Any trolling motors that communicate with depth finders??

[BLACKJACK]

You have trolling motors with GPS's that you can set to follow a path and you have depth finders with GPS's that allow you to save waypoints, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to get them to communicate so that you could pick out a waypoint, punch it in, and the trolling motor would take you there.

Are there any systems/manufacturers where the trolling motor and depth finder communicate with each other??

[Tator2k]

I think I read somewhere that's the next step for the Johnson Companies.

[snowfighter]

I thought PinPoint made a system sometime back that did some of that.

[jerkbait]

Pinpoints would follow a depth contour.

[TruthWalleyes]

What is pinpoints? Educate me please?

[Dusty]

Pinpoint was a brand name of a electric trolling motor a few years back.

[IcePro]

Minnkota i-Pilot is very close.

[PerchJerker]

At this time there are no depthfinder / gps combos that network with trolling motors (other than using the Universal Sonar transducer).

Ever since the i-Pilot came out 3 years ago there has been a ton of speculation that HB and Minn Kota will be able to be networked together, since they are owned by the same parent company. Every year the speculation grows and grows. But there have been no official announcements on this yet ..... only speculation.

The PinPoint trolling motor had 5 transducers in the lower unit, and could use those transducers to follow a specific depth or keep a set distance off of shore. PinPoint was only around for a few years and it's been several years since they were made.

[BLACKJACK]

From a technology standpoint it just seems to me that it wouldn't be that hard to get a depthfinder to 'talk' to a trolling motor, you can network together two depthfinders, bow and console, why not add the trolling motor to the network?? It almost seems like their thought is 'we're making big bucks selling high end trolling motors and high-end depthfinders, why should we change??' Wish there was more competition, other manufacturers, in the field.

[TyGuy02]

or how about this...a trolling motor that you can attach your smartphone/tablet/device to and you could draw your desired route on a map using the device! That would be cool.

[Tator2k]

or how about this...a trolling motor that you can attach your smartphone/tablet/device to and you could draw your desired route on a map using the device! That would be cool.

+1

[JohnMickish]

It's been explained to me this way.

Johnson Outdoors now owns an electronics company (Humminbird), trolling motor complany (MinnKota) and a map company (Lakemaster). Stuff is in the works.

[jac714]

I was talking to the folks at the HBird display at the sportsmans show, they said it was 1 to 2 years out but that they were working on it. Their plan is to be able to network your graph, trolling motor and downriggers and run a route you had pre-defined on your PC.

Sounds really neat (and expensive)

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I'm sure it's coming and I'm sure they read this forum. If they don't they are missing out on some free market research.