Lowrance Disappointment

[HTHM]

I just installed Lowrance Carbon on my boat, and just found out that in order to have self designated safety shaded depths on the chart, I need to pay a ~$15 per year subscription. On my previous fish finder, a hummingbird, it was part of the software.
We pay a stupid amount of money for these things, and then they ask for a yearly subscription to get full functionality. Kind of burns my bottom.

 

[rastam4n]

Is that a Navico/Lowrance subscription or a C-Map/Navionics subscription? I think anything to do with chart overlays has to be provided by the chart provider, which is why you need a subscription. I could be wrong here, but that is how it works with my Simrad and Navionics.

 

[RyTek Marine]

A lot of this unfortunately comes down to patent infringements and because other companies own the technology, others are not allowed to use it or provide the same thing which is why you have to purchase the product separately. With Garmin owning Navionics its caused a lot of issues for other MFD manufactures and mapping companies. Lowrance graphs now come with Cmap's (Navico product) but they do not have all the features included that guys may have had with their previous systems mainly due to patent issues!

Ryan

I just installed Lowrance Carbon on my boat, and just found out that in order to have self designated safety shaded depths on the chart, I need to pay a ~$15 per year subscription. On my previous fish finder, a hummingbird, it was part of the software.
We pay a stupid amount of money for these things, and then they ask for a yearly subscription to get full functionality. Kind of burns my botto

 

[Just Chillin]

Subscriptions are the new cash cow as well, aside from patent issues. Auto manufactures are going to start building all cars loaded (standardize production) and make you subscribe to use your heated seats! that's gonna burn my butt

 

[Rock]

This topic just keeps getting worse the more I read these posts. Heated seats subscriptions burns my ass in more ways than one.

 

[spincast]

I 100% share the "seems they have a hand in each pocket" about subscriptions. It seems every time you turn around its another credit card transaction. BUT, 15 bucks a year when we are paying $2.15 a litre for fuel doesn't really seem that bad? I'd look at it like this - One boat launch for seasons customized fishing? Even the T-shirt bitching about it would be more (unless, of course everyone on 6-8 ordered one and we got a bulk discount) ....... Might be worth looking into if you can pay for one year's subscription, create your own chart using the charting feature on a card and apply the shading - then have that card formatted for subsequent seasons?

 

[FlyingViking]

I 100% share the "seems they have a hand in each pocket" about subscriptions. It seems every time you turn around its another credit card transaction. BUT, 15 bucks a year when we are paying $2.15 a litre for fuel doesn't really seem that bad? I'd look at it like this - One boat launch for seasons customized fishing? Even the T-shirt bitching about it would be more (unless, of course everyone on 6-8 ordered one and we got a bulk discount) ....... Might be worth looking into if you can pay for one year's subscription, create your own chart using the charting feature on a card and apply the shading - then have that card formatted for subsequent seasons?

Yea, In an ideal world…::

Example waubausheen: water levels have risen 4-5 feet. This would make that principle useless. It certainly would work in level managed lakes or large bodies of water.

Lawrence is certainly not a leader in “innovation” so that’s why they need to pay royalties or “lisence agreements”.

I work with garmin, and by no means an endorsement.. we supply them a bunch of microchips. But hummi bird and garmin you will see free features that we need. Lawrance certainly had the nicest display. But you will need to pay for others innovations via a fee

Panoptics, live-scope will also be a fee or “pay to play”. And that is just fine but you need to be aware when you purchase such a nice system. And it’s still a minimal cost