Navionics is an Italian manufacturer of electronic navigational charts. The company was founded in 1984 by Giuseppe Carnevali and Fosco Bianchetti who introduced the world's first marine electronic chart plotter, the Geonav. In 2017 Navionics was acquired by Garmin Ltd.
A well known name in boating, Navionics is tried and tested around the world. As with any long-established product, you may notice that the interface can seem a bit more dated than other iOS and Android apps as menus, buttons and the general interaction models might not be as “native” as one would expect, but it does offer a LOT if you need detailed charts.
In fact, you could say that the main focus of Navionics is the charts, which are extremely detailed. With user-sourced data and various visual overlays including sonar chart shading, the detail is perfect for anyone that wants to see absolutely everything around, and under the water.
While the focus has clearly been designing and maintaining up to date detailed charts, the Navionics app does also provide some details on weather, tidal stations and basic routing. In many cases, the information is only accessible through additional screens, rather than as an overlay on the chart. The routing provides a basic “Dock to Dock” course, but does not take any weather or tidal information in to consideration.
Users may find themselves flicking between Navionics and other tidal planners or weather forecast apps to get all the information they are looking for.
In many ways, savvy navvy can be thought of as the new kid on the block. Founded just a few years ago by ex-Google Software Engineer and avid sailor, Jelte Liebrand, this new boating app is designed to be easy to use whilst integrating all the essential information you need into one place.
Designed by boaters for boaters (and anyone else wishing to get out on the water!), the savvy navvy app removes the need to use multiple apps to plan a trip at sea. In addition, the team behind it builds future features directly around their members' feedback.
“Finally a combination app of different features together with an active team that actually develops it further to perfection. As I know many new features are going to be added to the app soon.” - app store review.
The savvy navvy team retain a number of ex-design and software engineers from the likes of tech giants like Google, something you might recognise in the design and usability of the app which works to combine a clean and clutter-free interface with a user-intuitive design, similar to that of Google maps.
Instead of showing you every possible layer of an electronic nautical chart, savvy navvy aims to show you only what you need to see. For example, it will not show a underwater cable at 200 metre depth, as that would not be relevant for leisure boaters. In short, savvy charts™ don’t provide the same level of detail as Navionics and this is on purpose. The team aim to show boaters the essential information they need to see in order to stay safe at sea, whilst removing “clutter” to help keep charts clear and easy to use.
Check out a video review from Fair Isle Sailing for more information.
In short, savvy navvy is just different. It isn’t straightforward to put savvy navvy and Navionics next to each other because they are essentially solving different problems. But to give a high level overview, we thought we would summarise the key differences so you can see for yourself.
