Garmin® receives top NMEA® honors: 2019 Manufacturer of the Year

by Kathryn Morrell 12 Oct 2019 00:13 AEDT

Garmin GNX 120 7-inch large format marine instrument © Garmin

Garmin International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the world's leading marine electronics manufacturer(1), today announced that it was named Manufacturer of the Year for the fifth consecutive year by members of the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) for its support of products in the field.

Garmin also received four Product of Excellence Awards in the multi-function display (MFD), autopilot, multimedia entertainment and mobile application—utility categories. These awards were announced at the prestigious 2019 NMEA Convention and Expo in Portsmouth, Va., Sept. 16-20.

"These coveted awards are a true testament to our unwavering commitment to design, manufacture, sell and support industry-leading marine electronics," said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president global consumer sales. "We're proud to be a part of the NMEA, and it's truly an honor to be held in such high regard by our industry peers and customers. As we celebrate Garmin's 30th year in business, these accolades validate the hard work and dedication of our entire team."

For five years running, Garmin won the MFD category; this year for the GPSMAP® 8616xsv, a 16-inch chartplotter with a full HD in-plane switching (IPS) display with multi-touch control. It comes preloaded with the latest BlueChart® g3 coastal cartography and LakeVü g3 maps with integrated Navionics data and Auto Guidance(2) technology. The GPSMAP 8616xsv offers anglers the greatest sonar detail available in a Garmin system to date with built-in support for a wide range of CHIRP traditional and scanning sonars, Ultra High-Definition scanning sonar, and the entire Panoptix™ all-seeing sonar line, including Panoptix LiveScope™ live scanning sonar, recipient of the 2018 NMEA Technology of the Year award.

Garmin received the top spot in the autopilot category for the seventh year in a row for its ReactorTM 40 Hydraulic Autopilot with SmartPump v2. The Reactor was Garmin's first recreational autopilot system to utilize AHRS technology and boasts the usability, installation flexibility, and many other features that prove to be valuable for any vessel.

FUSION®, a Garmin brand, also received consecutive honors with a win in the multimedia entertainment category for the fourth year for the Apollo RA770 marine entertainment system, the world's first touchscreen marine stereo with Apple AirPlay®, built-in Wi-Fi and network audio sharing capabilities.

Finally, Garmin's ActiveCaptain® was honored in the mobile application—utility category. ActiveCaptain is a free all-in-one mobile app for mariners that delivers a seamless content management system with access to cartography, automatic delivery of the latest software available, off-vessel planning capabilities, connected services and so much more. Garmin's winning streak remains unbroken in this category, which was added five years ago.

Garmin's portfolio includes some of the industry's most sophisticated chartplotters and touchscreen multifunction displays, sonar technology, high-definition radar, autopilots, high resolution mapping, sailing instrumentation and other products and services that are known for innovation, reliability and ease-of-use.