BT Interphone Intercom

Don

Joined
Nov 18, 2009
Messages
56
Location
Biloxi MS
Bike
'97 ST1100
I bought a set of these a couple months ago primarily to use as a rider to pillion intercom, after trying a set of the Cardo Q2 MultiSet intercoms some friends of ours use on their helmets. I paid $130 on eBay, which included shipping

These are very similar to the Q2's except that they don't have the FM receiver - Just rider to pillion and rider to rider bluetooth communications and a bluetooth link for your cel phone and your bluetooth equipped GPS. While I'm not 100% sure, it appears these would work for rider to rider communications with the Cardo units if you have friends who use those

We don't have a bluetooth enabled GPS (Nuvi 550) and so far we haven't coupled them to our cel phones (mine doesn't 'do' buetooth anyway) but the procedure is the same as for the Q2's so I have no doubt that feature would work fine

As with the Q2's, the placement of the speakers within the ear cavity is critical to noise free operation so you'll have to play with that for best results. These have LOTS of audio power, but if the speakers are not near enough to your ears, turning up the audio level isn't the answer as that makes them garbled - Once the speakers are properly positioned so you can turn down the audio level, they are clear as a bell. The noise cancelling microphones do a good job on our Symax helmets up to about 60 or 65 mph and above that, my wife's gets a little noisy

Battery life appears good though we've only used them for a 4 or 5 hour trip so far. At the end of the trip I left both units on for a few days to try and run the batteries down but I gave up after 3 or 4 days (they were still working) and recharged them. They come with 2 small 120 volt wall chargers which utilize USB cords, so if you carry a notebook computer with you, you can just plug both units into your computer to charge them instead of plugging them into the wall

Overall, I would buy them again . . . . in fact, I bought a second set for $100 just so we can take one of them along in the tank bag to have as a spare

These may or may not be the equal of the Q2's, but at half the price they may be just the ticket for someone who didn't want to invest $220 for the Cardo units

There are a couple of US vendors selling these on eBay plus a couple of overseas ones. I bought one set from the New York vendor and another set from the one in Florida. Very happy so far

Don
 
I bought the Blue Ant Blue Tooth Interphone system as a way out of having to wire in headsets like a Goldwing or something similar. So far I've been very happy with it over the last two+ years. My GF and I used it on all of our rides including Laguna Seca and the battery held up in "Intercom" mode for about 6- 6-1/2 hours. In Interphone mode it will last for around 10 hours of talk time but days worth of standby. I did the same thing as the original poster, turned them on and left them to wear out the battery the first few times to make sure the battery's got setup right to start out with. We both wore full face helmets and there was no noise buffeting until you get above 85mph.
I've used it driving back and forth to LA for work and it picks up on voice command from my Blackberry so overall I am very happy with the units and the price was a lot better than Chatterboxes or the Scala. Just my $.02.
 
Time for me to toss my thoughts up here :)

After shopping different intercom systems and then pricing out what I would need to start using the Autocom box that came with my ST, I happened across this thread. After finding a couple of favorable reviews online, and reading this here - http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-intercoms/ake-bt-multi-interphone-intercom/ , I decided to order a set and try my luck.

I ordered my set from http://www.gooddeals18.com/product/...cle-Bluetooth-Multi-Interphone-headsets.html for around $125, and they arrived about 4 days later. The headsets were well packed in their box with foam surrounds, and while there were a few grammar blunders in the instruction booklet, it was easy to follow and understand. I elected to run all my wires under my helmet liner (between the fabric and the foam), so after taking a deep breath I cut two small slits into the fabric of my Shoei and snaked the speakers through.

The speakers are small and fit nicely into the area Shoei intended for customers to mount speakers. Attachment is semi-permanent through the use of round self-stick velcro, and the soft fuzzy side is what's left in the helmet should you ever remove the system - a nice touch, instead of having the hard scratchy hook portion of the velcro rubbing against your ears. Proper placement is indeed important, so take some time to get it right, you'll be happier in the long run. The microphone is attached to the left side speaker by a flexible boom, and can not be removed from the speaker. You'll want the mic to wind up positioned close to your mouth, just about touching your lips. Once you have the position right, you'll be able to speak at a normal volume and will be heard just fine.

The mounting bracket works well. There's a thin section that slides into the helmet between the foam liner and the outer hard shell. To this, you attach the mounting plate for the control unit with two screws. There are brass threads embedded into the mounting plate to receive the screws, and once assembled the mounting plate felt very secure on my helmet. A spacer is included to help account for varying helmet designs and thicknesses, and if your helmet won't work with the thin insert, there's another mounting plate that attaches by something similar to 3M double sided foam adhesive.

After a three hour initial charge, I paired the unit to my phone (Samsung Omnia, running Windows Mobile Professional 6.1). My phone saw the headset right away, and I was able to pair up the devices without any issue. After that, I slid the unit onto the mounting plate, plugged in the headset, put on my helmet and dialed my wife at work. The sound quality for the phone call was good, and she had no idea I was on a bluetooth headset until I told her. I tested music too - music was slightly tinny, as the speakers just can't reproduce low bass notes very well, but overall very decent and quite listenable. They get LOUD too, lemme tell you, so make sure you hit the down volume button some before you start playing music or take a call for the first time.

I was able to pair the units to each other after a couple of tries, the instructions weren't quite clear. The booklet said to hit reset on one device, then hold the power button till the red light flashes on both devices... turns out I had to hit reset on both, then hold the power button on both... minor issue, but it did have me scratching my head for a few minutes.

Claimed Feature Set from the packaging:
* Pair "rider to rider" or "rider to pillion".
* Pair up to 3 Interphones at a time, and easily switch to any 2 of them.
* Works with any Bluetooth equipped mobile phone or MP3 player
* 500 meter range for drivers and passengers
* Up to 120km/h speed
* 7 hour talk time
* 100 hour standby time
* Automatically receive cellphone calls
* Fully weather protected
* DSP circuit to reduce wind/background noise

My Observations - and yes, I'm being picky.
Good points:
* Cheap
* Wireless
* Installation was easy
* Pairing to our phones was effortless.
* Good voice comm sound quality at up to 75-80mph
* Slim speakers, easy in-helmet installation, comfortable to wear
* Intercom unit is small and lightweight
* Decent music audio sound quality
* Rubberized weatherproof outer shell
* Will still be useful if/when my wife starts riding her own bike.

Not so good points:
* I don't see any easy way to add a CB radio to this set up. If adding a CB later is important to you, you may want to look elsewhere.
* Music audio quality is good, but the small speakers do not reproduce bass notes very well.
* DSP circuit does not eliminate all wind/background noise.
* Wireless, and therefore more susceptible to interference.
* Unit can only play music OR act as an intercom, can not do both at the same time.
* Volume control buttons are hard to locate and operate when wearing heavy gloves.
* May not work smoothly with all older bluetooth devices
* No idea how well they will work with a 3/4 or open face helmet. I can't imagine they'd work well, I think there would be too much wind hitting the mic.

Once both devices are paired and turned on, activating the intercom is as simple as hitting the intercom button to switch mode from music/phone headset to intercom mode. A beep plays in your headset, and then about 3 - 5 seconds the comm channel is opened and you can hear the other person. Mics are open all the time (not VOX activated) when in intercom mode. Despite the background noise filtering, there's a small bit of wind noise that the other rider's unit will pick up and broadcast to you. It's not terrible, and reminded us both of talking on a small handheld radio or CB, but it is there the entire time you have the intercom mode active. To turn off the intercom and return to music, press the intercom button again and the unit will disconnect from the other headset to play music again. After being unused for a while, the units will go into standby mode - just press the intercom buttom to re-establish the connections again.

After installing the second unit in my wife's helmet, pairing it to her phone (another Omnia with WinMoPro 6.1), and then pairing it to my unit, we gave them a pretty solid shakedown while traveling to Bridgeport and back. They worked well, and it was nice to be able to talk with my wife about our week, where to stop for dinner, things we saw, the route we were taking, whatever.

Once at our hotel, my wife walked inside to our room with her helmet on while I parked the bike. I could still hear and talk to her from the parking lot while rolling around on the ST looking for a parking space, and it only got super static-y and started dropping audio after I drove completely around to the other side of the hotel.

There were a couple of times when the link between each headset dropped while we were on the road, but the headsets re-connected a few moments later. I'm guessing there was some heavy RF interference that interrupted things till we got away from the source. We rode through misty rain, 30* cold, heavy winds and even snow, and the headsets never missed a beat. For $125, I'm happy with the purchase.

Edit to add - If you're near the Austin area and would like to check them out in person, drop me a line and let me know.
 
Jason - good review and it was great meeting you and your wife in Bridgeport. Sorry to have pulled out before you, but my wife was getting anxious re deteriorating weather. Hope you enjoyed your dinner.
 
Good reviews here! I am in the market for one. My cardo teamset just went to crap, the volume suddenly can't be raised higher. I used to be able to have a good conversation on the phone in freeway speed despite the noise. Thanks to all!!!
 
Raven, Thanks for the more detailed info on these. I was quite intrigued with yours and have since searched them out. I found they can be had on DaBay for under a C note (+shipping) and they look like the communication answer this cheapskate has been looking for in the bang for the buck department.

I also enjoyed meeting y'all and the others at "CarSTOC' Saturday. I learned a lot and am more confident I can indeed do a lot of the maintenence and repairs my bike may need in the future.

I got to say, y'all deserved some sort of award for coming the distance y'all did in such dismal conditions. My hats off to y'all!:bow1:
 
I have the Whistler 3300 from Cyclegear . bought it at Thankgiving . Mine has worked great , though I dont use it to talk to rider just cell and music from my Iphone .
For that it works greatr and also simple to set up

JMHO
 
Note that on most of the BT units, the batteries are not replaceable(*)


(*)unless you send the unit in for service.

The two players du jour are the G4 and F4...
G4 gives you FM reception.

Wirelessriders.com has a pair of F4s for $400, shipped from Mo.
 
One word of caution . . . . since I began this thread I feel I should let everyone know

After using these for 2 or 3 months and being pretty much 100% satisfied with them, the first time we rode in any rain to speak of, both of the units crapped out. 'Weatherproof' evidently means different things to different people because even though we had them mounted with the antennas facing forward and the speaker jack to the rear, when we got home both units were basically full of water and they will never work again . . . . the water ran out of the speaker jack

The place I bought them from (eBay) doesn't honor any sort of warranty . . . . at least not after 90 days

We have a second set of these and we'll remove them from the helmets in the future before we ride in the rain again - 'Weatherproof' they are not

Don
 
Hi guys,
I wanted to inform you that we have batteries for all types of intercom. Cardo, Midland, Cellularline.
 
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