Not at all. It's necessary detail for the story to make sense, and of course Garmin is quite proud that their device played a role in saving a life.

I know what they mean about ease of use, too. In the early 2000's I had a Garmin eTrex GPS receiver, the little translucent green one. Did a lot of hiking and geocaching with it, hooked it to my laptop for wardriving, etc. And everything I ever asked it to do was so easy -- there was no touchscreen and the click-stick only had five "buttons", but the UI was just profoundly intuitive.

I said at the time that if Garmin ever made a cellphone (this was pre-smartphone and every phone reinvented its own craptastic UI), I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Of course they did release some Garmin-branded phones later, well into the Android era, and the UI is generic Android. So much for that, and more's the pity.

But I believe their marine instruments retain some of that old-fashioned intuition, so anyone could just walk up and figure out the interface. And that plays a role in the story, so it's absolutely relevant to mention.