Argo - Boat Navigation GPS

Argo Technologies, LLC

In-app purchases

About this app

Argo is a boat navigation app you can actually use for free. Not a trial. You get NOAA charts and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers depth surveys for US waters, 500,000+ marinas, anchorages and fuel docks, hazards reported by other boaters, and routes you plot yourself, with ETA and fuel use.

On your first trip, open the map to see how deep it is and read what other boaters say about the anchorage before you drop the hook. A hundred trips in, you're checking how old the Army Corps survey is before you run a shoaling inlet, or laying out a few route options and picking one underway.

Think of Argo as the boating buddy who knows every good dock bar and never asks for gas money.

FREE FOR EVERY BOATER

Navigate
• Up-to-date NOAA charts plus Army Corps (USACE) surveys you can filter by survey date
• Shoal areas, dredged channels, restricted areas and recommended tracks on the coast and inland rivers
• See your GPS position and speed on the chart
• Search buoys, beacons, lights, wrecks and mile markers
• Record your track and use Return to follow it back
• Depth shading presets, including two built for bright sun glare

Plan
• Search 500,000+ places, from boat ramps and moorings to non-ethanol fuel and dock bars
• Read reviews from boaters who've been there
• Plot your own route on the map and see distance, ETA and fuel use
• A trip log of everywhere you've been

Connect
• See other Argo boaters on the water and share your live location with family ashore
• Join your boat club, marina or rally group
• Share routes, places and trips, and post photos and video
• Report hazards and see the ones other boaters have reported
• Keep fishing spots private or share them with your group

One account works on every phone and tablet you own, free.

ARGO PREMIUM, WHEN YOU WANT MORE

Smarter routes
• Autoroute plans around shallow water, hazards and restricted areas based on your boat's draft, height and safety buffer
• Run inside or outside, or set Autoroute to stay in the marked channel
• Save several routes to your chart, start a track, and choose between them underway
• Have a sailboat and a powerboat? Save both, each with its own draft and height

Marine weather and tides
• 7-day marine forecast: weather, wind, wave height and period, tides and currents
• Wind, rain and lightning overlays on your chart
• 6,000+ tide and current stations on your chart, with predictions as far ahead as you want
• Tide variance right next to your depth gauge

On the water
• Offline charts download automatically around your location and home port, for when you lose signal
• Connect over NMEA (Wi-Fi gateway) for depth, speed and heading from your electronics, plus AIS targets
• Custom depth shading and contours, so shallow water and fishing drop-offs stand out
• Distance, time, bearing and course to your next turn, always in view

Logbook and planning tools
• Import and export GPX routes and tracks between Argo and your chartplotter
• Download a PDF trip report to document sea time toward your captain's license

Coverage: US coastal waters, the ICW, inland lakes and rivers, Canada and the Caribbean.

WHO'S BEHIND ARGO
Argo is family-owned. Our founder, Captain Jeff, grew up boating on the Chesapeake Bay. He built Argo so the local knowledge usually shared between friends at the dock is on the map for everyone.

Many of our features started as boater requests. Send yours to [e-mail].

DATA SOURCES
Argo is independent and not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any government agency.
• Charts: NOAA Office of Coast Survey, https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov
• Depth surveys: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, https://data.gov/maritime/hydrosurvey-data-archive-for-federal-navigation-projects/

Argo is a navigation aid. Always check official charts and conditions, and use your own judgment on the water.

Plan. Navigate. Connect.
argonav.io

Ratings and reviews

Finally a decent usable free app for boat navigation! There are so many others out there that claim to be free but their functionality is extremely limited or not even usable. Years ago I paid for one that that was supposed to be free for lifetime and it wasn't true. Now it costs over $100 a year. This one gives me very similar functionality with no cost and some enhancements that the other one did not even have. Plus their premium subscription is more than half of other competitors!

This app could be fantastic but at least on Android I've had a very bad experience with it. Performance got really bad while on the water, and the point that shows my location and direction was almost never accurate, showing me crab walking as though the compass stopped working. Using the track feature at about 5 mph drew lines through islands that I was going around. After we got back to the dock, unloaded the boat and went back for the phone, the location was still catching up.

So far, not reliable. I have installed it twice on my android phone before I was able to get to the setup. I had problems from the start with it taking minutes to load. I then installed it on my android tablet and it sits there for longer on the blue Argo screen. I even purchased the premium subscription to see if it improved, but it didn't. When it did open on my phone, I was greeted with a spam friend request. After updating, it says update failed in top left corner. Not reliable navigation.

What’s new

- Auto share your trips and tracks when you save them
- Search for live tide and current stations
- Attach screenshots to your feedback
- Recenter button while planning a route
- Place route points right next to nav marker
- Two new Boat Safety & Education articles
- Minor bug fixes and improvements