I have had the Lowrance HDS's for years and gone through several models. I now have the HDS 12 Live units and they have been great overall and satisfactory performance. However, just this year the last update screwed up the Sirius Weather and Fish mapping to a point where it was useless and unusable. I have had several experiences over the years with Lowrance software updates and had to roll back a version until they fixed the issue, later to move forward with new update that worked.
However, just this year, after the version that caused total freezing where they would not do anything for like 8 or 10 minutes, I went through many calls with them only to get to a level 2 person finally. They try to blame everything on other hardware in the system. I tried everything they threw at me and was getting very frustrated as the person on the call kept repeating same procedures over and over again and would start from beginning on any new calls after I tried some of the procedures that took a lot of time. Not very good english speaking, so think they don't get our meaning when trying to explain I have already done everything multiple times. Finally I demanded level 2.
Level 2 finally got to bottom of it quickly and agreed with me it was the latest software update and worked to get me the roll back version so I could use my units again. Well, they work like they should now with the older version.
Now, they have released 2 more updates since and neither addressed the screen locking and performance issue with using Sirius XM features. I have emailed the same Level 2 person multiple times and asked to escalate to someone higher up that can verify if they are working on this issue. He said he was highest I could talk to. Unreal. Guess he is the CEO! Anyway, I sit here unable to advance to the updates which include performance improvements, better resolution with the weather, and the layout was greatly improved for Sirius XM features.
I think I am done with Navico at this point.
I was thinking to move over to Simrad NSS4, however that is still staying with a company that does not care about customers needs.
Being retired now, I can't keep on spending over $10K every few years to keep my MFD's working like they should.
The only company I have heard that does not seem to have these issues as much is Furuno. Not sure they have DIY installation like Lowrance/Simrad and Garmin, but I don't prefer a Garmin either.
