Just a quick news flash – today’s Navionics Mobile app for iDevices can now do auto routing on the water. If it will be as good as Garmin auto guidance is yet to be seen
The price is $4.99 and is available now after an update and in app purchase. You might have to download latest maps from Navionics to make it work but so far no success for me
Update – well the Auto Routing is very touchy. After a few attempts I have found out the App can randomly do routes towards me (so in reverse to what I tried first) sometimes it will work – other times it won’t. I am in a narrow dredged canal area but still? And it also seems like many of the bridges around has no height which might not help. But even without bridges it is still quite “random” if it works or not.
In more open water it works better. Still not up to Garmin Auto Guidance standards – but better than in the canals. It is different routes to how Garmin does it. Garmin lets you select an endpoint and does not create “go between” waypoints. It is like one “long” route on your display. The Navionics App creates a lot of waypoints as you would have done on a manual route.
So a few hints
To create an auto-route – Just point on the map – the cross hairs comes into view. Press the Question-mark. The info screen pop up. In upper right hand corner – select “Route To”.
That will create a route from where you are to the point you selected.
I found the current version is very sensitive when routing and placing waypoints – often “misunderstanding” scrolling (one finger move across the chart) with placing waypoints. Misplaced waypoints are easy to delete – but it should not be that sensitive.
But a nice feature is the auto routing is “leg based” so you can do part of routes manually – but for each new leg you create – the app will try to auto route it – and show it in “black” if it goes well – or in red if it did not. And to add waypoints for routes that did not work automatically – you just press the “red line”and drag it to where you want a new waypoint and it then splits the route there.
So we are off to an “okay” start – but far from perfect. Garmins Auto Guidance has better routing and does not do as many hiccups – but for a first version it works “okay” – so dear Navionics – please continue to improve the Autoroute function and add my areas bridge heights…..
