Cardo Scala Or Other ???

MESH is supposed to be the way forward and certainly in the Sena range, is backwards compatible with the more normal Bluetooth 4.1. It’s a lot of money and not a lot of benefit if the people you ride with are still using Bluetooth. I’ve been very happy with the integrated Sena in my Shoei and the 20S Evo I bought Carole and have resisted the MESH adaptor offered by Sena because it doesn’t have the specification of the dedicated MESH products. Don’t know if Sena MESH and Cardo MESH are compatible. If it’s the same technology, I don’t see why not. Andy

 

I bought a Cardo packtalk slim, recently as a few mates have the bold versions, yet to use it in anger though so difficult to offer an opinion. Bought SWMBO a Freecom 1+ as she only needs to talk to me when she’s pillion, seems to work ok, thought the sound was a little tinny though, but radio and music sound ok so might need to play around with the mics etc.

I got mine on Amazon for £220, the prices jump around a lot, think it’s back up to around the £270 mark now?

 

The better units, the packtalk slim and bold, have voice recognition which Is handy “hey Cardo, play next track, turn radio on, call last number” etc which is handy and saves you fiddling around with the buttons, (Freecom 4 might have this feature too?) Also the JBL ones are worth it for the better speakers, you can buy them for any of the units as an extra but they are £80 so you might as well buy the units that come with them as standard (beware some on amazon sell the older units that don’t have the jbl speakers a bit cheaper so look out for that)

I think it’s best if you go on their website and compare the units to see what features you want and then see if it’s cheaper to buy a duo pack and get your mrs the same one or just buy the basic one for here and a better one for you with more functions you want?

 

Spent a long time investigating new comms. We were all on blue tooth units. We went Cardo Bold for the mesh technology, bloody brilliant..! Sena users converted too.
Voice commands, speaker clarity and range & easy app based connectivity

 

Packtalk

 

If you want the convenience of the “natural voice” which lets you speak commands and the JBL speakers then you’ll need the Freecom 4+ JBL as a minimum. If you don’t like the idea of the Big’ish’ unit being stuck on the side of your helmet then go for the packtalk slim.

as for the mrs, if hers is just to talk to you and your not bothered about her speaker quality (my mrs thinks their fine) then just get the Freecom 1+ for her. She can still pair her phone to it as well as paired to you, you can share your music with hers or she can play here own from her phone.
The Freecom 1 only comes with the boom mic option, but that fitted fine in my mrs shark full face helmet.

Oh and if you have multiple crash helmets you like to switch around then the packtalk slim won’t be for you because the unit doesn’t attach to a base plate like the others. A mate of mine has the packtalk bold as he has a couple lids he uses so he bought an extra base, mic and speaker kit which you can get so he can easily swap the unit between lids.

This might help?

 

If you do go for the natural voice option though make your you update the firmware when you get it and change the language to English uk in the phone app otherwise you have to say “Heeeyyyy Caarrrdoo” in a really accentuated American accent to get it to recognise you (not sure what it’s like if you have a strong regional uk accent though?)

Either that or buy a couple cheap Chinese units off eBay for £50

 

I had several problems with Cardo units in the past, response was rubbish, wouldnt buy another, Sena much better in my humble opinion.