Navionics price increasing

sesmith · Sep 24, 2023

Thanks for the heads up. I just renewed mine today even thought it won't time out until Dec. Now it's good until Dec 2024. I bet it would work to renew a second time and get another year at $29.94. I'm just a little leary about buying that far ahead as you never know what Garmin will do to it.

Edit: Ha ha, had to try it so I renewed for another year. I'm good now 'til 2025. Kinda like stocking up on coffee before a price increase...or beer.

SabreToothedEngineer · Sep 25, 2023

I was a little skeptical about this due to the size of the increase and the fact that I've seen nothing anywhere else, but the Navionics website confirms it Boating app: Price Adjustment. That's a pretty crazy increase for one shot. I renewed as well and am covered until February 2025.

I guess now that in Canada CHS paper charts are nearly impossible to find, Navionics feel like they have a monopoly and can get to work and really make some money now.

Hello Below · Sep 25, 2023

SabreToothedEngineer said:
I guess now that in Canada CHS paper charts are nearly impossible to find, Navionics feel like they have a monopoly and can get to work and really make some money now.

The "price adjustment" seems to be across the board so unlikely directly due to Canadian CHS. I have 272 days left on the current subscription but reluctantly added/renewed for an additional year. I guess as compared to a Navionics chart card it is still the most cost effective.

dLj · Sep 26, 2023

OpenCPN just seems to get more and more attractive!

dj

dLj · Sep 26, 2023

Hello Below said:
I guess as compared to a Navionics chart card it is still the most cost effective.

@Hello Below I bet Navionics doesn't have OpenCPN on their chart card. OpenCPN is free, all US charts are free, including all updates. Canadian charts are very inexpensive (can't recall what I paid for them, I'd have to look it up). Many charts around the world are free, others you pay a nominal amount for. Truly the least expensive option I'm aware of, and OpenCPN is very powerful with capabilities that I have not seen elsewhere.

But, full disclosure, I'm now a fan of OpenCPN. But also to be fair, it comes from using Navionics and Garmin simultaneously with OpenCPN.

dj

Hello Below · Sep 26, 2023

Interesting info @dLj. It sounds like something worthy of further research during this upcoming offseason.

dLj · Sep 26, 2023

Davidasailor26 said:
OpenCPN is a great option especially if you have a full computer at a nav station and/or a way of mirroring that display at the helm. For me the value of Navionics is having it on a phone or tablet that I can use for preplanning a route or just looking around. The auto-route feature, while not a safe tool to rely on exclusively for navigation, is really handy for getting a pretty accurate idea of distances between places to plan a day trip.

OpenCPN also runs off your cell phone. At least it runs off androids, can't say about apple... As far as preplanning, I find OpenCPN to be best of the ones I've looked at.

I agree with you that Navionics is very good at short trips with their Autoroute feature. One thing to note, it does NOT account for mast height, even though it has it in it's setup. It does not work. There is one feature that Navionics has that I really like that neither OpenCPN nor Garmin has - Navionics has a pointer from your boat that goes out to infinity - meaning I can have my chart zoomed in far from my boat and still see my heading. That is a feature I'm going to ask the developers of OpenCPN to see if they can include it in a future release.

I find that the ability to create a route in OpenCPN to be so easy, I no longer care about the auto-route function in Navionics, although it is a decent one. One thing I really like in this area about OpenCPN, is it gives you a table with all your waypoints etc. giving you also times etc. You can change your expected speed and it automatically updates the table. It's really nice for planning purposes....

The Garmin has one feature I really like. If you put in a start and end point, it automatically calculates the great circle route. Even if I put in way points, it creates an image of the Great Circle route so you can see how far off you are. Granted, this feature is really only good for folks doing passages. But for what I'm currently doing, it's really nice! I have not delved into if either Navionics nor OpenCPN can do this or not, so I can't say if this function also exists in those... But it is automatic in the Garmin.

dj

p.s. I just looked up OpenCPN for great circle routes and it does have that option. I haven't used it yet, that's likely coming up. So i can't comment on how easy it is to use or not... I should try the same for Navionics - I bet it also has it...

NCBrew · Oct 8, 2023

what is open CPN?

DaveJ · Oct 8, 2023

NCBrew, I had never heard of it until today, but I looked it up. Google is your friend…..
It looks like a nice alternative to lots of other packages, it all depends of your needs. I sail the Great Lakes (Ontario) and mostly I could do it with a road map, until conditions change, and they do! Some people want double/triple backup and that is ok, I have an older plotter, iPhone and charts. I guess I have a double backup.
If I had to navigate narrow channels, with bouys that move with the tides/currents, under water hazards…. I would want every program available!!
A free app that enhances our sailing enjoyment, I’m all for it.
I’m going to give it a try.
Cheers

dLj · Oct 9, 2023

NCBrew said:
what is open CPN?

It's an open source software for chart plotter software. You can run it on a phone, tablet, computer etc. Open source means it's free. All US charts are free, including all updates. Canadian charts you have to pay for but in comparison to Navionics or Garmin (both I also have) the price is substantially less. The open source team has a number of agreements with chart sources giving them substantial discounts for the charts they don't have for free. There are a number of free charts also, but not where I've been sailing. They have contracts with two of the major world chart suppliers that can provide charts world-wide at quite reasonable cost.

The program is being written and supported by a group of sailors. It has features that sailors have wanted. It's very complete. You should check it out. The Cruisers and Sailors forum has a subgroup dedicated to OpenCPN.

dj

JoeWhite · Oct 9, 2023

Note that open cpn works on older cell phones only. It does not work on my new cell phone. It freezes. This restriction is noted on their website.
It works well on my laptop with WIN7.

dLj · Oct 9, 2023

JoeWhite said:
Note that open cpn works on older cell phones only. It does not work on my new cell phone. It freezes. This restriction is noted on their website.
It works well on my laptop with WIN7.

Interesting, what cell phone do you have? I'm using a brand new Google phone and it runs fine. I think there may be compatibility issues with iPhones but as I don't run one, not 100% sure there....

On my laptop, I'm running windows 11 also no issues.

dj

jssailem · Oct 9, 2023

I use OpenCPN on my Mac Laptop. Works great.
I do not use it just sitting at the helm. It is down in the salon on the Nav table. Maintains a record of my route and updates my eta progress through critical points of my passage.

it is an excellent tool. I used it to help chart @dLj’s progress across the Atlantic. It interfaces well with Windy allowing you to transfer the route to the Windy app for current and future weather forecasts on your passage.

JoeWhite · Oct 9, 2023

dLj said:
Interesting, what cell phone do you have? I'm using a brand new Google phone and it runs fine. I think there may be compatibility issues with iPhones but as I don't run one, not 100% sure there....

On my laptop, I'm running windows 11 also no issues.

dj

DLJ. I use Samsung 52A

dLj · Oct 9, 2023

JoeWhite said:
DLJ. I use Samsung 52A

Well that certainly sucks!

JoeWhite · Oct 9, 2023

dLj said:
Well that certainly sucks!

Yep

SoSound · Oct 10, 2023

After this last flurry of posts, I thought I'd give OpenCPN a try. I really wanted it to work... but after several hours of preliminary poking around, I just can't see it taking the place of any of my current tools. I have a Navionics App subscription that I will be renewing early, my B&G Zues2 chart plotter on board for 'driving', and a copy of iNavX on my iPad that I have been using for years, and in which I have about a million waypoints and routes built. I use the iNavX and Navionics for planning route segments, iNavX for local stuff that I've been building for years, and Navionics to extend my reach into Canada.

I recently came across a batch of planning docs from our trip to the Gulf Islands a couple of years ago, and it reminded me of what I really enjoy about planning our longer cruises, spending the time and effort to research and document all of the details of the route, the currents, and available options and alternate routes. I'm working on a plan for next summer already, and I'm putting together a document to combine a "passage" worksheet that I saw in this years Waggoner's with a screenshot or a PDF of each days route to use for notes and as a quick reference while en route.

I tried using the newly downloaded OpenCPN to create the route our first leg, but it had problems properly integrating the multiple charts which cover the area between us and our first anchorage.

Navionics price increasing

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John

.

.

.

.

.