Last Friday I spoke with Kevin Hellman who is the Product Manager for Digital Rigging at Mercury Marine about the new VesselView 7 SmartCraft Display that we first saw on the New SV 42 MTI Center Console that incorporated Mercury’s Theft Deterrent Device . One of my first questions was how intuitive was the new VesselView because in my opinion the previous versions could be improved upon. Kevin said they were much more intuitive and that focus groups and on water testing with boaters who had no experience with the devices drove the project to make the new products easy to use.
The VesselView 7 features a 6.4-inch glass touch screen, the unit displays more than 30 engine parameters, including fuel level and range, oil temperature and pressure, battery voltage, water depth, generator monitoring, HVAC and more. The ECO mode tells operators what trim and rpm settings will give them the best fuel economy. This feature won a “Green Product of the Year” by West Marine in 2010 and can provide up to 20 percent better fuel economy. The diagnostic scans are also performed when the engines are running and gives the operator all needed information and alarms. The technology is also adaptive, so it will remember user options and provide the information most often or repeatedly used.
VesselView 7 is capable of monitoring up to four engines and can function as a full navigation piece when interfaced with a Mercury unlock GPS puck, or a Lowrance or Simrad chart plotter. The unit will work with any other display with the gateway software and will provide data to those units using their screen architecture. VesselView 7 is compatible with SmartCraft-ready Mercury outboards 40hp and above, MerCruiser engines, Mercury Racing engines and Mercury Diesel engines. I will remember to bring a full follow up when I have had some sea time with the new displays.
