Is My TomTom NMEA Compatible?
TomTom is a well-known manufacturer of global positioning systems for vehicles, marine and mobile use. Some GPS users wonder whether these units are compatible with a standard set by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA).
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Compatibility
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Tomtom, as of 2010, does not manufacture a marine GPS device and therefore does not have a device that is compatible with the NMEA standard.
NMEA Standards
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The National Marine Electronics Association has a technical specification, called NMEA 0183, that it has established for all marine electronics manufactured in the United States. The standard sets forth a communications protocol written in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) that defines how information is transferred between marine devices.
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NMEA-compatible GPS Devices
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The NMEA establishes standards for many other devices, such as sonar equipment and boat operation systems. The 0183 standard includes several parts, not all of which affect GPS devices. The primary part of the standard that affects GPS units is the portion about sentences. Each marine GPS manufacturer (such as Garmin and Magellan) has their own sentence (their specific code in the protocol) for each of their devices.
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