just got an email from lowrance

[txtowman]

I had no idea these were all the same people
About Lowrance:
The Lowrance® brand is wholly owned by Navico, Inc., a privately held, international marine electronics company. Navico is currently the world’s largest marine electronics company, and is the parent company to five well-established marine electronics brands: B&G®, Eagle®, Lowrance, Northstar and Simrad®. www.navico.com
I bought a lowrance XOG gps and it was worthless!

 

[Ed Schenck]

That's right. And NavMan is in there too. It was renamed Northstar. The problem is in understanding which, if any, of those companies are still doing research and/or manufacturing. Or is Lowrance simply providing some repair and otherwise taking over the patents? My Simrad wheelpilot is ten years old and problem free. You cannot buy it any longer. But maybe Lowrance would repair it if I ever have a problem?

 

[SamLust]

You want worthless? Look at a Magellan Hand held. On the other hand, my navman, now at least 5 years old is great. I had a few problems but they were great about fixing them, including replacing the unit when I complained the screen was not as easy to see in the sun as they claimed. I just hope thay don't get completely lost in their acquisition shuffle.

 

[chuckwayne]

Txtowman,
What do you mean by worthless? What did they say in the email? SimRad's well respected in the industry, used by lots of large ships-and Lowrance is getting trickle-down into it's new products, like the HDS series

 

[Maine Sail]

When Navico bought Navman they had lots of issues with the Navman equipment. They were put under the Northstar brand and absorbed that brand name. Nortstar was around long before Navman and had a good reputation, if a little expensive.

Unfortunately many of the problems with Navman's equipment were not fixable by a simple re-branding and this is why the Navman line of instruments (wind, speed, depth) is now gone. Northstar tried to re-launch it but they could not fix the issues in time. The re-branded Navman/Northstar instruments actually made it into some catalogs such as Consumers Marine but they then never shipped.

Perhaps Navico will fix the issues and offer a lower cost line of instruments than the Simrad IS series or the B&G stuff. As I undestand it the companies are still somewhat independent but do share technology & R&D. This should prove to help brands like Lowrance that years ago were never conidered very reliable in the salt water environment. IMHO Lowrance has come a LONG way recently and why wouldn't they with technology from B&G, Northstar & Simrad. I often wonder if the Navman purchase helped or hurt Navico?

Northstar is still showing the Expolrer 310 line of instruments but I don't know if they are shipping or not..?