Smartcraft Gateway for Northstar

[Antiguan Verado]

Is it worth $300 bucks? or is the vessel view good enough?

Does it provide more engine info than the Vessel View? I notice that Boston Whaler will delete the Vessel View if you have a dedicated display.
(for example 2 Chartplotters)

[Glen]

you get nothing thru northstar that you don't get from VV  - the parts are also spotty to get (last one I did for a customer , the gateway was on backorder for 2 months) aftersales factory support is virtually nil....

besides that, I do engine data on many units these days in my job thru Maretron. Most customers tell me that after the novelty of looking at the engine data on their chartplotter, they go back to their gauges as they are redundant and they don't have to flip back and forth on their chartplotter. And having all in one, means of your chartplotter goes down, so does your engine data...

rumor is Raymarine will go smartcraft in 2010....

[rocinante]

you get nothing thru northstar that you don't get from VV  - the parts are also spotty to get (last one I did for a customer , the gateway was on backorder for 2 months) aftersales factory support is virtually nil....

besides that, I do engine data on many units these days in my job thru Maretron. Most customers tell me that after the novelty of looking at the engine data on their chartplotter, they go back to their gauges as they are redundant and they don't have to flip back and forth on their chartplotter. And having all in one, means of your chartplotter goes down, so does your engine data...

rumor is Raymarine will go smartcraft in 2010....

are these NMEA2000/J1939 engines, or is there something that maretron offers for smartcraft (google says no)?

[Glen]

are these NMEA2000/J1939 engines, or is there something that maretron offers for smartcraft (google says no)?

I did not mean they were merc - yam to garmin and zuke to garmin - nothing still goes to smartctraft that I know of....that is N2K

[rocinante]

I did not mean they were merc - yam to garmin and zuke to garmin - nothing still goes to smartctraft that I know of....that is N2K

Oh well, 2010 isnt that far away.