The highly anticipated National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) Product of Excellence Awards were held at the NMEA combined conference and expo, where Fusion and Garmin enjoyed a very successful event!

From the 25th to 28th September 2018 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, over 400 marine electronics manufacturers, dealers, distributors, and other industry professionals attended the conference and expo. The awards saw a 25% increase in vetted votes, making it fantastic to see that more members are engaging and taking part in their industry.

Fusion is excited to have won one of the Product of Excellence Awards on offer, with the Apollo RA770 taking out the Multimedia Entertainment category! The RA770 has introduced many world and industry-firsts to marine stereos, with its glass touchscreen display, built-in Wi-Fi audio streaming, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), PartyBus capability and Apple AirPlay® functionality.  

Garmin deserves a special mention after taking out an impressive four titles, including the Manufacturer of the Year Award! Garmin also won the NMEA Technology Award and two Product of Excellence Awards in the Autopilot and Multi-Function Display categories for their GHP Reactor and GPSMAP 8624 respectively.

The NMEA Technology Award, which Garmin’s Panoptix LiveScope won this year, involved 15 nominated products which were scored on their innovation, benefit to boaters, practicality and value. The first and only live, real-time recreational scanning sonar, the LiveScope is an innovative system that delivers easy-to-interpret real-time images of bottom structure, bait and fish to 200 feet below or around the boat – even when the boat is stationary.

Along with Fusion and Garmin’s awards, eight other manufacturers took home well-deserved wins across the seventeen categories, including Furuno, Icom, KVH, McMurdo, Nobeltec, FLIR, GOST, and AirMar. Congratulations to everyone involved!

With such a high standard of nominations and award winners across the board, it’s an exciting time to be in the marine electronics industry – and we’re sure everyone can’t wait to see what innovations the next year will bring.

The 2019 NMEA Product Awards will be presented at next year’s NMEA Conference & Expo from the 17th to 20th September 2019, in Norfolk/Portsmouth, VA.