NMEA 2000 Certified vs. Compatible and Garmin Equipment

Some Garmin marine devices use the NMEA 2000 protocol language to connect and communicate with third-party marine products. NMEA 2000 is an open industry standard and is not proprietary to Garmin. See What is NMEA 2000? for more information on how NMEA 2000 works.

Many Garmin marine devices are NMEA 2000 Certified, meaning that they meet critical safety and communications criteria set by the National Marine Electronics Association. Garmin devices' NMEA 2000 Parameter Group Numbers (PGN) can be found in their installation manuals.

Some manufacturers' marine devices are listed as NMEA 2000 compatible or NMEA 2000 compliant. This is not the same as being NMEA 2000 Certified. These products may not support or be fully compatible with NMEA 2000 Certified devices, such as GPSMAP® chartplotters. Go to https://web.nmea.org/certified-products/search to find out whether a marine product is NMEA 2000 Certified.

Garmin devices are not compatible with third-party products that use a proprietary protocol language, such as i-Pilot or SeaTalk.