Your experience with Garmin Bluechart Mobile

David Carter said:

That stinks. Being compatible with active captain is what made me go with Garmin. I have it on my iPhone but can't get it on my 740. So is home port free for the PC? Can we set up a route an transfer it to the 740?

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David, you can import routes to your Garmin 740 using any program that creates routes in the GPX format, including routes created on the ActiveCapt website. Many nav programs will convert to GPX. You save the routes to a SD card, place the SD card into your 740 and upload it. IMHO the Garmin homeport PC nav program is worth the money. It has the best route editing features of any nav program I've used.

ActiveCaptain said:

It doesn't do that today. Our license doesn't allow a subset of markers to be transferred so there's no legitimate way for anyone to provide that capability.

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Looking forward to the day my plotter has AC data and companion warnings all uploaded to it. I don't have the room or desire to place a cell phone, computer and tablet at the helm.

timjet said:

Looking forward to the day my plotter has AC data and companion warnings all uploaded to it. I don't have the room or desire to place a cell phone, computer and tablet at the helm.

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I just loaded the garmin charts a few days ago & have went thru areas and marinas on the river that I'am familiar with. The AC marina reviews & recommended anchorages are well worth the cost of the charts. I can get along without the AC data on my plotter, I see the value in trip planning & being able to find that place to anchor at the end of the day. One reason I added it to my iPad is for a delivery in April from my home marina on the Mississippi to Lake Erie. The boat has a humminbird 1198c plotter on the bridge & nothing at the lower helm. It may be a little cool the 1st week of April to run from the open bridge so my iPad will be at the lower helm.

Has anyone heard whether Garmin plans to publish an app for Android? We've been thinking of a tablet for the boat now that we have set up a wifi network, but the Android chart applications seem to be more limited, and thus far except for my work phone, we are all Android (and I'm not a fan of my iphone).

Have you tried the Navionics App?
Just downloaded yesterday (android) ....$10 for the full featured version..
Find it in the Playstore

I have both Navionics and Plan 2 Nav on my android tablet. I use Plan 2 Nav exclusively because it displays AC data seamlessly.

David Carter said:

Is there a way to get routes from the iPad to my 740?

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You can share/email the route from Navionics iPad. That will give you two things ... the link to view the route on Navionics site, nice but not very usefull, and the link to Google Earth .kml file. Not sure if/how you can transform and/or transfer the .kml file to Garmin chartplotter but could be an option.

timjet said:

I have both Navionics and Plan 2 Nav on my android tablet. I use Plan 2 Nav exclusively because it displays AC data seamlessly.

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That is something I really want to do - be able to access AC data on a tablet. We have a great chartplotter, but can't download AC onto it. With Plan 2 Nav are you able to download the AC data for viewing offline?

Carolena said:

That is something I really want to do - be able to access AC data on a tablet. We have a great chartplotter, but can't download AC onto it. With Plan 2 Nav are you able to download the AC data for viewing offline?

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There are loads of apps that have ActiveCaptain offline and integrated within the app - iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. The full list can be found here:
https://activecaptain.com/navProducts.php

There's also the free ActiveCaptain Companion for both platforms. It's not a chartplotter and if you want nautical charts, you'll be unhappy. But it keeps all of ActiveCaptain offline. And it's free.


If you haven't purchased a tablet and want one today, there are way more choices for all types of boating-specific apps for iOS and the iPad. It's not about loving or hating any platform - I love them all. I have multiple iPads and multiple Android tablets and use them all. I also have 3 boating apps in both the iTunes app store and the Google Play store. If you have to have Android, it'll be fine. But if you have a choice today, go iPad/iOS.