Thoughts

[TroyBoy30]

nothing was cut off with software. this only affects certain clearvu transducers that are packaged with a unit. same court case thats been going on for 3 years. they rotated the down element 20 degrees the first time to get around the patent. that didnt hold up in court so they simply removed it from all new transducers that are packaged with a unit. this doesn't affect you at all unless your purchasing a new unit that has a clearvu transducer in the box

everyone except garmin is paying a license fee to navico to use the down technology. humminbirds onix and solix provide even better down imaging than lowrance and simrad. raymarine and the humminbird helix is right behind

[shamus78]

TB30,

So if I were to purchase a GT40-TM transducer right now from Garmin, separate from a unit, it would have a down element? When I look at all Garmin's transducers on their website they all say "clearvu", but you're making it sound as if the missing down element only applies to transducers that are prepackaged with a unit. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

[Larry3215]

nothing was cut off with software. this only affects certain clearvu transducers that are packaged with a unit. same court case thats been going on for 3 years. they rotated the down element 20 degrees the first time to get around the patent. that didnt hold up in court so they simply removed it from all new transducers that are packaged with a unit. this doesn't affect you at all unless your purchasing a new unit that has a clearvu transducer in the box

everyone except garmin is paying a license fee to navico to use the down technology. humminbirds onix and solix provide even better down imaging than lowrance and simrad. raymarine and the humminbird helix is right behind

Sorry Troy, but thats just not true.

Garmin has just proven that they are willing to lie to their customers. That effects ALL existing Garmin customers and potential customers.

I have been a huge fan boy of Garmin since I bought my 7610/GT51 and Panoptix last January. I have gone out of my way, and spent tons of time on several different boards, hyping them and recommending them and explaining features and answering questions for potential new buyers, and existing users, for more than a year now. I have been pushing Garmin hard.

As of yesterday, I am no longer willing to recommend Garmin to any potential new buyers unless I attach a long list of "buts".

1) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" they did lie about the CV transducers using old technology for more than a year. "But", dont worry - Im sure they are telling the truth about every thing else....

2) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" the website has a bunch of wrong and misleading information on it and Garmin has not fixed any of those issues and doesnt seem to care about mis-informing their customers or false advertising.

3) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" you cant really trust what customer support tells you because they have no clue about mapping or Garmin Express and quote specs and give conflicting and incorrect answers based on stuff from the website - which has many long term, uncorrected errors.

4) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" we havnt been able to download any internal map up-dates for over a year - and still cant until at least May. They did change over to Express for map up-dates earlier this year, "but" it didnt work at all at first, and its still not working correctly, and support is still giving people wrong answers about internal map up-dates and Express is also changing the copy protection on up-dates for Premium maps so that you can no longer use them in any mfd. Support doesnt know when, how or if that will get fixed.

5) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" they dont seem to have made any effort to correct any of those problems in a timely manner, so I can only assume some one at the upper management level just doesnt give a crap.

6) Garmin is great, you should buy Garmin, "but" if you have any questions, I dont know how you can possibly get them answered and know if you are being told the truth or not. Who are you going to ask?


There are three things I look at above all others when I shop for $$$$$$$ toys.

1) Does performance meet what was promised? In the case of the CV transducers - no. Most everything else, yes.
2) Does the company have good, honest, accurate customer support and accurate information available on the website? Right now, the answer to that is a huge NO.
3) Are they honest with their customers or do they lie. You can decide that for yourself.

Given all of that - would you buy a new Garmin? Would YOU be willing to recommend Garmin to any one with a clear conscience?

[LWINCHESTER2]

The GT transducers are still GT transducers, had a down element and still do. GT20, 21,22,23,30,40,50,51, & 52. And the software for those transducers make use of the down element. Some of these have new versions and are call CV-xx. They do not have a separate down element and blend the signalling from side elements to create a down like view called ClearVu.

Garmin should have retained the name DownVu in the software and specifications of the GT transducers. There's not a legal reason not to. The software on my 7610xsv using the updated version states ClearVu. But according to Todd and TroyBoy30, who do know, it truly is only a name change, not a performance change for these transducers. I have read the litigation. There was never a problem with the name DownVu. It needs to be resurrected and applied to the GT transducers. That would clear up a lot of confusion. DownVu=down element. ClearVu=blended view from side elements. The terms are not interchangeable. Also in the litigation there was not a issue when the transducers were sold separate from the units. The 7610 does not come with a transducer. Buying the transducer separate apparently made the DownVu on it legal. Garmin should issue a statement clearly stating that the GT transducers are legal and that when used the software does not produce a blended image.

Also I defer to TroyBoy30 on who has the best down imaging. I no longer have any Humminbird units nor do I have the later generations of Lowrance.

BTW, I caught a bunch of crappie today using the PS21-TM on the trolling motor. The 20 degree cone when casting to fish that are 5-15 ft deep 30-40 ft away is deadly. Maybe perfect.

[LWINCHESTER2]

Garmin is great, But.....

Larry. You're slipping. You left out the best one.

Garmin is great, but if you want to really know the details about ClearVu..... go to the Lowrance website.

Just hang in there. Keep doing what this board is known for. Where does one go to get the straight story and correct information missing from the website and tech support? It's right here. Just keep calling it like you see it. It's the straight shooting that will make Garmin take notice.

[Astrochris]

I agree with you Larry 1000%,
I have been doing the same thing as you have in terms of promoting Garmin as I believe it is a great company with a great product.
That belief has been seriously rattled in the last 24 hours, all this talk about having only a slight difference between the GT and the CV, in my eyes removing the down element is not a slight difference .
I'm still on the 3.7 software and I'm afraid of updating to 3.8 and disabling the down view element. I absolutely do not trust that version 3.8 will not disable the Downsview element.

Can we please keep the BS out of this forum ,,,,
C//

[puhlw]

I wouldn't say garmin is lying, but they should make it more clear to customers. Clearvu is just a different type of down view. Sounds as though hummingbird did the same thing for years. And don't even get me started on how hummingbird and lowrance mislead (most) customers about sidevu for years. (And still do, Garmin included)

[TroyBoy30]

Please explain what part of what I said is not true. Both of the gt52s on my boat still have a down element and it still works. Same for your gt51 and everyone else's gt transducers. If you're a conspiracy theorist and you're worried they may disable it with a software update then don't do any updates. Problem solved.

[puhlw]

Sounds like this lowrance video that started this whole conversation may be the most misleading of the bunch. They could have mentioned Garmin has transducers with a separate di crystal and used comparable Garmin/lowrance units in their test.

[puhlw]

No different that truck commercial though. Each mfg points out the high points of their product not the low points or details of the testing.

[puhlw]

In fact arent some mfgs advertising chirp, but only sweeping like 10khz? Just so they can call it chirp. Very misleading to the average guy.

[Slickster]

Please explain what part of what I said is not true. Both of the gt52s on my boat still have a down element and it still works. Same for your gt51 and everyone else's gt transducers. If you're a conspiracy theorist and you're worried they may disable it with a software update then don't do any updates. Problem solved.

So you are saying that the redesigned gt40 for the old Echo Maps 73s, 93sv still have di element or are we in the same boat with the cv transducer?

[khart]

I am on the fence now with what to put at console. My plan was to add a 93sv to cordinate with my new 73cv at bow. I am thinking of just getting a HB Helix 10si for the console so I can have strong aside imaging. Or could go with HDS 9 gen 3.......

[Larry3215]

Dont get me wrong. I love my 7610/GT51/PS21.

The down and sideview are not up to the best standards, but Im willing to trade that for Panoptix and an excellent CHIRP 2D. Thats my only real complaint about the hardware I own.

What really ticks me off is breaking my trust. If they are willing to lie about the CV transducers like this, what else are they hiding or deceiving us about? Once you catch someone lying to you, how do you ever know they are telling you the truth about anything else?

The second is the absolute refusal to get the website fixed and get customer support the correct information to give to customers. That tells me management doesnt really give a crap about customer support.

How is anyone supposed to get answers they can trust? You cant call customer support and believe what they tell you. You cant look it up on the web pages and believe that either. If both of those are untrustworthy, how accurate is your owners manual? How the hell are you supposed to get any answers you can trust?

You could ask here, but if I haevnt had hands on experience with your exact hardware, I cant tell you squat. Ive been relying on the website and owners manuals and talks Ive had with support to give people answers. I cant do that right now and neither can anyone else.


What they should have done is offer the CV transducers in the bundles to satisfy the court order BUT made it perfectly clear these were downgraded transducers.

Then they could have offered a free "trade in" or "up-grade" to the GT versions. That would have pissed off Lowrance even more AND kept the faith with their customers. Problem solved and no bad press and reputation saved from ruin.

They would still have the customer service/website problems, but at least they would not have been caught out as liars.

[khart]

I am on the fence now with what to put at console. My plan was to add a 93sv to cordinate with my new 73cv at bow. I am thinking of just getting a HB Helix 10si for the console so I can have strong side imaging. Or could go with HDS 9 gen 3.......

[LWINCHESTER2]

What they should have done is offer the CV transducers in the bundles to satisfy the court order BUT made it perfectly clear these were downgraded transducers. Then they could have offered a free "trade in" or "up-grade" to the GT versions. That would have pissed off Lowrance even more AND kept the faith with their customers

I think you are on to something. We just need to get Garmin to hire you and put you in a management position. Great idea!!

[Larry3215]

Ha! First thing I would do is fire everyone in charge of the website and then go after who ever is keeping customer support in the dark.

I would not be surprised if it was the same idiot causing both problems.

[skid00skid00]

Well, I'm a skeptic about the litigation NOT forcing Garmin to remove the use of the GT52's downvu element. If I were Navico, I'd certainly make Garmin disable that element in new firmware...

I was considering replacing my 93sv with a 1242xsv. After this news, I spent a couple hours researching HB's 12" models.

I won't be buying a 1242 anymore...

Hmmm, and maybe this explains why the 93sv went from $1,500 to $1,000.

[LWINCHESTER2]

From Trade Only Today.

"Garmin says the new order excludes the DownVü scanning sonar transducer design, while Navico says it specifically blocks the import, sale and promotion of current DownVü products, including the Striker, echoMAP and GPSMAP products sold with their respective transducers."

While Garmin did not say they agreed with Navico's interpretation, their actions indicate compliance. They did quit shipping DownVu transducers packaged with the units. They came up with the ClearVu replacement without the down element. And the units that ship a transducer with the unit ship ClearVu transducers. Buying the unit and transducer separately and using them was not prohibited in the ruling.

It's an easy find. Just Google Garmin Navico patent 2015.

[khart]

nothing was cut off with software. this only affects certain clearvu transducers that are packaged with a unit. same court case thats been going on for 3 years. they rotated the down element 20 degrees the first time to get around the patent. that didnt hold up in court so they simply removed it from all new transducers that are packaged with a unit. this doesn't affect you at all unless your purchasing a new unit that has a clearvu transducer in the box

everyone except garmin is paying a license fee to navico to use the down technology. humminbirds onix and solix provide even better down imaging than lowrance and simrad. raymarine and the humminbird helix is right behind

I guess this include me, I just purchased my 73cv and the transducer came in the box. Not a happy New Garmin owner.

I think I have decided to install the HB Helix 10 Mega to my console so i at least have detailed crisp side imaging.

Be nice if Garmin would allow new cv owner to trade out their tranceducer to the better model.