July/August 2018 passagemaker.com 31Marcus Hamilton were understand-
ably thumbs-up giddy by the end of the
press event, which also marked the end
of an intense development process. As
bold as Fusion is with its Project Apollo
claims—yes, the name also references the
push to put a man on the moon—they’ve
delivered a platform that appears to be
already nicely future-proofed. And with
more Apollo models and peripherals to
come, it’s not a stretch to say they are
“changing the face of marine entertain-
ment.” The RA-770 ($649) and SRX-400
($349) are both slated to be available
for purchase starting in June 2018, and I
hope to test a PartyBus network in depth
at some point.
Fusion has been under Garmin owner-
ship for four years now, and hopefully the
fear that they will only play nicely with one
brand (Garmin) is over. But that certainly
doesn’t mean that Garmin isn’t involved.
Baird talked about how they helped dou-
ble the Fusion engineering staff from 20 to
40—once they’d been persuaded to back
Project Apollo—and engineering manager
Brain told us how nice it was to be able
to query his Garmin colleagues on subjects
ranging from optically bonded displays to
embedded wi-fi radios.
I also learned that in the world of
recreational vehicles—which the inde-
pendent Fusion sales force penetrated
first—there are now joint Fusion/Gar-
min developments ongoing like the
RV-IN801 Infotainment System. In fact,
one upshot of Garmin’s recent Trigen-
tic acquisition will be similar RV sys-
tems with digital switching included.
But even if Garmin/Fusion become one
brand in that world, it may mean noth-
ing in ours, because—hail Apollo—Fusion
seems to be doing just fine functioning
as an independent. QThis article first appeared on Ben El-
lison’s website, Panbo, and has been
edited for print here. To read his origi-
nal post visit: http://www.panbo.com/fusion-
apollo-series-truly-the-sum-of-audio-
innovation