market cap and $100m in debt. Buying the company would have been a better move than buying their products, and that's just what FLIR did. They do seem to be turned around, but have left a lot of unhappy customers in their wake who they will need to earn back.