Having the ability to answer phone calls and messages is must for me on my bike, not only that having some background music is something that makes any journey a pleasure and for that you need a intercom system. Now we all know there are so many different ones around and I personal have gone through a few myself, from other brand names too cheap imported china own system, and a lot work well, and give you the freedom of communication while on your bike.
I use a iPhone as my name phone, and some of the features of this is Siri, Like Android with its Google Assistant, and then there is also Samsung with Bixsby all are great to use but making sure your comms system can work with these are not as easy. I found a few cheap system that work well, but do not last, or the sound quality is modest at best, others like Cardo and Sena are more known for being the best around, and with that they do come at a price.
I went for the Cardo based of reviews (like my own) and it offered what I wanted and needed from a comms system. I was able to fully access my phones feature, and with the Cardo Packtalk bold you also get the “Hay Cardo” feature to make some feature that bit more easier to access. Using “Hay Cardo Music on” to start your music is easy, while yes you can also say “Hay Siri” play playlist bike….
Which allows you easy ways to play your music on the go, the down side I personally found was the “Hay Cardo” like to randomly switch on the radio when I was talking over the intercom, and that it activated without needing to use the words “Hay Cardo”. So having a way to disable some actions would be really useful, like to disable the radio from activating unless you did it from the physical buttons on the unit or via the iPhone app for it.
Apart from that the comms side of having a couple of ppl talking over intercom is great, the range isn’t as good as I thought, less than 500m a lot of the time in built top area, and that’s on DMC, not tested direct on bluetooth thou. I love having music on why also talking, that feature alone makes the Cardo worth every penny and there are a lot pennies to buy this setup. The only one other area was sound quality, I did expect more from it for the price, and to get the high spec speakers (45mm JBL) are close to an extra £100 on top.
The units are easy to fit and setup with your phone as well as GPS units ( I have mine link to phone and tomtom 550) you get everything you need in the box for all style of helmets to mount it too, and it’s so easy to fit your be up and running in no time.
Overall I really happy with my purchase of the Cardo PACKTALK Bold and It work really well, If they came with the 45mm better sound quality speakers from stock they would get a 10/10 but based on the costs you pay for this setup I can only give it a 9/10.
If you want the best and got the money then these are for you no question on that. So easy to use with the iPhone app, and I love all the features. You really couldn’t go back to a standard setup once you tried these. Just need more people to get on the DMC network for more fun in group rides this way 🙂 I purchased the Duo set as I wanted my wife to have one, I also brought the 45mm JBL speaker to upgrade them.
