Lowrance hds7 depth shading with Navionics

I have the Lowrance HDS7 Gen3 device. I have been reading about depth shading and wanted to try it. Fish finder was purchased 5 years ago.


The "depth shading" option is greyed out on my finder. Is my only option to subscribe to Navionics and pay the $49.99 / year to keep that active?


Any other map options I can download to avoid the yearly subscription cost?

Thanks.

CMAP has the best depth shading and when your subscription runs out your depth shading keeps on working. Even the new units come with it built in on the CMAP

$49.99? I would love to pay that. My Navionics subscription was just renewed and came in at $130. But as mentioned CMap is the best if you want to custom shade depths.

I like the shading options on CMap, the problem on the lakes I fish is the contours aren't very accurate. I'll take more accurate mapping over a cool looking screen everyday.