This review will share my experience with the Sena headsets and describe my use of them for: Music, Navigation, Phone calls with an option for VOICE CONTROL!
I'm 32 years old and have been riding for 23 of those years. In the last 10 or so I made the transition onto street bikes, first on sport bikes (VFR, FZ1, etc..) and now onto a Buell XB12X Ulysses, which was built for dual sport touring. When purchasing this bike my dad joined the fun and snagged a new Harley Fatbob.
Needless to say we've been doing ALOT of riding since then. This review is geared towards our trip this weekend from Charlotte, NC up to the twisty backroads in rural Virginia. While we're both ok with riding sans-communication (we were getting the job done with hand signals like anyone else) we were both missing out on the chance to point out interesting stuff or make quick changes to our route. Not to mention neither of us had music to soothe the ride and in my case I was quickly overwhelming my ears with the rather obnoxious exhaust I put on my bike.
So for this trip we hit Amazon to find a solution. In the past I've owned Chatterboxes as well as a few other headsets. Some were meant for passenger/rider (older Chatterboxes were wired together) and eventually I moved to the radio Chatterboxes that allowed me to keep in touch with a small pack of riders. I have NOT tried the most recent Chatterbox models (XB1 I believe?) but my past experience with their units led me to seek alternatives for various reasons like sound quality or complicated bluetooth setups. I never seemed to be enthusiastic about dealing with the CB units, afterall it's a _commitment_ to make sure you get your earbuds set inside the helmet or to make sure your comm unit is fully charged when you're out in the wilderness camping!
Sena seems to have hit the mark on all the pain points I've had in the past. Here's my setup:
* Buell XB12X Ulysses with a ridiculously loud D&D Exhaust
* iPhone 4 handling music and using the awesome Navigon gps app
* BioLogic Bike Mount for iPhone 4 (Possibly the best $60 I've spent on an iPhone accessory. This mount *eliminated* the need for a $700 Garmin GPS on the bike!)
* Shure earbuds
* My dad is using his Android for music and phone, he didn't mount his phone for navigation it just sits safely in his pocket
Here's the way it works on the bikes, once you have paired your set with both your phone and another headset:
- We both get our helmets settled and power on the units. To power on (you can do this in gloves) you press the large jog dial button and the smaller "phone" button together. A very pleasant chime sequence indicates the unit is powered on (it's easy to tell the "power up" and "power down" audibles so you won't be confusing yourself turning it off when you want it on...)
- The device will pair with your phone right away, but you'll hear silence in your headset.
MUSIC
- I usually kick my music off immediately. Here's where it gets fun. If you've already got a playlist queued up then you simply hold the large jog dial in for an extended press (1sec) and the unit will confirm your action and tell your phone to start kicking out the tunes. The sound quality is great over my Shure earbuds (btw in order to use your OWN earbuds rather than velcroing the speakers into your helmet that come with the kit you will need to order a $35 accessory clamp that provides a standard 3.5mm output plug. If you need ear protection AND awesome sound quality I HIGHLY recommend picking up that accessory!) You should also check out Avery Sound for some custom molded ear plug type deals that you insert your headphones into. These will make it alot more comfortable inside your helmet and prevent the buds from slipping out or adjusting. Not to mention completely closing off your ear cannel for protection from loud pipes. It's worth noting that Dad took the speaker route and just mounted them inside his helmet- his bike is ALOT quieter and he's more comfortable not messing with inserting his buds everytime he throws his helmet on.
- So you're rocking along to your tunes. Volume is a matter of turning the big jog dial. When you want to skip tracks you press the jog dial button in and turn it in the direction you want to skip to. I did this all weekend while carving around twisties in the mountains so while you should always have your hands on the bars I don't see skipping tracks or using the headset as too much of a distraction really.
- Tired of the playlist you've selected? Time to try out VOICE CONTROL. Assuming you've mounted your microphone in a good spot within your helmet (i.e. it's not being pounded with incoming air, I had to move mine away from the vent that is built into the face of my helmet, once that was done voice control worked great!) So now you're going to press and hold the big black rubber button on the front of the BioLogic Bike Mount, sending your iPhone into Voice Control mode. Once the phone goes into VC mode the music will fade out and you will hear a "DING" in your headset.
- Like the song you're listening to? Say "Genius" into the mike and your phone will create a new playlist based on the current song.
- Have more playlists on your phone? Say "Play playlist XXXX" and your phone switches over there.
- Want to call Mom and let her know how much fun you're having? Say "Call Mom" and VC will confirm with "Calling Mom ..." and bam there's Mom in your headset! I've had a few conversations (I'm not much of a phone guy) and while people can certainly hear my bike in the background it's still more than enough to get the job done and I don't recall alot of the back and forth "huh? What'd you say??"
- So you're done rocking the tunes, just hold the big jog dial in for a long press and the headset will confirm the music is stopped.
NAVIGATION
At the start of preparing for this trip to the wilds of Virginia I purchased a Garmin Nuvo 665. When it showed up (overnight, thanks Amazon!) I was impressed by the build quality and the interface (this unit is specifically built for motorcycles) not to mention the high quality Ram Mount. Should have been _everything_ you need to get rocking with: Navigation, Music and Phone, all controlled through the Garmin and sending audio to your headset over a basic A2DP connection (i.e. all controls are on the Garmin unit itself, you don't skip tracks and switch modes on the Sena headset.) This setup would be acceptable if it weren't for a couple of issues:
1- The Sena only connects music or A2DP to _one_ device. That means you either pair it to the Garmin for *everything* or you can get your music and navigation from the Garmin and _phone only_ from your iPhone.
2- All my music (and I have ALOT) is managed via iTunes and I put what I want to listen to on my phone- regardless of whether I'm hopping in the car for a road trip or walking down the street with my dogs. It's on my phone and dangit I don't want to manage it somewhere else. So I was left with the prospect of having to load music onto this Garmin (losing my beloved on-the-fly Genius playlist creation capabilities, or even playlists altogether as far as I could tell. Garmin expects you to pick an album or an artist and stick with it. NOT the way I roll when it comes to rocking out.)
3- The screen can be difficult to see in the direct sunlight. This wouldn't matter if it were only handling navigation (the voice prompts on the Garmin are great) but when you're looking to control your music this can be a big pain in the butt. You might ask if my final setup has the same issue? Sort of- but it's ALOT less of a problem because I can skip tracks from my headset without seeing the screen and I've got voice control to change playlists!
So considering the above I very carefully packed the Garmin up (I didn't install it or ride with it, once I suspected it was going back I treated it with kid gloves as I would never send something "used" back to Amazon for a return) and shipped it back to Amazon who very quickly credited the return (THANK YOU AMAZON!)
Now I'm looking at doing Nav on my phone. I'm well aware of the issues with relying on an iPhone for "true" navigation. As soon as you leave the comfort of 100% blanket cell tower coverage the iPhone can be a little snarky when it comes to getting a solid GPS signal. I rode all weekend with Nav using the built-in GPS receiver and while there were a few bumps it was acceptable overall and if you're not WAAAAY out in the sticks (seriously, it was 25-30mi to get to a cell signal) then you're going to be just fine with the phone itself. So I read reviews on the various apps available for the iPhone and settled on Navigon which set me back all of $60 (I know, it's the most expensive app I've ever bought too but when you compare it with $650 or more for the Garmin it's not so bad!)
Navigon has a great interface and plenty of routing options. It's "motorcycle aware" and can adjust routing based on profiles so you can use it in the car to send you down the interstates or switch profiles and have it sending you down the fun roads in the country. The voice prompts are great (mine defaulted to a womans voice, she sounds kind of hot :-) and it just "makes sense". So imagine this:
- Riding down the road with the iphone in the BikeLogic Mount on my handlebars (I mounted mine near the left controls) with the phone plugged into the awesome 12v power outlet that Buell threw into the "dashboard" of the Ulysses. **NOTE** Your phone will suck batter down like you've never seen once you: pair it to your headset, start your music AND run the nav app with it searching the countryside for cell phone towers. You had better plan on wiring up power whether that is a line running from your fuse block or a "car charger" plugged into a 12v socket on your bike.
- I'm easily able to plug a destination into the nav unit. This is best done at a stop but if you've got fingerless gloves or gloves that have conductive tips in the fingers (you can make this yourself with conductive thread) then you'll need to take your gloves off to interact with the iPhone screen _through_ the BikeLogic Mount.
- The Nav starts off with the voice prompts. If I'm already listening to music the Nav voice will turn down the music level a bit and come over the songs in the background VERY clearly.
- As I'm following the prompts down the road (and checking out my progress on the screen) I'm able to switch tracks using the headset, start stop music, etc.. All with perfect clarity through the headset.
**FUTURE**
I mentioned above that the GPS receiver on the iPhone can be a little tenuous when you're in the deep country. So I've ordered the GNS 5870 bluetooth GPS receiver which I plan to mount to my bike. That receiver is MUCH stronger than the "A-GPS" version in the phone and should provide me a solid connection, and also allowing me to put my phone into "Airplane Mode" turning off all radios on the phone with the exception of Bluetooth. This will greatly enhance the iPhone battery life and let me focus on riding rather than txt messages or calls coming in. You generally can't use Airplane mode when using your phone for GPS as the iPhone relies on cell tower locations for a portion of it's positioning capability- that means the phone is constantly searching out new towers, so not only does the battery get sucked dry but the phone heats up far beyond what I'm comfortable with! The GNS unit will be hardwired to my bike, most likely beneath the flyscreen on the front and will be "always on" so I won't need to mess with it. I should receive the unit today so I'll update this review with my findings.
COMMUNICATION:
The simplest way to look at the Sena headset is that it has 2 channels. The first channel is "local" and is where your music, phone calls, navigation, etc.. comes through. The second channel is your link to the other Sena headsets that you're paired with. Now Dad and I were paired together and noone else had a Sena headset so we didn't get a chance to try out the "group" features built in. From what I can tell you are able to add up to 3 other sets to your own and end up with many channels- some where you are all on at once and others where you are speaking directly to a person. I look forward to trying this out at some point but for this review we're talking about one-to-one communication.
When dad or myself wants to say something we make a quick press of the big jog button. The headset will ding and then go out and try to pair with the other headset. This is a nice feature to preserve battery- the headset is not maintaining connection with others- it makes the connection on demand. So that takes a moment- if you're looking for instant communication then bluetooth is not the right technology for you OR you can simply leave the channel open between each of you via BT or even a cell call. When someone wants to speak to you your unit will automatically switch over to that channel (turning off your music) UNLESS (and I didn't verify this) you are on a phone call in which case I assume the comm connection is just blocked until you finish your call. It's worth noting that if you have cell phone service and are out of range of each other for BT (Sena says 1/2mi range, I think we probably exceeded that a few times but your mileage may vary) that you can always go into voice control mode and say "Call Dad" and he'll get connected to you via cell phone instead of bluetooth! (This works great on the interstate, and preserves the battery of the headset for super long rides, putting the onus on the iPhone battery which is being charged anyways.)
Once the connection is made Dad and I can talk and the quality is great. We'll leave the channel open and chit chat for a while and when we're done you just press the jog button and your headset will kick off your music again so you can rock on down the road.
CONCLUSION:
The Sena headsets were amazing this weekend. It's the missing link for not just my own solo rides but for rides with my family. At $300 for a pair it's a bargain in my opinion, and if you don't have disposable cash then this is one of those things that is "worth saving up for." I'm looking forward to riding 2-up very soon and enjoying being able to talk to each other while also having the privacy of my own music when there's nothing to be shared. Afterall the passenger can use their phone FULLY, reading email, texting, whatever behind me while I rock out so I'm hoping this will be another "cherry" that leads to a passenger being comfortable for longer more demanding rides across the countryside.
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This Item  Sena SMH10D Bluetooth Helmet Communication System (Pack of 2) |  |  |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | $23.99 | $59.99 | $72.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jun 9 | Get it as soon as Sunday, Jun 9 | — |
| Customer Ratings | ||||
| Battery life | ||||
| Sound quality | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Noise cancellation | ||||
| Sold By | — | Fire Bull | lexinmoto | Fmotorcycle |
| connectivity tech | Wireless | Wireless | Wireless | Wireless |
| headphones form factor | Two-Ear | On Ear | Over Ear | — |
| connector type | — | wireless | 2.5mm Jack | wireless |
| noise control | — | active noise cancellation | active noise cancellation | — |
| headphones jack | — | 2.5 mm Jack | Type-C | — |
| cable feature | Without Cable | Without Cable | Detachable | Without Cable |
| control type | Media Control | Call Control | Button Control | Media Control |
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