Sailing-App for Fenix 3 with BlueChart-Connection

Former Member over 10 years ago

Hi,
I would appreciate to have a Sailing-App for the Fenix 3. It would be great to have an App which shows the Position in Degrees and Minutes like N 54°34'84 E 8°45'455, the speed in knots and the distance in nautical mile. Although these App should have an anchor alarm and a man over bord function. A Tide Table would be great.
A great feature would also be the possibility to interact with the Garmin GPS Map Plotter to get some more infos like the wind speed or depth over ground.
Additionally these functions could be tracked to the BlueChart-App.

Regards

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 10 years ago

We may already have something that would suit your needs:

http://sites.garmin.com/en-US/quatix/

The Quatix is a Fenix-based device that has marine-specific options, like the ability to control the autopilot on a boat, or communicate with other marine devices over NMEA 2000 (which lets you get wind speed, depth, etc.). The Quatix also has built-in tide tables. :)

Former Member over 10 years ago

Hi Brandon,

thanks for your reply. I know the Quatix and I have thought a long time to buy these. But it is the old Fenix 1 Hardware for the same price as the Fenix 3. So no Color-Display, no Connect IQ, lower Battery, no GLONASS, lower Water Resistant, no Wireless and Bluetooth and so on. Furthermore I don't want to use the watch for sailing only. But the advantage of the Quatix is that Garmin already developed the code for all these functions, therefore it should be no problem for Garmin to create these App for the Fenix 3...if they would like to do it ;)

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 10 years ago

I understand... wish I could say whether we have something planned, but I don't know for certain. And if I did know, I couldn't say. ;)

Thanks for letting us know that there is interest in this kind of application for the fenix 3, though. I enjoy the fenix line of products (I personally own a 1st Gen fenix that I use for hiking and white water rafting), so I'm enthusiastic about the future possibilities for the fenix.

Former Member over 10 years ago

Hi,

thanks for your open words. To be clear, I don't want to say that the Quatix is not a good watch but with the possibilities of the Fenix 3, Software and Hardware, the watch would be perfect as a sailing watch. With the possibility of notifications you can send alarms directly to your wrist. With the wifi connection it should be possible to communicate with the intern on board wifi for the plotters and other devices. The stainless steel housing should be resistant against salt water and a lot of more benefits.
Maybe you and your team will think about it. :D

Former Member over 10 years ago

I would be very happy if someone made a Fenix app with some of the quatix racing functions: Registering the positions of the start line, continuously show distance to start line, then start a five minute countdown and show the distance to start line and time to burn. After the countdown start a timer and show speed and heading. Option to restart the timer for the same start line in case of a recall. Tack assist and the like are a bit harder to make, but possible.

My understanding is that Garmin for marketing reasons wants to keep the Quatix and Fenix worlds apart. IMHO a bad approach, since no one would ever buy both watches. Garmin told me there were no immediate plans for a quatix update, so I bought a Fenix 3. It has all the hardware of the Quatix and more. I guess the absence of quatix functionality somehow gives the Fenix 3 a simpler user interface (one less menu item) and a clearly defined customer group, but as a sailor and runner I'm highly frustrated...

I have asked Garmin if they will let Fenix 3 receive data from the GNT-10 ANT channel, which would be required in order to display data from Garmin/NMEA boat systems. Very unclear answer, so this may or may not happen.

Former Member over 10 years ago

Nice to hear that I'm not the only guy being interested in sailing functions for the Fenix 3 ;)

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 10 years ago

Thanks to everyone for the feedback--it's encouraging to hear that people are looking for marine features to be brought to the fenix 3. Of course, Garmin is heavily invested in marine products, so it's an interest for us, too. I don't have anything specific to share right now, but I'd recommend monitoring the Connect IQ store over the coming months for apps that provide the kinds of features you're looking for.

If any of you have other needs beyond what is already available on the Quatix, please share your thoughts. The teams that work on particular product lines here at Garmin are often users of the products themselves--the aviation teams have many members that are pilots, there are fishermen working on sounders/depth finders, triathletes help develop our fitness products, and boating enthusiasts help develop chart plotters and other marine instruments. We try to anticipate needs and make the products that we would enjoy using, but are always open to new ideas.

Former Member over 10 years ago

Hi!
I've already bought the fenix3 really believing that a sailing app would have come Shortly!!! Like suunto did, with ambit3, but I ate suunto, and love garmin.
Please, don't dissapoint me!!!!!!!
Alberto

Former Member over 10 years ago

me too i'd like app nautic for fenix 3 ! PLEEEEASE !

Former Member over 10 years ago

I have a Fenix 2 and now the new Fenix 3. I have Garmin Chartplotters on my boat but I am disappointed that Garmin chooses to keep the Tide/Sail features on an old generation watch that's made specifically for Mariners.

Given today's tech advancements and all the device/feature integration, I doubt if anyone will wear a watch just for One purpose. I would just pull out my iPhone for the charts instead of replacing my Fenix 3 with a Quatix. It does not make sense from the Marketing perspective either.

Garmin is a Professional Key Player in the Marine sector and so as the Sports market, combining the two by simply building a Tide Widget would blow the competition away.