Marine electronics

Marine electronics refers to electronics devices designed and classed for use in the marine environment on board ships and yachts where even a small amount of salt water can destroy some electronics devices. Therefore, the majority of these types of devices are either water resistant or waterproof.

Marine electronics devices include chartplotter, marine VHF radio, autopilot and self-steering gear, fishfinder and sonar, marine radar, satellite navigation device, fibre optic gyrocompass, satellite television, and marine fuel management.

Communication

The electronics devices communicate by using a protocol defined by National Marine Electronics Association(NMEA), with two standards available, NMEA 0183 (serial communication network) and NMEA 2000 (controller-area network based technology). There is also Lightweight Ethernet (LWE).

In recent years, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has created a new standards suite for "Digital interfaces for navigational equipment within a ship". This is known as IEC 61162 and included NMEA 0183, NMEA 2000 and LWE.

Additionally, different suppliers of marine electronics have their own communications protocol.

A+T Instruments has ESP Ethernet over Ships Power
B&G has FastNet
Furuno has NavNet ("NavNet" refers to a product family, and is not a communications protocol. Furuno uses industry standard NMEA 0183, NMEA 2000, and standard Ethernet for communications protocol in their products)
Mastervolt has CZone
Nexus has FDX
Raymarine has Seatalk / SeatalkNG
Simrad has SimNet
Stowe has Dataline

Marine Electronics Communications
Standard	Electrical standard	Protocol type	Connector	Simplex/duplex	Termination	Manufacturer	Compatibility	Notes
NMEA 0180/0182	RS-232	ASCII serial		Simplex
NMEA 0183	RS-422	ASCII serial	Terminals	Simplex	N/A	Various		4800baud 8N1 https://web.archive.org/web/20140215150802/http://www.kh-gps.de/nmea.faq, https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5534.html
Seatalk	RS-422	ASCII serial				Raymarine		4800baud https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5535.html
NMEA 2000	CAN bus	SAE J1939 binary	DeviceNet 5-pin A-coded M12 screw connector	Duplex	120R	Various		IEC 61162-3, 250kbs
SeaTalk^NG	CAN bus	SAE J1939 Binary	Proprietary	Duplex	120R	Raymarine	NMEA 2000	https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5536.html
Simnet	CAN bus	SAE J1939 Binary		Duplex	120R	Simrad	NMEA 2000
Furuno CAN	CAN bus	SAE J1939 binary			Furno		NMEA 2000
Signal K	Ethernet, WiFi	HTTP						https://signalk.org/
NMEA OneNet	Ethernet, WiFi							https://www.nmea.org/content/STANDARDS/OneNet
SeaTalk^hs	Ethernet, WiFi		RayNet			Raymarine		https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5537.html

Navigation

Another important part of marine electronics is the navigation equipment. Here compasses, which includes both gyrocompasses and magnetic compasses, make up for equipment that is used by the entire shipping industry.

Industry

Some manufacturers specialize more in equipment for commercial vessels such as tankers and general cargo vessels. This industry is relatively small with worldwide sales of $3.2 billion in 2015. The top manufacturer was Japan-based Furuno, followed closely by Norway-based Navico, a holding company for several current and former industry brands (B&G, C-MAP, Lowrance Electronics, Simrad Yachting), with revenue of $308 million.^[1] Rounding out the top five are Japan Radio Company in third, Garmin (popular with recreational users) in fourth, and Wärtsilä (Sam Electronics and Transas) in fifth.^[1] The next four top manufacturers are Raymarine Marine Electronics (a subsidiary of FLIR Systems), Raytheon Anschütz, Sperry Marine, and Tokyo Keiki.^[1] |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140215150802/http://www.kh-gps.de/nmea.faq Other companies outside of the industry's top ten that have a significant presence chartplotters include Samyung ENC, Hummingbird (Johnson Outdoors), Murphy (Enovation Controls), Naviop, SI-TEX Marine Electronics, and TwoNav.^[2]