Limitations of support for third party products.

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Limitations of support for third party products.

With respect to support for interfacing third party products to Raymarine products, Raymarine designs many of its products with industry standard communications interfaces (ex. NMEA 2000, NMEA 0183, NTSC/PAL Video, HDMI, etc.). Raymarine products are not designed to support integration with third party fishfinder sonar modules, radome, open array radar pedestals, SiriusXM satellite weather/radio receivers, thermal cameras (exception: NTSC/PAL video from such cameras), fishfinder transducers (exception: limited support for Airmar fishfinder transducers which have been specifically designed by Airmar to be compatible (adapter from Airmar may be required) with Raymarine products), and instrument transducers (exception: limited support for Airmar instrument transducers which have been specifically designed by Airmar to be compatible with Raymarine products). Raymarine products also do not support sharing of cartography resources with third products.

Raymarine tests its products to meet the specifications of aforementioned industry communications standards, rather than to support being used with any specific third party product. As with the communications interfaces of many other marine electronics manufacturers, Raymarine products may feature proprietary plugs and sockets where the industry standard has not or had not specify standard plug and socket designs. The plugs and sockets of industry standard communications interfaces of the Raymarine products may often be adapted to support integration with products from third party manufacturers.

When a third party manufacturer, produces a product which it claims has been designed to be compatible with Raymarine products and it has later been determined that the product is indeed not compatible, then and to ensure that the correct third party product(s) have been purchased / installed, it is generally advised that initial support be sought from the manufacturer of the third party product which had promised such compatibility. This recommendation is made, as the third party manufacturer should have been the responsible party for
- providing information concerning correct part number(s) for the third party products which will be interfaced to the Raymarine system,
- identifying how the third party product(s) should be interfaced to the Raymarine system,
- testing of the third party product(s) with the Raymarine system,
- providing the latest information concerning any design or part number changes associated with the third party product.

This recommendation follows the analogy of support being sought for an aftermarket car part which has been purchased for one's vehicle. Following purchase of such an aftermarket part, should the aftermarket part not fit/function with one's vehicle, then the initial source of support for rectifying the problem should be the manufacturer of the aftermarket part., not the vehicle's manufacturer. While Raymarine, using any readily available third party documentation, will do its best to assist with the integration of compatible third party products, its ability to do so may be limited ... particularly if Raymarine does not have access to the details of the product's design, the product's documentation, or has not tested its products with the third party product which one is seeking to interface to one's system.

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