Motorcycle intercom: Bluetooth or mesh, and will it fit?

What do you want it for?

Riding alone: you want navigation, music and calls. A simple Bluetooth headset is enough, such as the Cardo Spirit or the Midland BT Mini. You pair it with your phone.

With a passenger: you want to talk to each other. Then you need two units that connect. Many systems come as a duo or dual set with two units in one box, such as the Cardo Freecom 2X Duo and the Midland BT Mini Duo.

In a group: you want to talk to several riders at once. Then mesh is the choice, see below.

Bluetooth or mesh

With a Bluetooth intercom, units connect one to one. For a group you link them in a chain. If one rider drops out, the chain can break.

With mesh, the units form a network together. Riders can drop in and out without the rest losing the connection. Sena calls it Mesh, Cardo calls it DMC (Dynamic Mesh Communication). Interphone gives mesh with up to 24 riders and a range of 1.0 mile in the product name of the U-Com 8R. Sena puts "bluetooth en mesh" in the name of the 50S and the 60S: they do both. The Sena 50R is a smaller unit with mesh.

Mesh as a rule works within one brand. Cardo names one exception itself: a Cardo DMC group and a Sena Mesh 2.0 group can talk together through a Bluetooth bridge between one Cardo unit and one Sena unit (not with the Sena Spyder and other mesh-only Sena units). If you often ride with the same people, check what they use; that matters more than any single feature.

Does it fit your helmet?

A universal intercom clamps onto the edge of the helmet or sticks on with an adhesive mount. Cardo sells that mount separately, such as the adhesive mount for Packtalk and Smartpack. The speakers go into the recesses in the lining by your ears.

Some helmets are prepared for a fixed system that fits into the shell:

• Schuberth makes the SC2 system and the SC2 Edge for its own helmets that are prepared for it.
• Cardo makes units for other makers' helmets, such as the Cardo 4x for the Shoei Neotec 3, GT-Air 3 and J-Cruise 3 and a Cardo 4x for HJC.

Which helmets go with a system is stated by the maker of the helmet and of the intercom. More on helmet types is in the guide to full-face, modular and open-face helmets.

Open-face or full-face

In a full-face helmet the microphone often sits on a short boom or as a stick-on microphone in the chin bar. In an open-face helmet it sits on a boom in front of your mouth. That is why Cardo sells separate audio kits, such as the open-face audio kit for the Packtalk Edge and the open-face audio kit for the Freecom and Spirit. With a second audio kit you move the unit from one helmet to another.

Sound and controls

Cardo names JBL speakers for part of its range, such as the Freecom 4X; Sena names Harman Kardon sound for the 50S and 60S. Separate speaker sets exist too, like the JBL speakers for Freecom and Spirit. How you operate an intercom, with buttons, a wheel or your voice, is in the product data. With gloves on, big buttons or a wheel are easier to find.

Comparing prices

Every system is under intercoms, with the brands Cardo, Sena, Midland and Interphone. A single and a duo set each have their own EAN, and Piegga compares them one by one.