North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Went close to being able to purchase an Onix 8 last tax refund, though didn't happen (long sad story). I saw on FB a comment yesterday where a fellow had his Onix returned to Humminbird four or five times over an eighteen month period, each time with a replaced head unit. I will definitely be upgrading my finder this year & am chasing info or reviews on Onix gear.
I've seen this week that the 2016 Helix 9 & up has some similar features as the Onix that I'd like, albeit in a unit that is not 'touch screen'. The new Helix comes in at roughly half the price of the Onix from what I can see.
Has anyone got experience/opinion on the Onix?
Has anyone gone with the 2016 Helix 9 or up?
Has anyone got experience/opinion on the 360 degree transducer that can be added/upgraded to these units?

Cheers in advance

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I have the older gear, so cant comment on the reliability of the new stuff, but I have also looked into upgrading and have decided to stay with my 2 89x units at this stage. I purchased a 859 new from Territory marine about 15 months ago, the 859 would power up but not shut down. Took it back, they wouldn't exchange it, but had to send it back.... No sounder for 2 weeks. It now operates correctly but one bank of the button backlights wont light up. This means another 2 week outage while they change it over...

The reasons I wanted to upgrade were mainly two things. The autocharting of the Onix (and the higher end helixes) and the engine management reporting. I spoke to another dealer who told me that the data output of my 2006 Suzi 175 was unreliable anyway, so not to bother about the engine management, as I'd get more accuracy from my existing fuel transducer setup. The Onix was probably out of my price range anyway, so I checked out the helix.

The Helix doesn't have a NMEA 2000 port, so you are stuck with the onboard Humminbird proprietary network. Which is fine, as long as you only want to connect it to one other device. (I currently have it linked to the other sounder for sharing waypoints and transducers) If you want to add anything else from the Humminbird range (Minn Kota, 360) you need to buy their 5 port ethernet switch. If you want to hook it up to your engine management, you'll need the Humminbird Network to NMEA2K adapter as well.

For all the different connectivity I want, I would have been better off going for a Lowrance HDS. However I'm very happy with the performance of the humminbird sounders, and have no issues setting them up and using them. I think if you went Helix, you'd end up with the same issues that concerned me above, once you wanted to start adding more toys to the network. For the features you can add (ipilot link, 360 etc) then Humminbird is a good choice, as long as you are prepared to shell out the extra bucks to set up the connectivity.

If going for the Helix, I'd want to make sure that the engine management options on the Helix are a lot better than the older systems, which are frankly rubbish. The screens aren't customiseable, and there's no fuel flow data.

Cheers Jabsy. I'm chasing the autocharting & possibility of 360 in particular. Must admit that it will be my first side-scan unit as well. The way I was thinking was that I could possibly go the Helix 9 & 360 transducer for a few hundred over the cost of the Onix 8 touch. Slightly concerned that the Onix units may still have problems to 'iron out', and this could potentially be the case with the Helix units.
I tried to message the fellow on FB to find what the issues were with his Onix, but given he doesn't know me (& I can't blame him) haven't had a response.

I believe they sorted out most of the onix issues with a firmware update mid last year. maybe old mate hasn't applied this? The only issue I see above would be the small screen of the Helix 9 and the 360, it'd go great with an 1198/1199... Ive seen a few of these in the last 6 months between the $1000-$1500 mark. All you'd miss out on would be the autocharting.

The side scanning works well, it takes a bit to get used to but I wouldn't be without it now. I use it just as much on the reef as i do the rivers.

Got helix 10 and a 9 both very nice if I did it again would get 2x helix 10 auto chart live is unreal very handy 360 is next list.

Pm sent.