I am looking for a reasonably priced NMEA 2000 heading indicator for my bow and console mounted Lowrance HDS Carbon units (to steady the charting pages at idle/slow speeds). The default would be to get a Lowrance Point-1, but I really do not care about the GPS receiver in the Point-1. I see the Garmin SteadyCast connects to a NMEA 2000 network and is much cheaper.

My questions are:

1) Will the SteadyCast heading indicator work with the HDS Carbon units?
2) If yes, will I be able to calibrate via an HDS unit, or will it need to be done manually?


I appreciate any feedback!

I would suggest you call Garmin on your question as they will know if they designed it to NMEA standards or have propiatiary software in it to work only on Brand G> I looked it up on the G website and its not even in production anymore so you would be taking a huge risk if it does not work. That 100 yo save will be gone in a heart beat with software incompatibilites. Since its never been tested on a Lowrance product you will get no support from Lowrance to get it work since they have never validated it. If you have a bass boat you would be better off with the Point 1 as it has a lot of features that are validated and has great performance. The point 1 is the lowest cost performance product you can put on a Boat. Good Luck.

Thank you for your feedback. If no one chimes in sharing their experience with this combination, I will take your advice and contact the vendor(s).