With Furuno's big sales meeting over with, there are some features about the long anticipated NavNet 3 system (named NavNet 3D) coming to light.
First, the name 3D obviously tells us a lot about how the plotter will look. We know that the user interface will be a proprietary MaxSea/C-Map Pro/Furuno collaboration. The machine, available in 8-inch and 12-inch or black box models, will be loaded with U.S. charts straight from the factory and can be updated over an Internet or network connection.
All the peripherals, new radar antennas and sensors will also be networked devices, with some NMEA 2000 connectivity incorporated into the components. This will be good news for Maretron, which has excellent NMEA 2000 sensors (from solid state compasses to weather stations) that can add value to NavNet 3D.
All in all, it sounds like Garmin and Furuno will be battling it out on the 3D perspective for plotters and radars. It's the right way to go as automotive navigation systems are already getting end users wired to see the road this way. Why not a waypoint or route to the islands?
I suppose Raymarine can consider their Navionics Platinum 3D perspective in the ball park, but from my experience with Garmin's 5212, and what I suspect is coming from Furuno, they may want to rework their user interface to rely less on the third-party chart data and more on their own interface.
Look for new features to be revealed by Furuno in coming months as the company goes on a marketing binge prior to the grand revealing at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in October. If they happen to to send a unit down for an independent evaluation, you'll be the first to know. But don't hold your breath.
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Jeff McLaren is the National Sales Manager for Seawide Marine Distribution, a wholesaler distributor based in Southern California that works with all major electronics manufacturers. He has produced a series of instructional DVDs on how to use Raymarine navigation gear.
Thanks for the info, Jeff.
I've just removed a Raymarine E120 from my boat and was going to add a second navnet2, but with the release of the navnet3, I think that this is worth waiting for.
I know that the navnet 3 will be revealed at the end of October, but do you have any idea when it will actually be available?
Interesting. What was your reason for removing the E-120?Â
From what I understand NavNet 3D will be unveiled at the Lauderdale Boat Show and a number of the primary components will be available almost immediately. I suspect the 8" and 12" displays will be available November/December and the radar antennas and other peripherals will start rolling in through January and February. Regardless, I would hang out until about December or January to get a taste of the new products. You may want to wait until the price comes down on NN2 and just add another display to your existing system.Â
Thanks for reading-Â Jeff
I had a few reasons for removing the E120, not that it was an easy decision because there were some nice things about it also.
 The good:Â
Video inputs (I have 2 backup cameras and a black box Echopilot sonar, so this was a real help, and it was easy to select inputs between the cameras which made docking much easier).
Easy to store and recall screen configurations. I really liked having the soft buttons to choose screens.
When following a route it was easy to restart xte or advance to the next waypoint (which I often did if I'd had to deviate from the course for some reason). Nobody else allows you to advance the waypoint easily.
The bad:
The Navionics charts were not really accurate. I boat in Georgian Bay, Ontario and there are lots of rocks and islands. When I plot a route, I had to give each marker or rock a wide berth to make sure cleared them. This really added to the number of waypoints and often I would abandon the route when I could see the objects by binocular and fine tune the route (and shutting down the autopilot :(  This accuracy was contrasted by the CMAP chart on my NN2, which was dead on every time I check it.
The MARPA was a great tool. I didn't get the ARPA for my NN2 figuring it wasn't worth it. I love the MARPA, but it loses the targets frequently, so I stopped using it. I did get the ARPA module for the NN2 and it doesn't lose targets very often (actually it hasn't lost one yet, but I'm sure it can fail).
I found the E120 interface easy to use at first, but after getting familiar with it, I found it cumbersome, I had to go up and down many menu levels do to functions that I commonly did. Â
One feature I really loved was the build route from track. Unfortunately it never worked for me. I called support and they weren't much help.
Performance was the biggest problem for me. The screen refresh when zooming or panning was painfully slow. The 6 NM (or 12 NM I cant remember) redraw was almost 30 seconds constantly. Hitting zoom in or out more than once quickly slowed it down even more. Panning was really slow also. Again here, Raymarine support didn't really impress me. I called a number of times many with the "I want to check with someone and I'll call you back tomorrow", never to get that call. Finally I spoke with somebody that said send it in. They told me turn around would hopefully by 3 weeks (about the entire remainder of my season by this point). I don't mean to really come down on RM tech support, it wasn't bad, but compared to Furuno it was (Furuno overnighted me a replacement NN2 last summer when I had a problem because it was an early model. It's hard to compare that response to RM's 3 weeks, we hope).
Radar. Side by Side comparison showed the RM easier to use and read in ideal conditions. When it started to rain really heavily and I couldn't even see the bow of my boat, the RM was useless. I was able to get the NN2 radar to show me the markers (barely, but it did work). I also found the NN2 radar easier to view weather with (the colours made it much easier for a novice like me to read).
I will look at the G series unit, but it will have to address many of these concerns, and for me the NN3 will have to lack something. Â
Having said all this, I'm really interested to see what Simrad does too.Â