I got my Sena SMH5 BT intercom (dual set) in the mail a few weeks ago and I'm loving it! And now that I've had a chance to try out all of it's functions I'd like to share my initial thoughts on it.
Keep in mind, this is the first helmet intercom I've ever used and this evaluation is based on pretty short term use, especially the intercom feature. That said, I'll try to be as succinct as I can without reiterating too much info that can already be found online.
Note: I've only paired it with an iPhone 4 and a second SMH5 unit and using it on a Bell RS1 helmet.
First Impressions:
The unit is smaller and lighter than I expected. This was a pleasant surprise! I knew the SMH5 was supposed to be the baby SMH10 but I still thought it would be bulkier than it actually is.
While it may not be as lo-pro as some of the other units out there, it's not quite the tumorous wart I feared it would be. It was well packaged and came with more than everything I needed to attach it to my helmet. One particular accessory I found helpful was the padded velcro spacers. It allowed me to place the speakers closer to my ears which improved the perceptual sound quality immensely.
Controls:
The jog dial is awesomely simple and easy to operate with gloves on. A quick skim through the setup guide and you're in business. I feel like Cyclops whenever I rotate the dial.
Music:
The sound quality is acceptable. It seriously lacks bass but that was expected. The volume is plenty loud and will hurt your ears at full blast. On the highway, the music can still be heard but much of the detail gets lost in the wind. Wearing ear plugs and raising the volume seemed to work pretty well. It dampened the wind noise and I could hear the music clearly. Your mileage may vary on your own lid.
Tip for iPhone users: go into Settings> iPod> EQ and choose "Small Speakers". This seems to help balance the sound and takes the edge off the higher frequency range.
Hands-free Phone:
I love this feature. Yes... I use the phone while on my bike. If you can't handle a brief conversation while riding then there's really no reason to buy an intercom except for the music feature </end rant>. I never really used the voice dial feature on my phone but it works surprisingly well with the SMH5 and is very convenient.
For the most part, voice quality sounds excellent at both ends of the line. I can hear them and they can hear me. I feel like Iron Man.
Rider-to-Rider Intercom:
Voice quality was similar to the phone. We could hear each other clearly. When testing the range, we only got about 150m apart (line of sight) before the connection started to degrade (sounds like our voices are digitally garbled). That's a far cry from the ~400m claimed range, however, we were in town with other traffic on the road and I believe the batteries were fairly low on both units. I'd like to give this a more rigorous test in the near future but for now it doesn't bother me too much as we're generally riding in pretty close proximity to each other. It's really nice being able to communicate without looking over at my buddy and making all sorts of wild gestures.
Battery Life: It lasts at least a couple of hours between charges. I can go the entire work week on a single charge just commuting (~15 min each way) and riding around after work a couple of days. Just remember to power it down when you're off the bike!
Annoyances:
- Bluetooth connection. Seems somewhat weak, tends to exhibit some distortion and even dropped connections at times. Aside from being out of range, the distortion seems to occur most when switching between functions (e.g. Answering a call while listening to music). However, this might just be an issue with my phone as I've had connectivity issues with other BT headsets in the past. A future firmware might might also help?
Other features I like:
- Voice notifications. A pretty standard female voice lets you know when you've turned the unit on/off, what features are connected and when you're low on battery (among others). Other notifications are expressed as beeps.
- Very easy to remove from helmet. Slide unit off helmet mount, charge for a while, slide it back on.
- Quick pairing at startup (after initial pairing is done)
- I don't feel it on my helmet and haven't noticed any change in aerodynamic drag on the highway.
- Upgradable firmware
My overall subjective score: 4/5 stars! It's a great little unit that's easy to use and has all the right features. Unless you're looking for greater capability in a specific aspect (range, # of riders you can pair with, battery life), I say save some money and go with the SMH5!
Bonus: I bought this set from http://www.cyclebots.com for $207 USD shipping included. Use the coupon code: advrider
I was charged $35.80 for tax + handling when Canada Post brought it to my door so my total cost was ~$245. Might be a good one to have shipped to the border.
UPDATE 11/25/2012: I purchased the upgraded speakers toward the end of the summer hoping to improve the audio quality and volume level.
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/sena-smh5-upgraded-speakers
These upgrades are the same speakers that come with the SMH-10 except for the proprietary plastic plug that is only used on the SMH-5. Size-wise, they are only slightly larger than the original speakers. They do sound noticeably better, especially in the low frequency range. While still far off from a decent set of headphones, I can actually hear some bass now. Overall volume seems unchanged so the limiting factor appears to be the amp circuit of the SMH-5.
For the price, I'm fairly satisfied with this purchase. I'd like a little more volume so I'm gonna start experimenting with diy noise insulation or maybe even soldering in a different set of speakers.
I also picked up a new low-profile mic that comes with a velcro sticky:
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/sena-smh5-replacement-wired-microphone
I find this preferable to the big goose-neck mic boom. It stays in the same position and doesn't touch my lips. Sound quality seems to be the same according to people at the other end of the line.
My verdict: These speakers really should've been shipped with the SMH-5 to begin with. If the lack of bass of your SMH-5 bothers you then go for the upgrade. There really is no other option besides the diy route. Just don't expect to get home theater quality sound.
UPDATE 2/18/2013
I've been using the SMH5 with my snowboard helmet (Burton R.E.D. Commander) for most of the season and it works really well. I stuffed the stock speakers into the ear pads and wedged the main unit into the left strap over the ear (hasn't fallen out yet). I did have to remove a small metal ring that's riveted into the neck roll in order to connect the wiring. I didn't bother connecting the boom mic because I thought it looked dorky. Volume is plenty loud and sounds much clearer while boarding than riding the bike.
---
TL;DR: Super easy to use with gloves on, great sound quality but stock speaker lacks bass (upgraded speakers slightly better), smaller and better value than SMH-10 (unless you need the extras), crash tested by yours truly and works well with snowboard helmets too. Buy it!
Keep in mind, this is the first helmet intercom I've ever used and this evaluation is based on pretty short term use, especially the intercom feature. That said, I'll try to be as succinct as I can without reiterating too much info that can already be found online.
Note: I've only paired it with an iPhone 4 and a second SMH5 unit and using it on a Bell RS1 helmet.
First Impressions:
The unit is smaller and lighter than I expected. This was a pleasant surprise! I knew the SMH5 was supposed to be the baby SMH10 but I still thought it would be bulkier than it actually is.
While it may not be as lo-pro as some of the other units out there, it's not quite the tumorous wart I feared it would be. It was well packaged and came with more than everything I needed to attach it to my helmet. One particular accessory I found helpful was the padded velcro spacers. It allowed me to place the speakers closer to my ears which improved the perceptual sound quality immensely.
Controls:
The jog dial is awesomely simple and easy to operate with gloves on. A quick skim through the setup guide and you're in business. I feel like Cyclops whenever I rotate the dial.
Music:
The sound quality is acceptable. It seriously lacks bass but that was expected. The volume is plenty loud and will hurt your ears at full blast. On the highway, the music can still be heard but much of the detail gets lost in the wind. Wearing ear plugs and raising the volume seemed to work pretty well. It dampened the wind noise and I could hear the music clearly. Your mileage may vary on your own lid.
Tip for iPhone users: go into Settings> iPod> EQ and choose "Small Speakers". This seems to help balance the sound and takes the edge off the higher frequency range.
Hands-free Phone:
I love this feature. Yes... I use the phone while on my bike. If you can't handle a brief conversation while riding then there's really no reason to buy an intercom except for the music feature </end rant>. I never really used the voice dial feature on my phone but it works surprisingly well with the SMH5 and is very convenient.
For the most part, voice quality sounds excellent at both ends of the line. I can hear them and they can hear me. I feel like Iron Man.
Rider-to-Rider Intercom:
Voice quality was similar to the phone. We could hear each other clearly. When testing the range, we only got about 150m apart (line of sight) before the connection started to degrade (sounds like our voices are digitally garbled). That's a far cry from the ~400m claimed range, however, we were in town with other traffic on the road and I believe the batteries were fairly low on both units. I'd like to give this a more rigorous test in the near future but for now it doesn't bother me too much as we're generally riding in pretty close proximity to each other. It's really nice being able to communicate without looking over at my buddy and making all sorts of wild gestures.
Battery Life: It lasts at least a couple of hours between charges. I can go the entire work week on a single charge just commuting (~15 min each way) and riding around after work a couple of days. Just remember to power it down when you're off the bike!
Annoyances:
- Bluetooth connection. Seems somewhat weak, tends to exhibit some distortion and even dropped connections at times. Aside from being out of range, the distortion seems to occur most when switching between functions (e.g. Answering a call while listening to music). However, this might just be an issue with my phone as I've had connectivity issues with other BT headsets in the past. A future firmware might might also help?
Other features I like:
- Voice notifications. A pretty standard female voice lets you know when you've turned the unit on/off, what features are connected and when you're low on battery (among others). Other notifications are expressed as beeps.
- Very easy to remove from helmet. Slide unit off helmet mount, charge for a while, slide it back on.
- Quick pairing at startup (after initial pairing is done)
- I don't feel it on my helmet and haven't noticed any change in aerodynamic drag on the highway.
- Upgradable firmware
My overall subjective score: 4/5 stars! It's a great little unit that's easy to use and has all the right features. Unless you're looking for greater capability in a specific aspect (range, # of riders you can pair with, battery life), I say save some money and go with the SMH5!
Bonus: I bought this set from http://www.cyclebots.com for $207 USD shipping included. Use the coupon code: advrider
I was charged $35.80 for tax + handling when Canada Post brought it to my door so my total cost was ~$245. Might be a good one to have shipped to the border.
UPDATE 11/25/2012: I purchased the upgraded speakers toward the end of the summer hoping to improve the audio quality and volume level.
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/sena-smh5-upgraded-speakers
These upgrades are the same speakers that come with the SMH-10 except for the proprietary plastic plug that is only used on the SMH-5. Size-wise, they are only slightly larger than the original speakers. They do sound noticeably better, especially in the low frequency range. While still far off from a decent set of headphones, I can actually hear some bass now. Overall volume seems unchanged so the limiting factor appears to be the amp circuit of the SMH-5.
For the price, I'm fairly satisfied with this purchase. I'd like a little more volume so I'm gonna start experimenting with diy noise insulation or maybe even soldering in a different set of speakers.
I also picked up a new low-profile mic that comes with a velcro sticky:
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/sena-smh5-replacement-wired-microphone
I find this preferable to the big goose-neck mic boom. It stays in the same position and doesn't touch my lips. Sound quality seems to be the same according to people at the other end of the line.
My verdict: These speakers really should've been shipped with the SMH-5 to begin with. If the lack of bass of your SMH-5 bothers you then go for the upgrade. There really is no other option besides the diy route. Just don't expect to get home theater quality sound.
UPDATE 2/18/2013
I've been using the SMH5 with my snowboard helmet (Burton R.E.D. Commander) for most of the season and it works really well. I stuffed the stock speakers into the ear pads and wedged the main unit into the left strap over the ear (hasn't fallen out yet). I did have to remove a small metal ring that's riveted into the neck roll in order to connect the wiring. I didn't bother connecting the boom mic because I thought it looked dorky. Volume is plenty loud and sounds much clearer while boarding than riding the bike.
---
TL;DR: Super easy to use with gloves on, great sound quality but stock speaker lacks bass (upgraded speakers slightly better), smaller and better value than SMH-10 (unless you need the extras), crash tested by yours truly
and works well with snowboard helmets too. Buy it!
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