Recommend me an intercom

Lowflyer

Lowflyer

Well-Known Member
Well, myself and the strange one are off to Italia later on. I require a Bluetooth intercom rider to pillion in order that she will be able to chat to me en route.
I'm not fussed, but she apparently can't keep quiet for long periods of time :mad:

Vader was babbling on about an intercom which is hands free, ie something about blowing into the mike before speaking, but I can't understand him, and he, apparently can't understand me :eek: , so I may have picked him up wrong.
Anyways, we need to chat to each other, must be able to link into my garmin for music and stuff.

Looked at various types but would appreciate your experiences good and bad.

Oh, happy Father's Day everyone, went for a blast this morning, now watching the F1 which isn't great. Never mind, having a wee dram so life ain't bad at all :thumbsupanim:
 
boboneleg

boboneleg

Well-Known Member
Forum Supporter
I know nothing about intercoms and just sing silly songs in my head when I'm riding like 'Donald where's yer troosers' :D

Anyway I have also been watching the F1 after finishing the engine service on my KTM this morning, the F1 was so exciting I fell asleep :eekicon:

Had a large bar of chocolate and a t-shirt for fathers day and I'm sure there will be some red wine with dinner later :thumbsupanim:
 
outrunner

outrunner

Well-Known Member
John, have look at the SENA intercom, I have the SMH5 but as I am Billy no mates I only use it for music and satnag but it has done well since I got it a few years ago.


Andy.
 
Rubberchicken

Rubberchicken

Well-Known Member
Smh5 here as well. Intercom works fine. Phone and music work fine when linked with iPhone. Link to Garmin was no end of trouble, which I gather is mostly Garmins fault. Also note that the 5 can only be linked to one media device so it's either satnav or music from the phone. But I don't use spoken instructions anyway so fine by me.
 
austin

austin

Well-Known Member
I have tried 4 intercoms. I have not found the perfect one yet.

Autocomm. Works well but fussy to install and you have to plug in. Dated stuff now compared to latest Bluetooth stuff and expensive too. But good loud clear comms that works. You make need special cables to suppress interference from electronics on the bike.

Cardo Scala G4. Much too fussy and in my experience unreliable. I got through three sets under warranty. Fussy to use - too many buttons and the mike was not setup for female voices (or so it seemed), as my wife's voice either wouldn't trigger the mike or I had to set it to a more sensitive setting in which case I picked up wind noise from her helmet.

Interphone F4. I bought a secondhand system so it may have had a hard life. I couldn't get the settings right and we always had wind noise coming through the speakers. When the volume was turned up sound quality suffered such that at about 70 or so you couldn't really talk to each other. Uses proprietary cables so expensive to buy spares.

Sena SMH5. Probably the best so far: easy to use, loud and clear. No interference and no picking up external or helmet noises. Downside is that the batteries are prone to early life failure and can't be replaced. On our set my battery is failing inso much as it won't hold a charge for more than 2-3 days but does last all day if it's fully charged immediately before use. (I think down to it having been immersed in a puddle on a particularly wet night in Canada). Apart from that the Sena is the best one we have tried.

Some techie terms to get your head round:

Vox. Clever technology that opens the comms channel when you speak. Best to say something like "P" or "B" loudly. Drawback is that the channel can take 2-3 seconds to open so you often hear the second half of a sentence or the warning yell of "look out" is completely missed. This is probably what Vader was on about. I think this is also the tech that cancels out background noise (which is why you need to say P or B). But it's a compromise as if you set it at its least sensitive then the words you speak can become clipped and it's hard to trigger the mike, or if at most sensitive it picks up loads of wind noise or swishes of vehicles on the other side of the road.

AGC. auto gain control. Automatically increases volume in the speakers as helmet noise goes up. Settings can be manually adjusted.

There's some other stuff but I can't remember. Ask if you want more. I have spent ages looking into all this stuff.
 
Ian Porter

Ian Porter

Administrator
Staff member
Forum Supporter
Sena SMH10 here

Brilliant but of kit, me and Ruth have used them for a few years now. Andy and Rob also use them now and it's made our rides much more fun [emoji106]
 
Hamster

Hamster

Active Member
What Ian said really, sena smh10 very good but for rider to pillion smh5 would work very well.
Think Vader is talking about the sena, you can set it so when you receive a phone call etc, you can say a certain word of your choice or blow on the mic to activate it.
Hope this help,s.
 
Ian Porter

Ian Porter

Administrator
Staff member
Forum Supporter
Just picking up on Austin's comment on batteries

The smh10 battery is allegedly non-replaceable BUT you can buy the battery off eBay and solder it in easily enough

I'd guess the smh5 is similar if you can find the correct battery

Sena also give a 2 year warranty and I had mine replaced by Amazon with no fuss when the battery started to give up 18 months in
 
Steve T

Steve T

Well-Known Member
John,

I know nothing about what the other posters speak - tis all foreign to me this electronic talking stuff :confused:

However, I do know a man who might have an autocom system for sale.

By the way, I beeped the cars horn as I passed your place this morning and you never even came to the window to tell me to "feckorf" :eekicon:

Mind you, I was beeping from the A96 :thumbsupanim:

Steve T

:cool:
 
-XP-

-XP-

Well-Known Member
austin said:
I have tried 4 intercoms. I have not found the perfect one yet.

Autocomm. Works well but fussy to install and you have to plug in. Dated stuff now compared to latest Bluetooth stuff and expensive too. But good loud clear comms that works. You make need special cables to suppress interference from electronics on the bike.

Cardo Scala G4. Much too fussy and in my experience unreliable. I got through three sets under warranty. Fussy to use - too many buttons and the mike was not setup for female voices (or so it seemed), as my wife's voice either wouldn't trigger the mike or I had to set it to a more sensitive setting in which case I picked up wind noise from her helmet.

Interphone F4. I bought a secondhand system so it may have had a hard life. I couldn't get the settings right and we always had wind noise coming through the speakers. When the volume was turned up sound quality suffered such that at about 70 or so you couldn't really talk to each other. Uses proprietary cables so expensive to buy spares.

Sena SMH5. Probably the best so far: easy to use, loud and clear. No interference and no picking up external or helmet noises. Downside is that the batteries are prone to early life failure and can't be replaced. On our set my battery is failing inso much as it won't hold a charge for more than 2-3 days but does last all day if it's fully charged immediately before use. (I think down to it having been immersed in a puddle on a particularly wet night in Canada). Apart from that the Sena is the best one we have tried.

Some techie terms to get your head round:

Vox. Clever technology that opens the comms channel when you speak. Best to say something like "P" or "B" loudly. Drawback is that the channel can take 2-3 seconds to open so you often hear the second half of a sentence or the warning yell of "look out" is completely missed. This is probably what Vader was on about. I think this is also the tech that cancels out background noise (which is why you need to say P or B). But it's a compromise as if you set it at its least sensitive then the words you speak can become clipped and it's hard to trigger the mike, or if at most sensitive it picks up loads of wind noise or swishes of vehicles on the other side of the road.

AGC. auto gain control. Automatically increases volume in the speakers as helmet noise goes up. Settings can be manually adjusted.

There's some other stuff but I can't remember. Ask if you want more. I have spent ages looking into all this stuff.
Click to expand...

Derek and myself have found the `almost` perfect one but unfortunately it's a helmet/comms kit so unless you're upgrading your helmet then it's no good.

Review here: Nolan N104 + Comms Kit
 
P

Philwhiskeydrinker

Well-Known Member
My one dabble into comms was a wired Autocom unit, cue lots of ''can you hear me, can you hear me now'' type comments ala Max & Paddy in Pheonix Nights, subsequently followed by of arguments like ''why don't you answer me...'' because the vox hadn't activated or was permanently activated by the other helmets wind noise.

Good luck, less is more IMHO & hopefully things have improved with the bluetooth units.

Failing that, get her a budget flight & meet her there ;)
 
-XP-

-XP-

Well-Known Member
The Nolan kit is much better than that, Phil.

We didn't have any problems holding a conversation for long periods going to the last national. In fact, they're a revelation! :thumbsup:
 
een705

een705

Member
I use this Sena SMH10R Bluetooth so far no problems but the distance it reaches is not as good as I thought
 
Mickey Bliss

Mickey Bliss

Member
I am using the u clear one which had worked great over the last three weeks in France and Spain. This is the one with no mike, it's built into the speakers. Took a bit of setting up but once sorted works well.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk
 
Lowflyer

Lowflyer

Well-Known Member
Many thanks guys,

Appreciate you taking the time.
Think I might go for the Sena 5.

I'm banking on the strange one actually enjoying this trip, so I'm hoping we may do a similar later on, who knows ? so going to invest in a proper bit of kit ;)
Think she's quite enjoying that I haven't actually booked anywhere except for Italy, just going to wing it with booking .com, see how far we get in a day, exciting stuff eh ?? :eek: :D

Now let me see, get off the ferry, think I turn left ?





or is it right ? :p



Any tips on how I get to Tuscany would be greatly appreciated :thumbsup:
 
austin

austin

Well-Known Member
Lowflyer said:
Now let me see, get off the ferry, think I turn left ?





or is it right ? :p



Any tips on how I get to Tuscany would be greatly appreciated :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
.

Turn out your road do a left at each of the first two roundabouts then South until you until you reach the sea. Find a ferry or tunnel and cross the sea. Then south until you reach the sea again. Turn left and keep the sea on your right until the already poor standard of driving reaches the truly insane. Now in Italy. Ask someone where Tuscany is, or just follow any GB plated car (especially if it's an Audi or a BMW) as it will certainly be going to Tuscany. Have a great trip.

Ps for the headsets take a couple of small usb rechargeable usb batteries. Charge them up off the bike if you can then you can keep the headsets going if the devices battery goes flat.
 
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