Post by mwardncsu on Sept 16, 2013 14:15:52 GMT -5
I received the question below from one of the members on the site - thought I'd respond here for everyone's benefit.
I assume you are talking about the Minn Kota iPilot Link -
www.minnkotamotors.com/products/accessories/ipilotlink/freshwater.aspx
This is "cool" but also cost a "cool" $800, and has a remote control that is the size of a nuclear reactor control board.
This only works with Humminbird head units, which is no surprise given both are owned by Johnson Outdoors. It provides the functionality of iPilot in terms of direction, speed control, auto-pilot, track record, spotlock, etc - but also the ability to run a track at some given depth or offset from the bank. Sounds good, but you need to look in the details to realize you need a specific chart card - I believe its a Lakemaster chart card (also owned by Johnson Outdoors - no surprise there). However, I don't think they offer a card that covers SML - though I could be wrong.
At the moment I don't see the utility of this - at least for my fishing. I guess it could be nice at times to have the boat steer itself along a given depth contour - and maybe its useful for the articial or bass guys to pull along a given offset from the bank. But the remote control is silly big - if I could set this from the head unit then maybe. An this is coming from a self professed "gadget guy" that generally does not see an electronic doo-dad that he does not have to have
However, Lowrance finally has a solution..... sort of. Since Humminbird got the prettiest girl at the dance (though since they are both owned by the same parent company, maybe that means they are kissing cousins....
), Lowrance has to take the 2nd choice - MotorGuide. Together they will be coming out with "Pinpoint Connect" which has similar capability. The price will be a lot cheaper - $449 or $249 if you have the right MotorGuide motor already with wireless. And the remote is not nearly as silly. However, you'll need a Lowrance HDS Gen2 or Gen2 Touch unit - the Gen1 units are SOL.
www.lowrance.com/en-US/News/Lowrance-Partners-With-MotorGuide-to-Launch-PinpointConnect/
That said, I've never heard much good about MotorGuide TM's - never had any experience with them, but just have not heard much good and only good things overall about MinnKota.
For the money, just get a MinnKota TM with the regular iPilot - the newer iPilot remote is smaller than the original (but not nearly as tiny as the CoPilot keyfob size), and has a few nice features over CoPilot/Auto-Pilot such as all electronic GPS-controlled Auto-Pilot (vs the compass type that would break in the older generation), SpotLock (which I've honestly not found useful fishing but may be helful in some cases), etc. You might also find the track record useful, though again, something I've never really used. You can't control any of this from the head-unit, but I don't think you need to.... maybe someone can convince me otherwise.
I have a quick question for you, I have the hds 7 gen2touch, I love everything about it as I have learned how to use it, but the hard part of fishing still remains my foot controlled trolling motor. I am looking at the ipilot from minn kota, but everything I see says it only pairs with humminbird. Do you know if there is anything similar that plays well with lowrance?
I assume you are talking about the Minn Kota iPilot Link -
www.minnkotamotors.com/products/accessories/ipilotlink/freshwater.aspx
This is "cool" but also cost a "cool" $800, and has a remote control that is the size of a nuclear reactor control board.
This only works with Humminbird head units, which is no surprise given both are owned by Johnson Outdoors. It provides the functionality of iPilot in terms of direction, speed control, auto-pilot, track record, spotlock, etc - but also the ability to run a track at some given depth or offset from the bank. Sounds good, but you need to look in the details to realize you need a specific chart card - I believe its a Lakemaster chart card (also owned by Johnson Outdoors - no surprise there). However, I don't think they offer a card that covers SML - though I could be wrong.
At the moment I don't see the utility of this - at least for my fishing. I guess it could be nice at times to have the boat steer itself along a given depth contour - and maybe its useful for the articial or bass guys to pull along a given offset from the bank. But the remote control is silly big - if I could set this from the head unit then maybe. An this is coming from a self professed "gadget guy" that generally does not see an electronic doo-dad that he does not have to have
However, Lowrance finally has a solution..... sort of. Since Humminbird got the prettiest girl at the dance (though since they are both owned by the same parent company, maybe that means they are kissing cousins....
), Lowrance has to take the 2nd choice - MotorGuide. Together they will be coming out with "Pinpoint Connect" which has similar capability. The price will be a lot cheaper - $449 or $249 if you have the right MotorGuide motor already with wireless. And the remote is not nearly as silly. However, you'll need a Lowrance HDS Gen2 or Gen2 Touch unit - the Gen1 units are SOL.www.lowrance.com/en-US/News/Lowrance-Partners-With-MotorGuide-to-Launch-PinpointConnect/
That said, I've never heard much good about MotorGuide TM's - never had any experience with them, but just have not heard much good and only good things overall about MinnKota.
For the money, just get a MinnKota TM with the regular iPilot - the newer iPilot remote is smaller than the original (but not nearly as tiny as the CoPilot keyfob size), and has a few nice features over CoPilot/Auto-Pilot such as all electronic GPS-controlled Auto-Pilot (vs the compass type that would break in the older generation), SpotLock (which I've honestly not found useful fishing but may be helful in some cases), etc. You might also find the track record useful, though again, something I've never really used. You can't control any of this from the head-unit, but I don't think you need to.... maybe someone can convince me otherwise.
