Protocol of Sena, phone, GPS XM dongle

I have a Sena SMH5-FM. Great unit, easy to use so far, happy with it. On the bikes I have a Garmin 550 with XM and iPhone 5.

When I paired up GPS and phone I used multipoint pairing - iPhone5 to Sena then GPS 550 to Sena. Phone streams iTunes or Pandora to Sena and tapping Siri I can make phone calls. When GPS Jill is giving me turn by turn directions it pauses then restarts music. All good. As expected, the 550 will not stream XM to the Sena as the 550 does not support streaming Bluetooth audio but I have music from iPhone. All is good but I want XM streaming so.....

Now I bought a cheap eBay Bluetooth wireless transmitter dongle. It plugs into the Garmin 550 audio out jack. I paired it as Bluetooth Stereo Music device per Sena directions. Bingo, it pairs right up and XM begins streaming into the helmet. Wow, this is great. I unplug it from the 550 and plug it into an iPod. Wow, iPod goes wireless into the helmet. No wires, way cool.

Problem....I pause XM or iPod music from dongle and I tell Siri to start iTunes or Pandora. It starts but audio comes out of phone speakers - helmet is silent. I reboot Sena and the phone comes back as the audio source Bluetoothed into helmet but dongle source goes silent. I re-pair dongle to Sena and music streams from dongle but not from phone. One or the other but not both. I realize that both must be using the same profile, HFP ????, like a mobile phone. The Sena can pair with two phones but the one is my iPhone and the other is the GPS which needs HFP for turn by turn.

Apparently I can choose only one audio source at a time and have to reboot or repair the phone or dongle. Can I do the pairing differently and get all three?

I tried using a dongle to blue tooth my mp3 to my Scala Q2 pro, but every time the mic q'ed or I had an incoming call, I had to stop and re sync the blue tooth. Now I have Pandora and a playlist of 755 songs on my IPhone. Music, calls, and voice texts with only one touch to the Scala unit.
:tb1:

For a guy that didn't want a headset, you seem to have jumped in with both feet !

Don't know if your Dongle will do multipoint sharing...I thought the multipoint was with HST/HFP .
Most of those dongles are A2DP and I think there's only one channel for that ( why u have to resync ).

Dave spring for the SM10 and all your problems will be solved.

SteveST1300 said:

Dave spring for the SM10 and all your problems will be solved.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you are right but the SM10 is right about $114 and the dongle was $13.99 with free shipping. I've got some other spending priorities right now so while it's not fully integrated with the Sena I can live with having to re-sync the dongle or phone for XM or Pandora/iTunes.

v8-7 said:

For a guy that didn't want a headset, you seem to have jumped in with both feet !

Click to expand...

Mea Culpa. I have listened to XM or iPod music while riding via wired earbuds since 2006 but I did hold out on the phone/intercom as you know. What actually happened since November is that my refurbished Garmin 550 had some MP3s in it from the former owner (Garmin did not wipe the MP3s out) and I could hear them wirelessly through the Scala Rider. That got me determined to get music wirelessly and so on. And on. See what you did?

Dave the SM10 has 2 BT transmitters that is the difference.

Tom Mac 04a said:

Don't know if your Dongle will do multipoint sharing...I thought the multipoint was with HST/HFP .
Most of those dongles are A2DP and I think there's only one channel for that ( why u have to resync ).

Click to expand...

^^^^^^

This is what I was thinking. The SMH5 can pair with two HFP devices but only one media device with A2DP.

SteveST1300 said:

Dave the SM10 has 2 BT transmitters that is the difference.

Click to expand...

I'd cut in here (before opening another thread...):
Currently my GF has the SMH5, but can't pair the SR10 and the Garmin 220 simultaneously to it... it's only either...
So I'm attempting to get her the SMH5S-01 (utilizing the existing headset) hoping to solve that, or should I get an SMH10, the SMH10S, or, or...???
I'm wading through their pages, but they're persisting on not telling how many and what devices can be paired at the same time...
T.I.A. ...

I had a similar dilemma when dumping my wired Starcom1 system for a Cardo Packtalk system. Rather than two music sources though, I was trying to pipe in my RD. I also have a zumo 550 and XM. Here's my set up using a Sena SM10:

- Pair iPhone (Xs) to zumo only as a phone, no Bluetooth connection to the Pack Talk
- Set zumo bluetooth setting to "phone only"
- Pair zumo to Pack Talk as a head set on the zumo and as a GPS on the Pack Talk.
- Use a 3.5mm stereo patch cord to connect the zumo audio OUT jack to the audio IN jack on the Sena SM10
- Use another 3.5mm patch cord to connect the earphone jack on the radar detector to the AUX jack on the SM10
- Lastly, pair the SM10 to the Pack Talk as a GPS using the Pack Talk's second BT channel

The SM10 has a second BT channel but that is spared for a passenger Pack Talk and I'm currently not using it. The AUX jack has priority over the AUDIO jack on the SM10 so music and GPS instructions are sent to the Pack Talk unless the RD alerts which mutes any audio coming from the zumo so you never miss an alert. Instead of a radar detector you could just as easily plug in a second music source like an iPod and it will have priority until you turn it off in which case the SM10 will default back to the zumo's audio output.

With this set up it's possible to miss navigation directions though. If you connected the other way around, zumo to AUX and iPod to audio, navigation directions will have priority and mute the iPod. Of course you will have to mute XM radio from the zumo controls when you want to listen to iPod music. Switching back and forth would be a simple matter of muting and unmuting the XM.

Having just 'joined' the Sena world, I have a very simple setup - GPS, Radar Detector and MP3 player 'wire' connected to my Amplirider (3 inputs, 1 output that also improves the sound) and the wired output of the Amplirider connected to the Sena MP3 jack. You could get a bluetooth transmitter dongle to connect to the Amplirider and do it that way. I like the 'wired' since I move to 4 different ST1100s and I have to do no pairing at all. Just another approach ...

Electric Avenues | » Amplirider (electric-avenues.com)

Sena SMH10 is Bluetooth 3.0, which does allow for multiple bluetooth pairing, but you can't use a 3rd party remote or Garmin to control your devices (I can verify the remote part). The Sena 10S is Bluetooth 4.1, which allows you to connect several devices, as well as a handlebar remote.

I am not positive the 10S would work in your specific scenario, but I am fairly certain the SMH5 and the SMH10 are pretty much identical regarding pairing multiple devices. The SMH10 does allow the bluetooth multiple-intercom with other Sena devices though for group riding and the SMH5 only allows one other Sena pairing (at least this was the case for a buddy that had the SMH5).

-Ryan

Maybe this will help.

Old setup.
I paired the Sena 10C Pro to the phone and to the GPS. I was getting priority problems and it was always iffy if I'd get all the functions enabled.

New setup.
I remembered that the Sena 10C Pro has a second BT phone channel. It does not pair the same way as the first BT phone channel. I paired using that to the GPS. I already had the Sena paired with the phone.

I have no conflicts and all functions enable effortlessly.

You'll still need to pair the phone to the GPS, obviously.

Chris

Make sure your Sena devices are updated to the latest firmware version. Until recently my 2yo Sena 10S was still on a firmware version prior to an update that was explicitly to support GPS pairing (or at least improve it).

I've been using my Sena 10S with my Samsung Galaxy S7 and now Galaxy S10 with great success over the past three seasons. Within the past month I added a Garmin zumo XT to the mix. Throw in a brace of GoPro cameras connecting directly to my S10 for remote control and video preview.

The zumo XT wants to be the nexus of the phone/GPS/headset with varying levels of success. At first having the audio of the phone being routed through the XT along with program description - song, artist, podcast name, etc... - was cool. But I find that too frequently the XT reports that the Sena Headset has disconnected, and there's an associated delay in connecting and playing audio.

The acid test will be this weekend when my son and I attend NEW-STOC with a bunch of other Sena users (I expect!) and see how it performs in a number of use cases I don't experience when I ride alone.

General observation:
the "newest" units are over-functional and have bugs and hiccups... the older kits are more rigid but lack some, pretty basic functions...

Already familiarized my GF to go for a SENA 10S... which has way too many features (a nightmare of setup procedures...) but we need to aim that high to cover the basics of having a reliable connectivity to two devices: a Zumo and the SR10 radio interface at the same time ...

Reminds a little on buying a car these days:
PDC only avail with the full screen navsat package, which also comes with the heated leather seats, auto climate control, fender flares and the wider aluminum wheels...