Seattle Avionics Really? - Come ON Dynon!

[Kahuna]

Ive been able to survive on a single stick. My typical M.O. is to let it run overnight. I do find the interface dated and its not the easiest program to work with. But it does work as long as you give it many hours to do its thing. It chews up a LOT of local disk space.

[Joe]

... CEO of Seattle Avionics, Steve Podrachik, he specifically mentioned a lack of complaints received about the software. ...

That would be funny if it wasn't so pitiful. Possibly Podrachik is in denial. When I contacted S.A. he was manning Tech Support. His "solution" was less than useful.

Count me among the legion of dissatisfied S.A. customers and myriad users who won't be renewing their S.A. subscriptions. S.A. has had plenty of time and opportunity to clean up their operation. I won't even buy another EFIS that has S.A. providing the charts.

--
Joe

[krw5927]

Originally Posted by rswalden

Here are a few tips that might ease your frustration:

1. Upgrade your computer to one that supports USB 3.0.
My old XP computer was getting slower by the day.... I popped $600 for a new Dell computer with lots of memory, speed, disk storage, Windows 10, and USB 3.0 and the difference was night and day for Seattle chart download times.

2. Get organized. Buy TWO USB memory sticks... one in the SkyView, and the other one at home to update when necessary. Set a reminder on your cellphone calendar to remind you when the Dynon/FAA/Seattle charts are about to expire so you aren't surprised by expired database warnings when you go flying.

3. Upgrade version to 13.x SkyView firmware, and the Seattle Avionics 13.x compatible chart download software. Much faster! Let the Seattle software run in background so your computer already has the new chart data when you need it. Then, all you need to do is have it automatically transfer the charts to your memory stick when needed.

Steps 1, 2, and 3 were complete months ago. USB 3.0 everything. I thought everything was fixed with the new software. But this month, it only loaded IFR lows and flight guide to the 32GB stick. VFR sectionals and plates did not load and showed yellow on the stick (green on the PC), while the app was happily sitting idle and the stick showed well over half empty. Pushing the update button again didn't work. It's a different failure mode almost every month. Usually deleting all data from the PC and the USB, then re-downloading and re-loading to the USB, fixes the problem. I consider the fact that I have to go through that ritual every couple of months a massive failure on the part of SA, even if I'm eventually able to make it work. And needing to purchase an additional $600+ PC to make it work is nonsense.

On top of that, the charts aren't available even 1 day before they become active. So I'm usually without current charts for a couple days while I monkey with the software and files. Foreflight to the rescue.

[f14av8r]

See, the thing is, when you get pages and pages of work-arounds then maybe it's time fix the root cause. Sure, I've got a capable PC, USB newest, hot USB thumb drive, etc. Still, the download process is painful. If it were as simple as just leaving it alone overnight it wouldn't be a big deal. My problem is that I come back to the computer in the morning to find one of those dang yellow dots staring me in the face. Bummer. File 8423 of 25,979 transferred but good 'ole 8424 decided he wasn't playing Seattle Avionics game. START ALL OVER!

I simply have no patience for poorly designed software like this holding us all hostage. Will I keep using it? Probably. What other real choices do I have to get geo-ref charts on my Skyview? That's why my beef is with Dynon. Why do they associate their excellent products with these bone heads?

[airguy]

Originally Posted by f14av8r

Will I keep using it? Probably. What other real choices do I have to get geo-ref charts on my Skyview? That's why my beef is with Dynon. Why do they associate their excellent products with these bone heads?

You answered your own question. They keep doing it, because you'll keep buying it.

SA needs to shove it and choke. Dynon needs to pick a better vendor for the product.

[RV7A Flyer]

I think SA is in the same boat as quite a few other small companies who find themselves suddenly in a bigger market. They had a half-decent product which enough people found okay enough to use, and they have the data pipeline to support supplying a bigger market. Then they inked a deal with Dynon to supply the data, and suddenly, their once-barely-sustainable toolset is inadequate to deal with the larger market (and that market's more demanding users).

IMO, GoPro was the same (and may still be). Small company, a few guys came up with a clever product, and it worked *most* of the time, and any glitches were only felt by a small number of customers (because there were only a small number to begin with). Then it took off, and all of a sudden, there were *tons* of complaints (on various internet forums, etc.) about crappy update procedures, cameras that failed, etc. I went through *3* of them before I got one that worked. And I wasn't alone. I think they've (sort of) fixed that now, but still...amateurs suddenly thrust into a great big worldwide market which demanded professionalism

SA seems to be the same. Unless and until they re-architect and re-engineer their software, they're just going to keep getting complaints (and they'll get louder). They did implement a pretty good fix to the interminable download times recently, for at least some of their charts, but the software is still buggy and has a tendency to "hang", oftentimes necessitating completely deleting all the data and starting over.

That's poor design, and probably poor implementation. No amount of bandaids on the software will fix that. (Plus, it's frankly a really poorly-designed interface).

Unfortunately, I don't know who else Dynon would go to get the charts supplied at such a low price, though. I think in the best of all possible worlds, they would design their own system and acquire and distribute the charts through their own company (but then again, Garmin doesn't do this with their boxes, do they? They use Jepp...and it costs us a ridiculous amount of money for what is, at its heart, merely a reformatting of government-supplied data).

I've been just as frustrated with the poor SA software app as anyone...but I love the georeferenced charts, so I'm stuck with dealing with it, like everyone else.

Hopefully something will change soon...

ETA: http://seattleavionics.com/Management.aspx
Hey, look...they both started at Microsoft. That might explain some things.

[Jrskygod]

[ed. Civility edit. dr] I have a fast computer, Internet connection and 3.0 USB sticks. I still have problems downloading. My workaround is to delete the data from my memory sticks before I attempt to transfer the files from my computer. Although it takes more time it really doesn't because I spend less time messing around with the darn thing trying to get the data on the stick in the normal method. I have to Skyview screens so I have to do data download to two sticks. What a PIA. I do like to have the charts on my Skyview's so I put up with it.

[Taildrgr]

I am sorry if I am stating the obvious, and most people are probably doing this, but I found that I don't have any problems if I load the software program, then update the computer with no sticks installed.

When finished updating the computer, I put the stick in, wait for the software to recognize the stick and then click yes to start updating automatically.
Then I put my second stick in and wait for it to be recognized and it will also update with no problems.

When I had the stick in while the computer was updating, the software was trying to update the computer and the stick at the same time and never would finish.

[chazking]

Originally Posted by Taildrgr

When I had the stick in while the computer was updating, the software was trying to update the computer and the stick at the same time and never would finish.

An inelegant approach, but that works. I use SA & find it manageable. I'll give that approach a shot.

[RV8iator]

I'vebeen using Seattle for several years now. Admittedly the initial download took a long time and when I upgraded to Windows 10 I had to reload the program, but other than that my GRT downloads have been as expected. I keep 31 states, sctionals, charts, Hi and Lo current and yesterday I updated my stick in less than 45 minutes in the background.

If it works like this for GRT maybe it's not Seattle that has the problem.