Is Raymarine in the right hands??

[iangrant]

Spotted the inevitable, guess what:- there is a new night vision camera available to connect to their plotter, prices range from 5,000 to 15,000 of your finest pounds.

Have the marketing peeps maybe got it wrong??

Ian

 

[jfm]

Spotted the inevitable, guess what:- there is a new night vision camera available to connect to their plotter, prices range from 5,000 to 15,000 of your finest pounds.

Have the marketing peeps maybe got it wrong??

Ian

I played with the £14k-er at SIBS and it integrated nicely. Drag the picture using your fingers on the Raym touch screen, and the camera automatically pans and tilts. Nice job

Good thermal cameras cost that; it's not the marketing people inventing a crazy price. I don't expect they'll sell many

To be honest a thermal imaging camera is a solution to a problem I don't have. Radar is fine at night on open water, and there is always lighting as you enter a port (at least where I sail!)

 

[iangrant]

NASA jobbie

I've a hand held NASA night sight, brilliant bit of kit, and it wasn't 5K!!

Ian

 

[Divemaster1]

Thermal imaging camera would be great to have in the engine compartment to spot early signs of heat buildup... but not at that price! ... my IR ones do that well enough....

 

[Hurricane]

I saw it at the show and asked about image stabilisation - they seemed a bit surprised and the salesman then said it was coming!!

Not for me though.

 

[timbartlett]

Spotted the inevitable, guess what:- there is a new night vision camera available to connect to their plotter, prices range from 5,000 to 15,000 of your finest pounds.

Have the marketing peeps maybe got it wrong??

Ian

What makes you think it's for us?
One of the magazines I write for has a circulation roughly five times that of Motor Boat and Yachting, and a core readership who own boats of 60-80 feet. I've been out on a 38ft open boat that was fitted with a 25kW radar so that the owner could spot birds more easily, in order to find fish! Customers like that will lap it up.

I'm quite convinced that in the USA and Middle East, these things will sell. Whether we in the UK take a few of them or not is hardly the point.

As for the original question:- Is Raymarine in the right hands??
Now let's think -- a market-leading company with a loyal customer base is about to go under because it has landed itself with debts that it can't service. Along comes a cash-rich company that wants to get a toe in the door of that market. The only other "rescue" bid is from a head-on competitor that -- if it did go actually go ahead -- would almost certainly do so in order to kill off its rival.

We've got Raymarine back from the near dead. It's still HQ'd in Portsmouth and likely to remain so. There are a couple of products in the back of the catalogue that might be of interest to only a limited number of customers in the UK. Sorry, what was the question?

 

[iangrant]

The question is

We've got Raymarine back from the near dead. It's still HQ'd in Portsmouth and likely to remain so. There are a couple of products in the back of the catalogue that might be of interest to only a limited number of customers in the UK. Sorry, what was the question?[/QUOTE]

should they have perhaps got their thinking on their product development more joined up, for example I remember a software update for the E80, then the:- oh don't do it if you have the PC nav software, we are working on getting the AIS info to show up on the PC software, the new range of plotters won't connect to the RL70 systems. The E80 won't accept the output from the old radar units etc....

Just seems a product at that price launched before all the other kit got joined up and sorted could be seen as a little to keen to shift direction?

There are many posts on here about "upgrading" or adding to their network then find they need all new kit so perhaps they wander off.

If Raymarine are moving up market as you suggest are they aiming at the professional market and leaving the lesure end?

I was a loyal customer of Raymarine and hope to see them suceed

We'll see.

Ian

 

[timbartlett]

If Raymarine are moving up market as you suggest are they aiming at the professional market and leaving the lesure end?

Not that I know of -- in fact, I very much doubt it.

And I'm sorry if I gave the impression that Raymarine are moving upmarket: that wasn't my intention.

They may have moved "up" from the days of tillerpilots and ST50s -- but so has the rest of the industry.

The point I was trying to make is that there are parts of the world where 60-80 foot boats are not regarded as particularly unusual, and where individual owners (or consortia) will happily spend money on equipment that we in the UK regard as esoteric -- sonar transducers the size of desktop computers, miniVsat communications, 25kW radars etc. Raymarine have been operating in those regions for years.

All that's happened here is that this particular piece of exotica has appeared in the UK catalogue, rather than being confined to the US and ME versions.

 

[Hurricane]

Actually, as the owner of a big Raymarine installation, I love the kit.
And IMO in comparason with Furuno - its streets ahead.
Intuitave - you dont need any of the manuals to operate it.

Even the Sat TV kit is superior to KVH which is regarded as the market leader - I often get signals from my TV system when equivalent KVH domes dont.

So, yes - I'm very please that "We've got Raymarine back from the near dead."

 

[Magnum]

I'm also the owner of a substantial Raymarine system but would look elsewhere next time. Raymarine kit is more intuitive than most - of that there's no doubt, but they often release equipment that is buggy and unreliable. These are not things I want or expect from something as important as navigation equipment. Shame as their HD radar is truly superb.

Furuno equipment is reliable (fitted on previous 2 vessels) but they have lost some ground to competitors in terms of usability.

Simrad look very appealing right now and appear to offer most of the user friendliness of Raymarine with Furuno performance and reliability.

 

[PaulGooch]

Very recently got rid of an almost new C90W and radar setup, as the internal GPS was unreliable and Raymarine support was piss poor. The Navionics cartography gave me grief too and their support was shockingly bad. Raymarine had just been bailed out and their arrogant attitude was that they had 90% of the market, so their equipment must be good.

I suggested that their recent financial problems were not the end of their worries and that they should be keeping an eye on that 90% market share, as Garmin were likely to be having a good sized chunk of it, IMO. I changed the Raymarine kit for Garmin and have been extremely happy with it and the Garmin cartography. As for intuitive, i've not had to get the Garmin book out yet.

Garmin have been increasing their range and releasing regular software updates, correcting bugs and introducing new features. Raymarine still don't have PC software that's compatible with Windows Vista, yes, Windows Vista, which has now been superseded by Windows 7, laughable. I reported a bug to them, whereby AIS target icons went "beneath" user icons. So you could hide a 1000ft container ship behind the user icon for one of your favourite fishing spots. Common sense dictates that AIS icons should be "always on top", but no update has been released to correct this. In fact, there's not even a mention been made of it to make users aware of the issue. I reported the problem back in Jan/Feb this year.

 

[jfm]

I'm also the owner of a substantial Raymarine system but would look elsewhere next time. Raymarine kit is more intuitive than most - of that there's no doubt, but they often release equipment that is buggy and unreliable. These are not things I want or expect from something as important as navigation equipment. Shame as their HD radar is truly superb.

Furuno equipment is reliable (fitted on previous 2 vessels) but they have lost some ground to competitors in terms of usability.

Simrad look very appealing right now and appear to offer most of the user friendliness of Raymarine with Furuno performance and reliability.

Tricky one Magnum. I had simrad on last-but-2 boat and the user interface was terrible. Always had to consult manual. I'm tainted by that experience I suppose, and it could be they've discovered intuitiveness, but I'd check hard before buying

I'm not as much a Raym disliker as others on here but I do find it remarkable how Garmin have come from nowhere to top of the pack in very few years. Very well done. There are big similarities between the equipment of course but I found my little list of Raym's points to dislike growing. There are the s/w glitches you and Paul Gooch mention, plus the ridiculously dim display on ST70, plus a cackhanded need to wire up ST1 and NMEA2000 cabling, plus little things like their wind sensor only measures wind whereas others (airmar, like you have, and Garmin) measure temp, pressure as well as windspeed, and store it in memory so you can see trends

I've also been more disappointed in Raym support as time has gone buy. In my last interaction with them they sent me software with a fix to make all the ST70s dim in synch, and I uploaded it which took ages (literally a couple of hours becuase I had so many units and you have to do them one by one, whereas Garmin uploads to everything on the network in one hit) and it didn't work. So I called em back and they said ah sorry no we didn't include dim-in-synch with that s/w release after all; we held back on it. Jeeze, how difficult is it to synch the light dimming? And what a waste of my time.

I still think they set the standard in intuitiveness and Garmin copied a lot of that , and I've enjoyed my Raymarine stuff till I went STNG and ST70 when it suddenly became a bit disappointing. I'm very happy to be switching to Garmin now (though I haven't actually used it at sea yet)

 

[Magnum]

Not looked at Garmin jfm but if you have chosen it then I'm sure it's up there with the best.

The latest Simrad NSE12 plotter is really easy to use and worlds apart from the previous generation kit.

 

[iangrant]

Had Raymarine

Not looked at Garmin jfm but if you have chosen it then I'm sure it's up there with the best.

The latest Simrad NSE12 plotter is really easy to use and worlds apart from the previous generation kit.

moved (by default, Garmin kit on new boat) to Garmin and really delighted with the ease of use and software updates, instrument config and so far reliablilty, re-connect the radar cable after I drilled through it and it still works..

The only thing that has stumped Garmin support is the rudder angle adaptor, it won't work on a 24 volt system!

 

[neale]

Not looked at Garmin jfm but if you have chosen it then I'm sure it's up there with the best.

The latest Simrad NSE12 plotter is really easy to use and worlds apart from the previous generation kit.

I'll second that. Old Simrad stuff was not user friendly, but the NSE12 is a great bit of kit

 

[jfm]

Not looked at Garmin jfm but if you have chosen it then I'm sure it's up there with the best.

The latest Simrad NSE12 plotter is really easy to use and worlds apart from the previous generation kit.

That looks a fab plotter (though max 12inch; there's no 15inch) and Simrad have nmea2000 networking too, so they've arrived. BUT the smaller instruments with old fashioned LCD display look pretty disappointing. They wouldn't be good in bright sun. The Garmin little displays are very bright, full colour, and can display any data on the network

I still worry that when you get into the detail of Simrad you'll find disappointments. Eg the video in on that NSE12 plotter is 2 x composite only, and you can't view both together in windows so you can't have a pair of reversing cameras with side-by-side images. Not a dealbreaker in itself, but I'd be concerned they haven't gone the extra mile in other places

 

[PaulGooch]

moved (by default, Garmin kit on new boat) to Garmin and really delighted with the ease of use and software updates, instrument config and so far reliablilty, re-connect the radar cable after I drilled through it and it still works..

The only thing that has stumped Garmin support is the rudder angle adaptor, it won't work on a 24 volt system!

It wouldn't surprise me if they were working on it though Ian.

Two or three updates ago (before i got my Garmin stuff) introduced a bug that affected my brothers plotter. It keep locking the plotter up, requiring a power off reset. No-one else had complained of the same problem and, although they were informed that going back a software version cured it, they suspected a hardware problem. They initially ruled out the software update, because they had had lots and lots of downloads and no-one else had the problem. Although his kit was just out of warranty, they sent him a new plotter, didn't fix it. They sent him a new GPS antenna, the updated NMEA2000 version, didn't work. They sent him a new chart card, also didn't work. They didn't ask for the chart or the antenna to be returned, although they obviously did ask for the plotter.

They then conceded it must be a software issue and proceeded to investigate, in the meantime he used the previous version of software. It turned out to be a weird bug that only affected a very localised area of the East Coast. He must have been the only person in that area to have installed the update on that particular plotter model, with that particular chart. Although there was only one reported instance of this problem in the entire World, they investigated, found the bug, cured it and released a software update that ONLY fixed this bug.

I was impressed. Raymarine couldn't even be bothered to fix the potentially dangerous bug that allowed AIS targets to be obscured, which affected the entire product range, globally.

 

[iangrant]

Basically

Raymarine, fell off the end

lets hope the new takeover brings them back into the business, but I doubt it will by just introducing a 5 - 15K night sight

Ian

 

[Hurricane]

I'm also the owner of a substantial Raymarine system but would look elsewhere next time. Raymarine kit is more intuitive than most - of that there's no doubt, but they often release equipment that is buggy and unreliable. These are not things I want or expect from something as important as navigation equipment. Shame as their HD radar is truly superb.

Furuno equipment is reliable (fitted on previous 2 vessels) but they have lost some ground to competitors in terms of usability.

Simrad look very appealing right now and appear to offer most of the user friendliness of Raymarine with Furuno performance and reliability.

I think that Garmin might just have the edge at the moment from what jfm has to say.

I know you have a G Series system similar to mine - I assume you have had problems - could only have been the installation - mine has been virtually faultless and we've put 5000 miles through it so far.

 

[Magnum]

Unfortunately not the installation. Raymarine release great products that are often not finished. I had one of the first if not the first ST70 pilots that simply did not work. Had to be changed for an older unit whilst development continued. Raymarine also acknowledged various software bugs that produced multiple vessel positions and tracks. Had 2 x G150 displays replaced on different occassions as they went US. The "official" Raymarine dealer installed each screen, damaging my helm in the process and didn't bother integrating them into the system. Useless.

The ST70 displays are very colourful and clever but they are just not bright enough for most marine applications, at least in the med. With the exception of these Raymarine stuff that has been tried and tested is good but I'd avoid anything newly released.