Garmin OnBoard System

One of the best safety upgrades I've added to my boat. The Garmin man-overboard system gives me confidence knowing the engines will automatically shut down if I fall overboard. Easy to use, reliable, and provides invaluable peace of mind for both me and my family. Highly recommended.

I love the OnBoard system because it is seamless in function. If you have your Captain’s tag turned on it automatically connects and you’re good to go. But if it’s the marina personnel moving my boat, and they don’t have a tag, engine still starts. No extra buttons to push or extra knowledge required. Really nice addition to the Garmin family.

I am happy with the purchase, I also bought a second MOB for my son. I was disappointed with the battery life of the second one as it only lasted a week. Once I got a new battery it has been fine. Had over a week in the Keys and it was nice to have a piece of mind while trolling that myself and son were protected.

There are a lot of great features on the Garmin OBS. I really don’t know what other systems are like and my review is that when used with a Garmin 1243xsv. Besides stopping your motor(s) when the MOB tag assigned to the Captain’s role goes overboard, it drops a waypoint and displays a message on my Garmin screen that I can read on a Mayday call to the Coast Guard if I choose to. The message contains your longitude and latitude. The display asks you if you want to auto navigate to the waypoint. For an MOB tag not assigned to the Captain’s role, it does the same except it doesn’t kill the engine(s). You can also manually activate the system by depressing the MOB Tag face. You can wear the MOB on your wrist or on your garment. Both wrist straps and a clip are provided. After installing the Garmin OBS, you can test the system to determine if you did it correctly using software. Here’s where it could be improved: I decided to see how far I would have to walk away from my boat to activate the MOB system. I was at least 125 feet and it didn’t activate. I then positioned myself about 60 feet from my boat and dropped the MOB tag in a bucket of water. It worked. The water attenuated the signal. I’m just a bit concerned how well it will work if someone falls overboard and in a panic starts flailing their arms. Would it work at a reasonably close distance? An improvement would be to provide the user with the ability to attenuate the signal. I called Garmin and confirmed that feature doesn’t exists. Perhaps next Gen.

Used on the ocean for 200 miles on sev days. It will drop out of nmea if connectors get loose. Mine is wired to Merc ignition key so even if it drops my fob works flawlessly. I wonder if my tech shoild have wired to kill switch but he found the former easier and im not seeing any problems with engine restarts etc. I love the MOB alarm and the the instructions for calling coast guard and navigation to mob position.i will drift away in the current unil Comsat comes on mu PLB but at least the boat will be saved. Much prefer Garmin to the alternative MOBs

Pretty simple install. Paired it with my 1242xsv. Doesnt seem to communicate properly to work as planned. Does work when i press the the mob button on the fob.

It is not working with my Volvo engine yet. Also Garmin is slow to produce the Volvo-Penta/Garmin 15” ultra-wide screens promised months ago so my build is still waiting for a screen install. I get an alarm every time I use the boat it reminds me my Onboard is non operational

Had this installed on my new boat. Thought it would be a good thing but has been a pain. The MOB tag ate thru batteries in a few hours… shut my boat down while running. Had to shut batteries off and restart to get running. Support sent me a new tag but went to install it and it wouldn't show on my Garmin MGD's… called support they said I needed to add new firmware to see it or hit reset on device (which I can't access) so I have to run and it beeps every 15 seconds. Going to have it deinstalled as soon as I can get into service In the mean time I'm dealing with the every 15 second alarm for a few months now…. Great concept but too difficult to use I'm going to have them disconnect it so I don't have these tag/ battery issues in the future on my new boat!!!! I'd say beware before you put it in your boat!

I installed this unit this weekend but when I powered on, I can get to the GOS10 page, when I pick review, I don't get a choice on the right hand side of MOB tags, test buzzer or disconnect engine. Will be calling on Monday for help. Disappointed that it was not easy to connect?

I purchased and had the system professionally installed within the last month. I have been a long term Garmin product user and have always found their products very intuitive to use. The MOB system is not compatible with 8622 MFD software (my primary devices) which was not clear at time of purchase. Every time at start up necessitates clearing alarms on an auxiliary 8610 unit in the tower and dealing with incessant audio alarms. The user documentation is not well done to facilitate trouble shooting. Working with Garmin support in attempt to remedy but not off to a good start and a waste of money at this point (product and installation cost). I would stick with a typical stand alone MOB device for the money/hassle.