Active Captain

Dead or on life support since Garmin acquired it?
I haven’t used it for over a year because we’ve stayed in familiar areas on the river. Last weekend I used the Garmin blue chart mobile on my iPad and the latest reviews on marinas were 2017. Does anyone still use and contribute to it or has Garmin ruined a excellent resource for cruising boaters? If it’s still being used what Garmin app do I need on my iPad and are the C-Map charts still adding the AC data when updated? I loved it for planning anchorages and marina stops when cruising in unfamiliar waters.

Garmin has discontinued Blue Charts Mobile and the original Active Captain.

You now need to use Garmin Active Captain, available on Android and iOS.

https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/active-captain/

I can still see AC comments on my Coastal Explore...

We still use it much as we did. Still very helpful for going to an area and checking the marinas, anchorages, shoaling, inlets, bridges, and locks. Still more complete than the alternatives. We use the web version only.

I still use it a LOT on my Ipad and still contribute, but it's much harder.

Garmin made a HUGE mistake, IMHO, in discontinuing the old Blue chart. The new AC app had a ton of shortcomings.

I still use the old Blue Chart for AC for the most part, even though the charts are out of date, and really aren't the best. However, for planning, finding marinas, anchorage, etc., still works well. I can also make comments and create a wpt to refer back to which I love. No other app gives that flexibility that I can find.

Also, I use Aquamap and Navionics. Hopefully they will both be improved and I can end up with one app, but not optimistic. I'm sure Navionics will have AC integrated into it in the future and if they could improve on their user wpts, would be great. But very difficult to work with now.

Aqua map is a great app. It does occasionally crash and it's awful hard to learn... no tutorial worth a damn.

I used and contributed to the old AC before the Garmin acquisition.
Was sad to have it go offline as I'm a Raymarine user aboard.
I'm glad to see that new app at least allows access to the info and reviews posted by users. I find that very useful and glad to be able once again to access it when cruising.

Some 3rd party nav apps, SEAiq for one, have discontinued Active Captain updates, so you have to live with almost one year old data if you use that app. The Garmin AC website does have current reviews so that website and compatible Garmin apps still allow reviews to be entered. The new Garmin AC website has no where near the functionality of the old AC website.

Garmin has almost destroyed AC.



David

We have the old Blue Charts and AC on our iPad. It all worked great until two things happened; 1) Garmin discontinued updates and support for Blue Chart Mobile and 2) Garmin bought Active Captain.

Since then, while the Blue Charts still works fine (albeit without any ability to update) Active Captain has gone into a strange mode where it takes about an hour to load, then after three or four days, just vanishes, requiring another hour long download. Until recently, there were no AC updates newer than mid 2017.

Lately, however, there have been a handful of AC updates, mostly dated in December, 2018. I'm not sure what that means. I used to be a quite often contributor to AC, but I haven't bothered in about two years.

All in all, our Blue Chart iPad with AC overlay, went from being a first class navigation tool two years ago, to a mediocre one, at best, at present. Thanks, Garmin. I'm sure there was a method to your madness, but I'll never guess what it was.

Let me finish working on that Simrad order.

When I did a software update to my iPad my Bluecharts disappeared. No way to get them back. Then I got a new iPhone and they disappeared from that too. Oh well, they were great when I had them.

Another example of the Garmin Reverse Midas Touch.

It's happening to inReach and I fear will to Navionics as well.

Mx Mariner still integrates the Active Captain database onto the NOAA charts.

Just read that an updated Navionics mobile app with AC was released yesterday.

ssobol said:

Mx Mariner still integrates the Active Captain database onto the NOAA charts.

Click to expand...

Yep.

It's an all-or-none toggle, though, so all of the AC markers can seriously clutter the chart when turned on. I've suggested to Will that he allow the user to also select WHICH AC markers to turn on and off; perhaps if more people suggest that to him, he might raise that higher on his to-do list.

-Chris

Thank you for the replies, I still have gbcm on my iPad with the AC data, just no recent AC data. On the rivers changes in areas to anchor can change with every flooding event so user updates are valuable. The problem I have with Garmin is the $50.00 I spent for gbcm and then they screw up AC so it no longer updates reviews. I should of known better because Garmin wants to continually drop support for older products. The Garmin plotter that was on the boat when I bought it was no longer supported and I couldn’t buy charts for it and never found any on eBay.

Just updated Navionics app on the iPad. It downloaded all the Active Captain inormation. This is far better than Blue Charts. Now you have the best charts made with Sonar Charts and the AC info is overlayed.
Looks like today things are much different than when all the Garmin and Siegel bashing took place a while back.

One thing that could improve is the update feature. Now when you select edit it takes you to the AC website.
The Blue Charts app let you write reviews and then update through the app when you choose.

I am a to

River Cruiser said:

Thank you for the replies, I still have gbcm on my iPad with the AC data, just no recent AC data. On the rivers changes in areas to anchor can change with every flooding event so user updates are valuable. The problem I have with Garmin is the $50.00 I spent for gbcm and then they screw up AC so it no longer updates reviews. I should of known better because Garmin wants to continually drop support for older products. The Garmin plotter that was on the boat when I bought it was no longer supported and I couldn’t buy charts for it and never found any on eBay.

Click to expand...

Update AC on my iPad using Garmin Blur Chart Mobile.

Gordon

Ative Captain Arrives on Navionics Today!

https://www.passagemaker.com/trawle...X-1FTQux6rTRVG9wJAbQxkyzvEU4Dw&_hsmi=68351080

Apparently you must be running Navionics 13 to download Active Captain. A slick way for Navionics to phase out older editions.

If you don't see Active Captain on your update, iPad and iPhone users need to install Navionics Boating Marine & Lakes while Android users get Navionics Boating HD Marine & Lakes

DDW said:

Another example of the Garmin Reverse Midas Touch.

It's happening to inReach and I fear will to Navionics as well.

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Yes. Their support for inReach has not been good.

fryedaze said:

Just updated Navionics app on the iPad. It downloaded all the Active Captain inormation. This is far better than Blue Charts. Now you have the best charts made with Sonar Charts and the AC info is overlayed.
Looks like today things are much different than when all the Garmin and Siegel bashing took place a while back.

Click to expand...

I never bashed Siegel. In his place, I would have done the exact same thing. From my twenty something year experience with Garmin, I would say that while they put out a decent (but, not necessarily outstanding) product, they deserve most of the bashing they get.

Active Captain in Navionics Boating HD

While Active Captain is now present in the Android boating app (Navionics Boating HD Marine and Lakes), the AC reviews appear to be limited to 10. In other words, if there are many reviews you only get to see the most recent 10 of them. All the reviews are available on the web app, so they are still present, only not visible on the Android app.

To me, that is a significant defect that limits the usefulness. As a long time user and contributor to AC, I often look at more than 10 reviews. This limitation also makes it easy for a business to bury bad reviews by having friends submit enough reviews to have the bad ones fall below the 10 that are visible in the app.

While I did not spend very long looking, I did not see any way to add a AC review, only Navionics reviews.

What is the status of Active Captain and Coastal Explorer? I'm a new user and I see AC postings but they are somewhat dated, nothing current.

Group9 said:

I never bashed Siegel. In his place, I would have done the exact same thing. From my twenty something year experience with Garmin, I would say that while they put out a decent (but, not necessarily outstanding) product, they deserve most of the bashing they get.

Click to expand...

100%

Ken E. said:

What is the status of Active Captain and Coastal Explorer? I'm a new user and I see AC postings but they are somewhat dated, nothing current.

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I haven't tried it personally, but believe it's working again.

I downloaded Aqua Map today and are using the “online satellite images” function. I can get all the recent AC reviews and I don’t have to buy any charts. It maybe a work around for us on the iPad which has Blue Chart until we figure it out or Garmin makes a commitment. The reviews are a good tool and hopefully that won’t die.

Group9 said:

I never bashed Siegel. In his place, I would have done the exact same thing. From my twenty something year experience with Garmin, I would say that while they put out a decent (but, not necessarily outstanding) product, they deserve most of the bashing they get.

Click to expand...

I completely agree with this assessment. I used to buy Garmin products, but haven't for a while and they just keep reinforcing my decision.

Ken

fryedaze said:

Just updated Navionics app on the iPad. It downloaded all the Active Captain inormation. This is far better than Blue Charts. Now you have the best charts made with Sonar Charts and the AC info is overlayed.

Click to expand...

Updated to Version 13.1 on both iphone and ipad. Edited 1 site, added a review, added a service location. Everything seems to work as expected. Agree that the new combination is much better than Blue Charts. No complaints here (but I would like the capability of filtering out AC categories.)

Waywego said:

While I did not spend very long looking, I did not see any way to add a AC review, only Navionics reviews.

Click to expand...

After some more time, I was able to edit an AC review. The process took me to the Active Captain web interface, so this is only possible when internet access is available. The one nice thing was with the web interface, you get access to all reviews, not just the 10 most recent. I am guessing that the limitation on number of reviews might be a concession to data file size for the app.

To generate a new AC marker, it looks like you have to launch the AC web app. Interestingly, the AC web application appears to show Navionics marina markers, but you are not able to click on them for information. Our marina is incorrectly marked, and I did a user edit that shows up on my chartplotter, but not on the AC web map. Its a complicated system and I suspect there will be further consolidation.

My Blue Chart Mobile still works on my iPhone 5s. Active Captain data still updating automatically. Struggling with what the issue is???

High Wire said:

My Blue Chart Mobile still works on my iPhone 5s. Active Captain data still updating automatically. Struggling with what the issue is???

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Are sure it is updating? My Blue Chat app works but you can't update charts or download AC data. They killed it over a year ago.