Chart Plotter
- Thread starter Guystapo
- Start date
Thanks. I've never heard of the brand. My first concern is the lack of a North American dealer and support for warrantee or technical issues. Second, given the state of international relations I would be hesitant to invest in any Chinese made electronics not overseen by a reputable US based company.
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 22,967
Looking at the history of Onwa products, looks like they started in 2008. They are focused on providing a budget priced product in the marine DIY marketplace. AIS was there first item in the product line. The website indicates they are using the same electronic maps ( i.e. Navionicz and C-Map) as the other electronics brand names.
At that price it might be unit to try.
At that price it might be unit to try.
No knowledge of this company specifically, but I have no reason to doubt them. Though I don't know anything about that company, I do know about the hardware and software that goes into the making of such devices. The more-known brands (Garmin, Raymarine, etc.) are way overpriced when looked at in terms of the value of the technology and the cost of components and manufacturing. They are still priced as though the underlying hardware and software was not ubiquitous, which it now is. The rest of the electronics marketplace has scaled, making the underlying components really cheap and the technology is neither new nor usually necessarily proprietary.
<mini-rant starts here>
But, the marine market has largely failed to respond to this reality because boaters continue to pay. Plus, most manufacturers want to try to keep you in their ecosystem so try to lock you in with real or perceived needs to stay within their proprietary ecosystem. Boaters are not risk-takers, in the marketplace, and electronics manufacturers take advantage of that. That is, the Garmins and Raymarines of the world aren't worried about the Onwas of the world because boaters are generally afraid anything new (in terms of marketing attitudes).
And, it becomes a self-reinforcing attitude. People see something new come onto the market and they wait to see if it gains popularity. When it doesn't
(because everyone is waiting to see what everyone else is going to do), they assume it wasn't good.
There is an interesting gap in the marine marketplace. There is a somewhat growing community of DIY developers creating cost-effective and usually open-source solutions. But, these generally lack a certain amount of polish that we expect from commercial products. But, not a lot of commercial companies jumping in to do that last 20% of engineering to take ubiquitous technology and apply it to completing a commercial product. That's because the market is relatively small to begin with and cautious (as mentioned) - neither makes it attractive to a business.
</end of mini-rant>
All this to say - don't be suspicious of Onwa's low prices. Be suspicious of Garmin's/Raymarine's/Lowrance's/etc high prices.
<mini-rant starts here>
But, the marine market has largely failed to respond to this reality because boaters continue to pay. Plus, most manufacturers want to try to keep you in their ecosystem so try to lock you in with real or perceived needs to stay within their proprietary ecosystem. Boaters are not risk-takers, in the marketplace, and electronics manufacturers take advantage of that. That is, the Garmins and Raymarines of the world aren't worried about the Onwas of the world because boaters are generally afraid anything new (in terms of marketing attitudes).
And, it becomes a self-reinforcing attitude. People see something new come onto the market and they wait to see if it gains popularity. When it doesn't
(because everyone is waiting to see what everyone else is going to do), they assume it wasn't good.
There is an interesting gap in the marine marketplace. There is a somewhat growing community of DIY developers creating cost-effective and usually open-source solutions. But, these generally lack a certain amount of polish that we expect from commercial products. But, not a lot of commercial companies jumping in to do that last 20% of engineering to take ubiquitous technology and apply it to completing a commercial product. That's because the market is relatively small to begin with and cautious (as mentioned) - neither makes it attractive to a business.
</end of mini-rant>
All this to say - don't be suspicious of Onwa's low prices. Be suspicious of Garmin's/Raymarine's/Lowrance's/etc high prices.
Hello,
Maybe that Onwa product works and is good and maybe it's junk. I have no idea. What about support? What charts are supported? Can you update the charts? Does the plotter support automatic routing? Can you share data with your phone / tablet?
Regarding prices, Personally I don't think that marine plotters are that expensive. You can buy a brand new B&G Vulcan 7 for under $800. Yes that's more than the Onwa but this is from a well known company, a long track record, etc. If you don't like B&G you can buy Garmin or Raymarine comparable models for about the same price.
Good luck,
Barry
Maybe that Onwa product works and is good and maybe it's junk. I have no idea. What about support? What charts are supported? Can you update the charts? Does the plotter support automatic routing? Can you share data with your phone / tablet?
Regarding prices, Personally I don't think that marine plotters are that expensive. You can buy a brand new B&G Vulcan 7 for under $800. Yes that's more than the Onwa but this is from a well known company, a long track record, etc. If you don't like B&G you can buy Garmin or Raymarine comparable models for about the same price.
Good luck,
Barry
Advancements in marine electronics, especially chart plotters, is not in the hardware, it is in the software, integration across devices and user interface. Hardware advancements are mostly in memory and processor speed, just like your desktop computer. The adoption of OneNet will serve those advancements well. A large part of the cost difference between an off-brand like Onward and Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno, and Navico is in software engineering and marketing.
The DIY approach to marine electronics and chartplotters is a niche market within a niche market. To those who have the skills and patience to develop their own system from parts, enjoy, it's not for the vast majority of sailors.
The DIY approach to marine electronics and chartplotters is a niche market within a niche market. To those who have the skills and patience to develop their own system from parts, enjoy, it's not for the vast majority of sailors.
Price is a good point, but what about reliability and compatibility with other instruments?
of course not knowing what you have on board, you might not have that trouble, but what about future upgrades ?
Would it be compatible with your needs?
just food for thoughts
of course not knowing what you have on board, you might not have that trouble, but what about future upgrades ?
Would it be compatible with your needs?
just food for thoughts
The worst thing that happened to Navionics, from a user standpoint is when they were purchased by Garmin. Features removed and price increased.
I am glad I don't have to use a Garmin POS in my car anymore. Waze, Magic Map etc. FTW.
The issue is that the software engineering is a solved problem insomuch. The software is already written that surpasses what mainstream companies are producing. They actually engineer solutions that are deliberately a step backward. Whereas the rest of the world has moved toward improved interface, open standards, and transparency, the marine industry has actively resisted progress on all of those fronts.
The only technological intellectual property that the big manufacturers have that is actually valuable is their mapping products. It takes time and money to refine available data sources into a clean and streamlined mapping dataset. They are at least a decade behind on almost every other front.
I did a consulting gig for "a big name marine technology company" about 7-8 years ago. They said they wanted to identify opportunities for new products that leveraged their existing intellectual property. What I discovered was a company that was 90% marketing and nearly 0% engineering. The engineers had good ideas, but the company actually had no interest. They just wanted to figure out new ways to milk their old technology. Even very modest efforts to improve were actively shut down - in one case (and I am not kidding about this) - it would have made the product "too futureproof".
I don't have direct experience with the internal workings of other companies, but according to employees I talked to, it is pretty much an industry-wide attitude. (This isn't unique to marine technology. It happens when a company shifts from an engineering focus to a marketing focus, in particular when the market is small and not particularly competitive. It just seems worse than normal in the marine industry.)
Where I think Onwa misses the mark is it doesn't look like they've really innovated. It looks like they are just trying to do a less expensive version of a product that already doesn't really work as well as it should, by modern design standards. They could leverage their cost position to do something new that actually keeps pace with modern UI standards and better UX design principles. A lower price point means adopters are more willing to try something new.
Garmin makes me sad. They had it all, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I used to love their products. Then, when the market became competitive, they just stopped inventing and still had bills to pay. So, we see what happened.
@Foswick Just curious, have you looked at OpenCPN? That's an open source chart plotter software. They are doing an amazing job, as far as I can see, at producing an phenomenal product. And it's free. One has to buy the hardware and whatever interfaces one wants. But that can be done for quite little money...
Just interested in your take if you have tried it.
dj
Yeah, but not in a while. (I have 5.8.4 ... so not too long ago, I guess.) I am a huge fan of that team and the project. They took on a difficult cross-platform project and made it happen. I've talked about it - they did it.
The only reason I am not a user comes down to the fact that the Garmin chartplotter that came with my boat hasn't died yet. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Navionics still works pretty well.
A couple of years ago I considered contributing as a developer until I looked at the source code. I don't think that when the original developer started it (can't recall his name), that he really planned on other people seeing the source code and working with it. So, a lack of internal documentation makes it really hard to ramp up on that code base.
It makes me a little concerned about the long-term future of that project if a handful of key people lose interest/steam. It is also written in C++ which is increasingly considered a bit of an "old-school" language. Not that it really is, but new/young developers are not taking it up like they are with more modern languages.
I wish I had the spare cycles to help out with that project - also projects like Signal K and NautiControl. I really want those efforts to succeed long-term. It is not just good for the DIY crowd, but it also puts upward pressure on the big companies to improve. Although, I don't think they feel that pressure, quite yet.
For my own use, I just keep looking for a suitable monitor. That is actually the difficult/expensive part of an OpenCPN cockpit MFD. I've never found one I liked for under $1000 USD. (Which probably goes a long way to undermine my complaint that most commercial options are overpriced.)
Except for radar and advanced sonar. That is the real lock in with the commercial plotters, and they are not ubiquitous or easily produced DIY.
Hardware has advanced with the plotters in more ways than just memory and processor speed. The fully bonded and bright touch screens, systems on chips, and other hardware is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was just a few years ago. The software is likely farmed out for many of the brands, or at least subcontracted in-house. I find the software only marginally more advanced than it was a few years ago, not counting features like being able to control your stereo and other fluff, while the hardware has advanced more. I'd wager that the hardware is the more expensive and differential part between off-brand and major brand.
That was definitely true with OCPN many years ago, but has changed dramatically. It is very well documented, both in user manual and developer documentation. There is now a large number of people across the world working on it. I'd bet that it has more software developers and testers than most major brands. Certainly more globally diverse ones, with actual knowledge and skin in the game than the major brands - there isn't a single developer that isn't actively involved with boating and navigation. I can't speak about the programming language used.
The monitor is the fly in the ointment, and helps make my point above. Many complain about the unreasonable price of commercial charters, but they don't understand the cost of the fully bonded bright waterproof touchscreen contained in them.
For example, comparing the Onwa 7" to the Garmin 7", the Onwa has an unbonded 800x480 display, while the Garmin has a fully-bonded 1024x600 display - 50% more pixel density.
One can buy these displays pretty cheaply, but to get one that interfaces well and has the qualities for cockpit use is not inexpensive right now.
Mark
Onwa is a common brand in Australia and SE Asia, so not just a small fly-by-night. One problem they have had in the past is their AIS systems have not been approved for use in some parts of the world, including the US. Whether this actually matters or not is for the user's judgement. I don't know what the current situation is here. Otherwise, I'd think it a good choice for someone wanting an inexpensive plotter, and those areas of lower performance/quality is inconsequential to them.
Mark
Mark
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 22,967