Bluetooth intercoms for beginners?

[Andrew Shadow]

Not that I have found. The speech in the pillion earpiece comes a large fraction after I have spoken. So I probably stopped looking for it. But I will go hunting....... and report back.
.... can't find any setting. Cardo Support link points to a non-existent page, but found an old link. Message sent .......

Sena calls the feature that I believe that you are referring to Sidetone. I have never used it but from what you wrote I gather that the below is the same feature.

Sidetone is the sound of your own voice as picked up by your headset’s microphone and reproduced in your own ear, by your own speaker. It helps you to naturally speak at the correct level according to varying helmet noise conditions. If this feature is enabled, you can hear what you are speaking during an intercom conversation or a phone call.

 

[Dave Pitman]

My Sena does this.

That is good to know. I'll check them out.

 

[jfheath]

Update regarding Cardo Sidetone. This is the standard 'Are you talking into the mic' / ' Have you turned it on' / 'Excuse me while I treat you like a complete imbecile' sort of reply that I suppose that they have to do

Hi John, ​

​

Thanks for reaching out. ​

When you speak you cannot hear your voice on your speakers.​

You can try by a phone call or talking to other intercoms just make sure the installation of your microphone is directly in front of the mouth, and the yellow arrow on the microphone faces the side of the mouth.​

​

Regards. ​

Cardo Team.​

​

So they have had a polite reply suggesting that the instant feedback is preferable, and I would have though essential. You shouldn't have to make a phone call to check that your mic is picking you up. What do you say? "Hello, can you hear me". The Autocom has it, and thanks to @Andrew Shadow 's confirmation, I was able to quote the relevant passage from the Sena 50S manual - which I'll reproduce here for completeness.

14.2.16 Sidetone (Default: Disable) Sidetone is audible feedback of your own voice. It helps you to naturally speak at the correct level according to varying helmet noise conditions. If this feature is enabled, you can hear what you are speaking during an intercom conversation or a phone call.​

@Dave Pitman : Since I have just located it - The Sena 50S documentation is available for download here Sena 50S User's Manual & Documentation | Sena

 

[Uncle Phil]

So a question - if you don't have the 'smartphone' connection on the Senas (mine are 30Ks and 20 EVOs), can you enable the sidetone via the device itself?
I could not find it looking through the manuals but then I probably missed it.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

So a question - if you don't have the 'smartphone' connection on the Senas (mine are 30Ks and 20 EVOs), can you enable the sidetone via the device itself?
I could not find it looking through the manuals but then I probably missed it.

For the 20S EVO it is on page 56 of the version of the user guide that I have.
After entering the configuration menu you rotate the jog dial until you hear it say sidetone. Once there you tap the phone button to enable it and tap the jog dial to disable it.

For the 30K it is on page 80. The way that the manual is laid out it is less clear how to do it but it is exactly the same as above with the 20S EVO after entering the configuration menu.

With both the 20S EVO and the 30K this feature is disabled from the factory.

 

[Uncle Phil]

For the 20S EVO it is on page 56 of the version of the user guide that I have.
After entering the configuration menu you rotate the jog dial until you hear it say sidetone. Once there you tap the phone button to enable it and tap the jog dial to disable it.

For the 30K it is on page 80. The way that the manual is laid out it is less clear how to do it but it is exactly the same as above with the 20S EVO after entering the configuration menu.

With both the 20S EVO and the 30K this feature is disabled from the factory.

Thanks - I was looking at the 30k manual and it is about as clear as mud in that area.

 

[MaxPete]

There is a great test on the FortNine YouTube channel - I suggest you watch it.

Here is a linky:

Ryan F9's conclusion was (it is several years old now) that the Cardo PackTalk BOLD is simply the best you can get.

I did buy a cheapo Chinoise knock-off - total waste of money. The two units would not link and the first time it got wet, my iphone music died...permanently. Conversely, the PackTalk BOLD has always been solid.

Pete

 

[cneher]

I have never used any kind of intercom or in-helmet audio system, so my questions may be simplistic. Primarily, I would like to be able to listen to voice directions from my phone-based sat nav (I use offline maps so no need for a SIM card) because I've always just had to navigate by watching the directions on the screen. I would also quite like to have intercom functionality for the occasions I get to ride with my friend. I don't much like to ride in a group, much less synchronise frequencies and listen in to their chatter. The thing is, the amount I would use it really doesn't justify spending megabucks. All those Cardo and Sena devices are way above my pay grade.

More basically:

• Is it possible to have the helmet speakers relaying my satnav directions to me, while also able to cut in with the comms from the other rider?
• Is it possible to speak to the other rider without messing with the Bluteooth settings on my phone? The phone app doesn't (need to) respond to voice commands. I just want to be able to chat ad hoc with my friend while riding.

I saw Lexin devices mentioned on here, and had thought something along the lines of the Lexin G2P might suffice. It doesn't seem entirely awful, but am I missing some huge piece of the puzzle? Whatever device I decide to buy, I want to be able to recommend it to my friend, or at least have compatibility with whatever device she might buy.

Cool you asked this question - I’ve been kicking around the same one.

That Lexin model looks like a great value and I bet it will serve my needs really well.

Thanks for sharing this with us!

 

[ST Gui]

I miss the 'foldback' I think it is called - where you get to hear your own voice in the earphones.

In telephony (at least over here) that's called sidetone - a measured amount of your mic's output fed to your earpiece. You hear yourself via the earpiece so there's no (or few) "Is this thing on?" moments.

I think it's still employed in land-lines but don't know what cellphones if any used/use it. The main thing I liked about it is its tendency to reduce the loudness of the person talking with respect (hah!) to the people around him or her. This is can be a problem with people new to using a mic for radio transmission. You hear them shouting into the mic as though they're talking to someone across the hollar. CBers were infamous for this trait don't know if it's still true.

 

[IndyRob]

I have been waiting for a long time to get a BT set that could do what my wired Autocom system would do.

It took a very long time, but the Cardo Edge Duo has managed it.

What I needed was
Rider to pillion / rider to rider Intercom - turn on and go.
BT connection to stanav so that I can hear instructions (and music if I fancy it) from the XT.
XT control of phone calls - incoming and outgoing. I don't get many, but I do like to be able to phone home without taking my helmet off - I always park up to do this.
And the system automatically displays caller name, and gives the option to dismiss on the Zumo screen.

I wasn't bothered about music from phone or being able to use Hey Siri / Hey Google / Hey Alexa type commands. I have tried BT music from spotify and it is pretty poor - the music gets garbled - I suspect as devices try to connect to the Xt / Phone / Cardo. So any BT link between phone and Cardo is turned off in my setup.

The instructions are not very straight forward on how to achieve this - as most headsets want to be at the centre of the communication system. I like the Zumo to be at the centre. It works better fro me.

BUT

You can get most of that with a simple BT headset - except the rider to pillion or rider to rider. £20- £30. You'd have to find one that has ear pieces that do not hurt when you put your helmet on, and find a way to (velcro) the microphone half of the lead into your helmet. But a quick search of t'internet for motorcycle helmet headphones reveals these. £30 Amazon Link
Please understand - I am not recommending these - I know nothing about them, except that they exists and were the first to pop up in my search.

I did buy a cheap BT earbud type headset, and I use it for testing the BT set up from my XT so that I don't have to go to the bike in the garage to test things out. XT has built in speakers. Zumos like the 590 and 595 do not.

These will give you phone call capability in your helmet and call control from the satnav. If you friend has the same set up, and you have enough talk time, just call each other on the phone. Cheap and easy to set up.

I've not yet found a way of getting the phone to pick up the headset mic through the Zumo for saying 'Hey Google'. It works fine during a phone call though.

My Cardo does exactly what I need when paired to my Garmin Nuvo XT - I can play music or talk to friends and also hear the instructions from the Garmin when they occur. And mesh network will pair up to 15 riders over several miles (if your group is really spread out that far!!!).

 

[jfheath]

My follow up letter to the reply in post#23

Hi thanks for the reply.​

​

The mic position is not the problem in this case. My pillion can hear me OK – most of the time if the mic is positioned correctly and I talk loudly enough. But On the bike, at 60mph I cannot tell that the mic is picking up my voice because it isn’t coming through my headphones. This can happen at the start of the ride as the mic can easily get knocked out of position when putting the helmet on.​

​

Having used an Autocom for years, the position and the point at which the vox turns on and off is easy to check out as you get the sound (or not) instantly through your own earphones. And Sena have managed to provide this facility – so it isn’t anything to do with BT transmission delay.​

​

My pillion has been talking with me and not getting a reply – its only when we stop at traffic lights that I can hear her talking, but that it isn’t coming through my earphones that I find out about it – so I am then able to get the mike position adjusted. But really, I would have thought that this feature would be there by default.​

​

Here is what the Sena 50S manual has to say about their product.​

​

14.2.16 Sidetone (Default: Disable) Sidetone is audible feedback of your own voice. It helps you to naturally speak at the correct level according to varying helmet noise conditions. If this feature is enabled, you can hear what you are speaking during an intercom conversation or a phone call.​

​

So it is possible and clearly seen as an important option by them.​

​

Have I missed a setting ??​

​

Regards​

​

Cardo's reply received 19 Dec 2023

Thank you for reaching out.​

No sorry we do not have any feature like the one you're mentioning.​

We will forward your suggestion to our team, which will evaluate this for future features or products.​

We are continually working on innovating and improving our current range of units.​

​

 

[Andrew Shadow]

I find that rather surprising that Cardo doesn't have such a simple feature available on a high-end high price communicator.

 

[Arellcat]

I also find it rather surprising. My BT Jabra headset for Teams meetings at work has the microphone-headphones feedback circuitry built in. Most of the time it's distracting – although I'm used to it now –because my working-from-home environment is quiet, but the headset's ear pads are also fairly sound-attenuating which would otherwise risk some people speaking louder than necessary.

 

[Arellcat]

Another beginner question: what tech do these units employ for bike-to-bike communication? It seems quite common to have a range of a few hundred metres, some even up to a kilometre. Does Bluetooth really have that transmission range? Or are they using something more powerful for it? When we're riding through cities, for example, my friend and I might get separated by traffic light phasing and so on, and it won't always be possible to stop soon after to wait.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

They broadcast on Bluetooth at 2.4 GHZ.
The premium ones advertise as much as 2 Km excluding mesh connections. That is in line-of-sight perfect conditions. You will never get that range but you can easily get over 1 Km most of the time.

City environments introduce a lot of interference. The building's also block the signal so range will be much less in a city. I can't give you a distance because I avoid cities like the pleg when I ride, and when I do ride them we make an effort to stick together to avoid going in circles looking for each other. City range is not something that I have tested.

 

[Arellcat]

Thought I would come back to this thread, now that I've not only bought an intercom, but have been away on holiday with bestie, and am now home again and can report back!

We decided to each buy the Cardo Spirit HD. Admittedly it's a budget option, since neither of us had any prior experience and we didn't want to spend a lot, but we also didn't want to risk a more off-brand model. That said, it's not the very budgetest option either. Fitting the unit to our helmets was fiddly: it took me three hours the first time, and my friend not much less, and that was after she had had to buy a new helmet that had dimples for the earphones. I was lucky: I hadn't bought my new helmet, last year, with any notion of fitting comms. I'm using an HJC i90; my friend ended up buying the same. The i90 has various channels for earphone wires and the boom mike, but is really designed for the HJC/Sena unit. I haven't stuck my earphones into the dimples with the supplied Velcro pads because they are already quite thick (or the dimples a bit shallow) and Velcro would make them thicker and I don't like too much pressure on my ears. I think off-brand earphones are often a bit thinner. We both put the boom mike quite far out and bent it upwards to reach the mouth, as we found it didn't pick up properly if it was only protruding an inch or so from the cheek pads.

I used the sticky pad to attach the Spirit's cradle to the shell, to get it as far forward as possible and not interfere with the sun visor slider, but my friend used the sprung clip and that seems equally solid.

I hadn't memorised all the button combinations before leaving for my holiday, and I still haven't! The Spirit has four chunky buttons that I found were easy to navigate with summer gloves on, and just about navigable with my winter gloves on. The combination to switch off the radio for example means pressing two buttons at once and that's quite tricky. The radio could be better. Reception uses the long wire to the right-hand earphone and some stations just don't get picked up well, leaving me with a helmetful of static. I might try rerouting the wire to see if that helps. I've also not managed to get the Spirit to play the mp3s on my phone and I can't work out why, because there are plenty (albeit on the SD card).

On the move, we used the intercom function all the time. I mean, wow!, it was an absolute gamechanger. We could switch on at the start of the day with our customary "Cardo bop" then just leave it running, and we could talk whenever! The sound quality is really good. Sometimes there was a bit of a delay or a cut in transmission meant we had to repeat ourselves, but that wasn't a common problem. We also very rarely managed to get out of range of each other, even when separated by several vehicles on the motorways or in towns; the Spirit HD is not mega powerful in that respect but it held its own. Our longest day was 240 miles and the Spirit reported 'battery level 50%' at the end, so no complaints there either.

I had my both my phone and my not-a-phone GPS paired with the Spirit. There was a weird problem for the first day because the voice directions always came through at maximum volume, which was really very loud and horribly distracting after a few hours. It turned out to be a non-obvious Bluetooth setting within Magic Earth, rather than a Cardo problem. But fixing that created a minor issue that my Spirit didn't fade out the intercom when voice directions came in. My friend put Magic Earth onto her phone, so she had just one device to deal with.

I found that I needed less heavy duty hearing protection with the comms installed, and I think this is because the earphones and helmet padding attenuate quite a bit, so I rode pretty happily* for several days with my Doc's Pro Plugs in and not my Clear Ears foam plugs that I started with, and definitely not my Ultimate Ear moulded plugs that I only used for a few dozen miles on the first day.

Notwithstanding that the sum total of my experience of intercoms is one, I have to say I have been really impressed with it.

* 55-60mph or so

 

[GhenghisKen]

Thanks for the follow up report. It really helps to hear from folks who are just getting going on this like I am.