Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Apologies if this has been done before, search found nothing.

Has anyone got and use bike to bike comms? What to look for or any pitfalls?

I don’t have the Sena comes but use Cardo Packtalk for both rider to pillion and rider to rider, the later not too often. Battery life is around 9 hours so plenty of time for a days riding.
I used to use the wired Starcom intercoms with Kenwood walkie talkies. Sound quality with the Packtalk is comparable, setup is more difficult but also adds a lot more features. Not having to use the walkie talkies is a blessing.

I have SENA and if using with other similar sena headsets it is great. The more recent models even can be set up easily on the app and users added or removed so easily. Great job.

However I have struggled when trying to use it with other headsets. In that I have never managed to get it to work.

So I’d say it depends who you are looking to pair with. If other sena kit it is great. If not I’d be wary.

TomBoyNI wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:47 pm I have SENA and if using with other similar sena headsets it is great. The more recent models even can be set up easily on the app and users added or removed so easily. Great job.

However I have struggled when trying to use it with other headsets. In that I have never managed to get it to work.

So I’d say it depends who you are looking to pair with. If other sena kit it is great. If not I’d be wary.

My mum, dad and I use Sena 20S and never have an issue with them connecting or anything like that, if anything the mic can be overly sensitive and pick up bike noises if not tucked away well enough.
We have connected with other brand headsets but it usually isn't the smoothest procedure. The app is useful and does help out.

Yep, sena works really well, its what Garmin uses to test their units, had Scala but not as clear and good in my eyes, or ears.

Toe wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:48 pm

TomBoyNI wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:47 pm I have SENA and if using with other similar sena headsets it is great. The more recent models even can be set up easily on the app and users added or removed so easily. Great job.

However I have struggled when trying to use it with other headsets. In that I have never managed to get it to work.

So I’d say it depends who you are looking to pair with. If other sena kit it is great. If not I’d be wary.

My mum, dad and I use Sena 20S and never have an issue with them connecting or anything like that, if anything the mic can be overly sensitive and pick up bike noises if not tucked away well enough.
We have connected with other brand headsets but it usually isn't the smoothest procedure. The app is useful and does help out.

It’s the other brands that I have never been successful with.

Thanks for the feedback. It’ll probably be the latest ones, they come in a twin pack, one of us will have to buy the solo one

What about range? I’m guessing line of sight.

It’s much more than line of sight. I have a sena 20S and it claims 2km if I remember rightly.

I don’t know if it is that far but it works well and even if you do drop signal every now and then it ‘mostly’ reconnects itself.

If you do go for Sena, and I have the SMH10B and some of my friends the SMH5 versions, then watch out for one 'feature'.

If you have the bluetooth connected to your SatNav, for turn by turn guidance, and then connect to other riders bluetooth units, when the SatNav gives you an instruction it will disconnect the connection to the other rider and you end up patting the side of the unit to try to reconnect. Then, at the next turning, it will disconnect you again and you go through the same rigmarole. The same thing happens if you have the speed camera alerts switched on, that will disconnect the bluetooth connection to other riders as well.

It was so bad that I stopped connecting to my SatNav. I spoke to Sena at the NEC last November and their only solution was to buy one of the latest units.

I have a Sena 20s.

This unit has 2x Bluetooth chips, so it connects to 2 different connections at the same time, eliminating this problem.


Hope that helps