LightHouse or Navionics

[RunAgroundHard]

What would be the better product? I have used Avionics extensively in the past and found them okay, but never really liked the zoom and data layers. I now have the option of Raymarine Lighthouse, hence wondering which is best. I have no experience of using LightHouse.

Any thoughts or experiences between the two that you can share, plus or minus, or just general comments on usage of one of the products on Axiom+

The chart package will be installed into a Raymarine Axiom+ 12 MFD.

Thanks, RAH

 

[jwilson]

When I replaced a dead about three-year-old B&G plotter last year I bought an Axiom with Lighthouse charting included as part of the deal. It seems fine. Previously I've had both C-Map and Navionics at various times, and I slightly preferred the Navionics display, but all are perfectly usable, but of course "...not for navigation".

 

[Robih]

I’ve just fitted the same MFD. I saw Navionics demonstrated beside Lighthouse. Navionics refreshed much more quickly, we bought Navionics.

 

[karl.e]

Where can I see Raymarine Lighthouse mapping online (without selling an arm, a leg and my firstborn)?

 

[ashtead]

I guess you could book yourself into a raymarine day experience at their offices but Southampton might be miles from you K . They also sometimes have radar courses in their training room. Otherwise the chandlery at port Solent marine superstore.I guess a call to raymarine might be best idea

 

[Billy Blue]

I have both. Navionics on my Raymarine C90W and Lighthouse on my Raymarine Elements 12S. The Lighthouse chart came free with my recently purchased Element chartplotter. I actually then purchased a Navionics card for the Element but have ended up using so far the Lighthouse. A few comments which I think are correct but wouldn't swear to it. On the Element, Navionics does autorouting but its a bit of a faff, Lighthouse doesn't (yet?). Autorouting can be useful in certain circumstances but it ignores traffic separation schemes which in my view is a major failing. I find Navionics easier to update, Lighthouse I have to look up to remind me how to do it. Annual renewals are cheaper with Lighthouse I think rather than Navionics (£40+'ish v over £100). With Lighthouse, you get satellite layers, Navionics you have upgrade to get this. Lighthouse has limited info from Reeds accessible on some marinas.
Both have tidal info but I haven't really investigated into how good the Lighthouse data is yet.
I'm using an Element with Lighthouse which won't have nearly as much functionality as an Axiom of course so there may be more that I won't know about.

 

[Stemar]

but of course "...not for navigation"

A few years ago, they would probably have got away with that as a cop-out, but I wonder what a court would make of it now. They're sold for navigation, but not to be used for navigation? If I were a juror, I'd take some convincing.

 

[chubby]

Is coverage similar? A large Navionics card of UK and Holland covers both sides of the channel but when I looked at Lighthouse it seemed to need two cards to cover thge channel?

 

[Billy Blue]

Is coverage similar? A large Navionics card of UK and Holland covers both sides of the channel but when I looked at Lighthouse it seemed to need two cards to cover thge channel?

I'm not sure whether they sell different packages but I have both sides of the channel on my card. As with Navionics, you choose the area to download. With lighthouse, you also choose the satellite coverage which is limited to a maximum of data so you can't download as much coverage as the chart. You can change this area of course, every time you update. I think the Lighthouse may have a bigger coverage than Navionics which I saw when I initially set it up but can't really remember and the card is of course on the boat. Perhaps someone else could clarify that.

 

[KREW2]

I have just installed an element 9 along with a Quantum wireless radome. They offered to throw in a Lighthouse chart so obviously I went for it.
It covers Britain, Spain, and France along with its Med coast. It is what it is, a chart, and does everything, and more that I will ever need.
Like all new products you just have to learn your way round the menus and settings, and I am finding just fine. I just wish they would still come with a printed manual.
I also had them install a Raymarine AIS 700 which would not send a position to the DSC radio. The techie guy from Ocean Electrics was very patient and spent nearly two hours trying to get it to work. Thinking it might be my radio they bought a new radio down to see if it worked on that, but no. They went back to the shop and bought down another AIS 700, still no joy. Took it back to their shop and tested it on another radio, no joy again. This established that both AIS's were not sending out the data.
Ocean Electrics of Weymouth were very good, and Raymarine agreed the units were faulty. Installed an Emtrac AIS and all is now fine.

 

[trevorr]

I'm not sure whether they sell different packages but I have both sides of the channel on my card. As with Navionics, you choose the area to download. With lighthouse, you also choose the satellite coverage which is limited to a maximum of data so you can't download as much coverage as the chart. You can change this area of course, every time you update. I think the Lighthouse may have a bigger coverage than Navionics which I saw when I initially set it up but can't really remember and the card is of course on the boat. Perhaps someone else could clarify that.

Lighthouse Charts come in either UK and Ireland at Circa £145
Great Britain and Ireland | LightHouse Charts | Raymarine


or Western EU (includes Ireland, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, and Denmark) at £195
Western Europe | LightHouse Charts | Nautical Charts | Raymarine


Navionics UK Ireland (Includes Both sides of the channel from the Elbe to Brest (ish) £235

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Update.

I bought the Raynarine Lighthouse chart SD card and fitted that. I had assumed that the chart was on the card, but it is not, The card has an encryption code on it which is needed for the chart to work on the plotter, Axion+ 12 (MFD) in my case. I downloaded the Raymarine App onto my iPhone 14 Pro, so a modern phone. The card box has a voucher code included which is then used to download the chart not the phone, 4GB in size. This took about 3 attempts to get the download and about 1.5 hours. The marina wifi is crap, so I ended up buying extra data to use 4G to download, which was not any faster.

The next part is to transfer to the chart to the MFD. To do this you need to get access to the MFD wifi feature, identify the password called passcode, and log onto the MFD wifi link. Note that if you do a factory reset, which I did once, the pass code changes. With the iPhone connected to the MFD it took a number of attempts to transfer the chart to the Raymarine Lighthouse SD card which is now inserted into the plotter. After about 4 attempts, it was now midnight, raining, NE wind blowing into the cockpit and I was cold. Next morning I tried once more and the chart just transferred easily, in about 45 minutes, and automatically saved to the SD card; hey presto, working on the MFD. I assume that my download being slow got corrupted which stopped the transfer to the MFD. I would recommend that you download at home or somewhere with a fast, reliable connection. Note that the chart is on the SD card, not the MFD.

A couple of observations, which may be due to my uncertainty with the Axiom+ features, I have not really explored it since I had to travel back home post installation. I could not find any date and time based tide data. There was a diamond with a C in it, which in Lighthouse stands for "current", but nothing was displayed when I put the cursor over the diamond. That's as far as I got. The manual is not clear, it implies that tide and current is only available with Navionics chart (My old Navman 5500 had tide data), but suggests that it is also available on lighthouse. I will need to work through the menus and see what it does. Reading through teh Raymarine forums is not reassuring that tide data is available. Apparently, if you subscribe to Reeds Nautical Almanac, you get a subscription to Lighthouse, and get Reeds data online. I have a free annual subscription and so far I can't find anything to do with Reeds Nautical Almanac to add to the plotter.

Is tide current and direction, and tidal height graphs or tables, available on Lighthouse charts?

 

[Bristolfashion]

I do love the navionics auto routing - not for plotting a course, but for a quick and pretty accurate actual distance when planning.

 

[jac]

I have also just switched to Lighthouse - Boat still ashore so not properly tested yet but it seemed good value - I got Western Europe for about £130 online.

Would agree that the actual updating is a faff. I downloaded to the new chip at home via a very fast wired broadband and it still took about an hour all told. One then has to take the helm pod apart to get to the back of the Axiom to physically swap one card for the next.

SO it appears on pays your money and takes yoru chance - the faff of very slow download via marina wifi / phone or the faff of physically dismantling kit to get to the card slot.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Some plotter makes support an external card reader to make the card slot more accessible if the plotter itself is somewhere you can't easily get to the back. Expensive for what they are, though. Raymarine's phone download feature seems, to be honest, harder work than using a computer at home to load the card up (when that's an option).

I've tried both Navionics and Lighthouse charts. I thought Navionics was more stuffed with... stuff, but find the Lighthouse visually clearer and I prefer that. I don't use auto routing, though. It feels less relevant to sail - any time I've tried, I've ended up thinking "that's all very well, but what I'll actually do is tack up there until I have space and time to cross that shipping lane comfortably, then steer well clear of that lee shore, so my course will look nothing like the one on the screen". Maybe if I did different voyages I might feel differently about it.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

... Both have tidal info but I haven't really investigated into how good the Lighthouse data is yet.

If anyone has any tips on how to get Raymarine Lighthouse charts Tides showing would be appreciated. On my plotter there is a Tidal diamond (T) and current diamond (C). Both don't show anything, even in Tides mode. A neighbour has the same system as me and his shows tidal arrows on the chart and when the cursor is placed over the arrows it shows direction and rate. Tides graph states "fetching data' then that statement goes away and there is no tide graph. I have been unable to display a current graph. All software is up to date. I don't have any instruments connected to my plotter, except ACU400 auto helm , set up is for sail cruising.

I do have an open query with Raymarine on this, and I have read the manual. With Lighthouse charts, the current data should be visible on the chart (like my neighbours), but the tide range data may only be shown on charts that support that function.

Any tips to at least show current?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Update on the tide and current.

I connect the plotter to my phone acting as a hot spot and used 4g instead of marina wifi. All tide arrows, are showing. Also current and tide height graphs are showing. I have disconnected the MFD from my hot spot and all is still working.

Not sure what is different, but glad it all is working. Maybe it needed to download an Almanac.

 

[weaver_fish]

Sorry to jump in on the back of this - I have a similar issue but I had tidal streams and heights showing for the continent but only inactive diamonds for T and C in the UK…. Up to date Lighthouse Western Europe chart on Axiom +

Any ideas?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Set your phone up as a hotspot so that the MFD is connected to the phone and the phone connected to the internet.
On a tidal T tap the T and the graph should appear with a statement “fetching data”. My marina wifi is not good, so I use 4G, make sure you have enough credit. Also switch the phone to stay on “allways” and not shut dow while fetching data.

To be quite Frank, mine started working after that but I don’t know if that was the solution. I spent a lot of time tapping buttons to see what happens and eventually all the data was there. Also reinstalled the charts.

The Raymarine manual is not helpful on this matter.

The above is for lighthouse charts with a premium subscription.

 

[weaver_fish]

Sounds good. Tried and it says retrieving data and then timed out despite good WiFi.

I think I will delete the charts and download again to the SD card.

Weird that it’s fine for France but not UK and it’s all one chart.

Thanks for your suggestion though