A poll by Navico consulted 791 boaters across Europe. Over 50% of them is using a tiny part of their boat electronics’ potential. Thus, Lowrance adopted new strategies in order to simplify and ease the use of on-board instruments.

The main reason appears to be a lack of awareness of how important and effective many solutions can be, as they are designed to make navigation easier and safer.

Many features,

little “geeks”.

The key is to make

these features

more user-friendly.

52% of boat owners do not exploit all the potential, but the most surprising fact is that 74% of them do not do so because they do not know how to use the many features, despite interacting with the instrumentation and trying to access all the functions.
The picture is confirmed by the affirmative response, by as much as 91% of respondents, when asked if they revise electronics before the start of the season, when at the same time nearly 60% said they do not update the software every year because it is complex or because it’s hard to find the related information by themselves.
The poll has been conducted by Navico, parent company of Lowrance, Simrad and B&G brands. According to the results they immediately looked for a remedy, developing some tools: if users have enough with little features, they will never look for newer, more evolved models. So for the brand Lowrance, focused on anglers’ electronics, thy developed tools such as Network Analyzer and Service Assistant.
In particular, Network Analyzer pops up a notification every time a software update is available, without requiring a manual search.
Service Assistant, on its side, can quickly solve technical problems by getting directly in touch with the technical support team and sending detailed reports about Ethernet and NMEA 2000 network devices.
In order to access these features one download is enough, on compatible Lowrance tools. On Lowrance website, there is a dedicated section called “Support“, while in the YouTube channel playlist there’s a section with numerous tutorials that accompany users in the various steps of software upgrades, device set ups, calibration of touch screens, and much more.

The poll sample

791 people took part to the poll made by Navico for Lowrance, Simrad and B&G in Europe. Interviewees come from Germany (41%), Spain (13%), UK (12%), Denmark (10%), Italy (6%) and Norway (6%).
22% own a sail boat, 68% have a motor boat.
39% are anglers, 26% sport fishermen, 17% go cruising, 8% are daily sailors, 8% attend regattas, 2% are professionals (sea captains, professional sailormen, etc..)