Motorcycle headsets - love em or hate em?

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Motorcycle headsets have been around for over 20 years.

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Do you rely on having one? Or would you never consider using one?

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Motorcycle headsets are a popular accessory for motorcyclists to use while riding. While much focuses on the intercom features, they might be a good option if you want to listen to music while riding. In this episode, I'll dig into what they are, why you might want to use one and why you might want to skip out on them. I'll also highlight some popular brands that are making them today.

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So what are motorcycle headsets? Well, simply, these are electronics that you can install into your helmet and they come typically with speakers and oftentimes a microphone, and they use Bluetooth to connect to your phone and other devices.

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So why might you want to use one?

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Well, if you're often traveling on your motorcycle, you may be using a GPS, and in order to get the GPS instructions, you may have a visual indicator. Let's say that's either from something like a Garmin Zumo or a Beeline Moto and you can actually visually see it, but you also want to be able to hear the turn by turn directions that'll say, Hey, in 300 feet, make a right or make a left, whatever it is.

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And this is where the GPS instructions can be really helpful to be able to connect in and listen to in your headset.

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Another thing that you might want to use them for is if you're traveling along on your bike and maybe you want to have something that can entertain you, you don't want to just be listening to the sound of the wind or of the engine. Maybe you want to listen to some music.

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Maybe you want to listen to a podcast, and you can do that while riding if you have one of these headsets And of course, this is probably very common for people who are used to driving in a car nowadays. Most cars today have a hands free set up to connect their mobile phone, and you can then do handsfree phone calls.

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Well, with a motorcycle headset, you can actually do the same thing and make and receive phone calls directly on the bike, which makes it very convenient if you're running a little late or someone needs to get in contact with you, you have the availability to use your phone even on the motorcycle.

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And of course, if you're riding with a group, one of the things you might want to think about having a motorcycle headset for is an intercom where you can speak with your riding buddies and you can ask for fuel stops or breaks. You can warn of hazards up ahead, whatever it ends up being. And this is a really powerful kind of capability because if you think of the way that we've done this forever, we might use a series of hand signals you may need to ride up towards the front of the group and point at your tank if you're running low on fuel. Some of those can be sometimes difficult to get up and communicate that effectively.

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And this is where a headset can make that really, really convenient. So one advantage of having a headset is because the speakers are directly against your ears. Most of the road noise and everything is effectively cancelled out. You don't have to have the same sort of volume level or the drowning out that you would have if you were, say, on a full sized dress tourer with the built in speakers. Those speakers while they work, they're really, really awesome when the bike is stopped and parked. Once you get moving it at highway speeds, certainly a lot of the wind noise is basically making it impossible to hear that audio.

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And so having a headset means that you're going to get crystal clear GPS instructions. It means that you're going to get crystal clear music or podcast listening.

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So it is a huge, huge advantage for being able to enjoy the audio in an effectively clean way. Now, one thing I'd love to hear from you is if you use a headset today, what are the main reasons you decide to use it?

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Text us your thoughts through the link in the show notes So why you might want to skip out on getting a motorcycle headset? Well, first off, you may be riding a full dress tourer with built in speakers and say, I don't need a headset.

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I've got the speakers that are coming in and this is true. You can absolutely do that. Another reason you might want to not have one or buy one of these headsets is you don't ride with a full face or a modular helmet, and if you're on a three quarter helmet, there are a few options, but they're far more limited.

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And on a half helmet, it's even more limited because there's not really an opportunity to be able to mount the headphones and the microphone and really be able to get decent quality audio with all the exposure that's coming in from wind with those style of helmets, the volume that you have to have the speakers at and the ability for you to overcome the wind noise with the microphone is very, very challenging. So they're really best suited to a full face or modular helmet. Now, another reason you may want to skip out on getting a motorcycle headset is you like to ride off the grid.

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The whole point of getting on a bike for you is to really just escape from all of the stresses of life and just be out on the open road and not have contact, not have any sort of distractions that are going on.

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And that's a perfectly legitimate reason and may be the right one for you if you want to do that. And this really plays more into the intercom. But sometimes when you're riding, you might have that one riding buddy who just loves to talk your ear off when he's on the bike. And you may not want that going into your headset all the time when you're riding and you don't want to be having a conversation just about whatever is going on. You really want it to be that sort of emergency or, Hey, I'd like to take a break if that's your use case and you've got some riding buddies who want to just carry on a random conversation. This might be something to avoid by not having one. You can very easily opt out and say, Yep, sorry, I can't hear what you're going on. So this might be the best option for you. Now, of course, when you're getting ready to ride, you've got to get your gear ready. You know, you've got to get the bike, pull it out of the garage or wherever you store it.

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You've got to get your riding gear ready. And if you have a headset, it's just another thing that you have to remember to charge before your ride. And that can add a little bit of anxiety or extra work that you have to do. And so if you don't want to have that and you want to skip out on it, maybe a headset isn't the right fit for you. Another reason you may want to skip out on getting a motorcycle headset is that the higher end models can be very, very expensive. For example, just recently Sena announced the 60S and this is a$400 headset. Cardo's high end model is also about $400. So these are very, very expensive if you want to have the absolute premium experience and that may be more than you're willing to spend for the capabilities of a headset. Another reason is that you may want to avoid the distractions of audio while riding. And this can be, again, kind of fitting into that, wanting to be off the grid. If you really just enjoy the sound of the wind passing you by or if the engine on your motorcycle and that's what you want to get out of your riding experience.

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Sometimes having that audio can just be a distraction and may be something you don't want to have.

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So it is absolutely a reason why you might consider not having them. So the question I have for you is have you avoided buying a headset or have you stopped using one? And why did you make that choice? Text us your thoughts thru the link in the show notes.

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Let's talk about some of the popular brands of motorcycle headsets. Now, I've owned headsets from both Cardo and Sena over the years, and these are the two main manufacturers that are out there. There are a few other specialized ones, certainly ones that are for individual helmet manufacturers or some that are attempting to be a little bit of a lower cost option. But if you look at the vast majority of headsets that are out there, they're going to be from one of these two brands.

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And I'll start with Cardo, because they were actually the very first mass market headset for motorcycle makers. And they started around 2003 and they were an OEM for several manufacturer's headsets like those from Schuberth. And today they actually have mesh for the intercoms on their higher end models. And what mesh allows you to do is, unlike a Bluetooth connection, a mesh intercom is going to actually be able to connect across multiple devices and effectively seamlessly allow them to add in and out and extend the range. So if you've got four or five, six, ten different riders that you're riding with, that mesh is going to allow the group to be able to speak from the first rider to the last rider, even if the range between each device is limited to a few hundred feet or maybe a thousand feet, you could actually stretch that out sometimes up as far as five miles. So it really makes a difference if you want to have the best comm capability and also not have the dropouts that you have. If you're riding along and a couple buddies get a little too far ahead of you, your intercom might drop out and you may have to stop the bikes to fiddle with some of the buttons to get them to reconnect in a mesh can much more seamlessly heal itself. So this is a real advantage and the higher end Cardos do have mesh.

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Now, Sena was in the comm business since 2000, but they only got into motorcycle headsets around 2010, and they came in originally as some of the low priced options. And this was a phenomenal thing. You could get like an SMH-5 for about $100 back in the day, and it was a very cost effective way to get in. So these were very appealing and a lot of people got into using Sena over the market leader of Cardo because of that low price. But Sena has continued to extend the range in which they have and many of their higher end models actually have mesh. Like I mentioned, it's the same benefit that we have in Cardo, although the two different systems are not compatible. So you may want to pick the brand that works with what you're riding buddies have if intercom is the is the main reason that you're going to do it, there is capability to on the higher end models of both Sena and Cardo to interconnect cross brand but that's not in full mesh that's in sort of a Bluetooth. It's like a lower end capability for doing it. But if you need to just squeeze in one or two other riders, it may be okay. But really, if you want mesh and you want that intercom, probably look at what you're riding buddies are doing. Now, another thing that's happened with Sena and this has been a bit of a change from where it once was, with Cardo originally being the main OEM for helmet manufacturers that's actually since been replaced. And now Sena is typically the OEM that's used. So for example, if you look at the Shoei models, if you look at the Schuberth models, the C5, for example, these are all now using Sena as the OEM manufacturer for the headset electronics. So they have become the sort of market leader. They actually just recently allowed announced the 60S, which is a very, very high end model. This actually has their next generation of mesh capability into there. So they're they're really spanning the gamut between the very low end and the very high end. So the question I have for you is do you have a favorite brand of motorcycle headset? And if you do text us your thoughts through the link in the show notes.

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Let's wrap up what we've talked about today. We covered what motorcycle headsets are. We talked about why you might want to use a headset. We also talked about why you may want to avoid using a headset. We describe some popular brands that you might want to consider and even talked a little bit about how mesh can actually extend your range if you want to use an intercom. But also the limitation of most mesh systems are not directly compatible with other brands. So you need to think about which brand you're going with. If you wanted to get the mesh capability. Thanks for listening to the Throttle and Roast podcast. If you liked the show, please consider following in your favorite podcast app to get the new episodes as soon as they go live.