Cardo Scala Rider Teamset Pro

[Dunk43]

Tired of yelling back and forth to my wife so I thought I would start out on the cheap side and hope this works.

$159 from Bike Bandit, no need for all the gizmos just want to communicate with my wife while we ride.

Anyone have one of these ?

I will let yall know how it works out for me when I get it...........

Oh yea, this thing was $259 @ the local Yamaha dealership.

 

[wfooshee]

Had one to start with. VOX is useless, you have to scream to activate it, which is not appreciated by your partner. We used it with push-to-talk, but PTT seems to never expire. Once you push, you're live for several minutes, as long as you talk.

Battery life was phenomenal, and the driver's headset could pair to a phone, and you can patch the passenger into the call, although it seems her call volume is very low.

I got a Q2 set to replace it, just as she moved out to live with someone else, so I can't speak for that as an intercom. The Q2 pairs with a phone or player in stereo, though, where the Teamset does not.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Pop and I use the Cardo G4 Teamset. It makes the ride much more enjoyable for us to be able to chat and point out things we might otherwise miss. The phone part of it works great, no one ever believes I am riding a motorcycle when we are talking on the phone. I never use the Voice Activation for bike to bike. I connect them first thing in the morning, we don't turn them off until the end of the day. I have never had the battery run down, rain has never affected them, they work. They are not perfect, they will do some silly things for reasons you will never figure out. When they get squirrely during the ride, I just power mine down, turn it back on and re-connect. I could go into great detail about some of the minuses but it was money well spent for us.

 

[Goodman4]

I got one of the scala rider teamsets a year ago and use it constantly. I hope you have as much luck with it as we have. I use it for talking to the wife. You just say "bark" in the mic and it connects for a short period. Or you can push the back button and then it stays in conversation indefinitely. I have it bluetooth connected to my phone and can take a call while talking with my wife or just when I'm riding. I don't know when the battery runs down, cause I charge it every night on trips and it has never went dead.

 

[ionbeam]

... just want to communicate with my wife while we ride...Anyone have one of these ?

Been a user for >6 years, for basic P2P they work great. I have ours paired to a Zumo which gives me GPS voice and phone in addition to P2P. To work with the GPS the Scalas need to be on VOX which can be awkward because the passenger doesn't know that Garmina is giving me directions and blocks the passenger until Garmina has her whole say. I have often taken cell phone calls from work and had the person ask me to walk down the hall and take a look at something; they are usually shocked to find out that I'm buzzing along on my bike miles from work.

...you just say "bark" in the mic and it connects for a short period. Or you can push the back button and then it stays in conversation indefinitely...

LOL! I use the same word to open a VOX connection. Years ago I was making radios for police that had a VOX circuit and discovered that words rich in hard consonants work best to activate the VOX. Unless I'm using the GPS we always leave the Scalas in the intercom mode and have only run out of battery when there was lots of wind noise all day or had >14 hr days riding. The intercom mode is maladroit when I have an attack of Tourette's syndrome

 

[Top_Speed1]

The Teamsets are the entry level of the Cardo Comm's, the G4 model that Redfish mentioned is a NICE step-up and one that I would highly recommend going to (or at least the Q2-Pro's)

Good luck, post up your after comments.

 

[Dunk43]

Got it today and its charged and installed ready to test it tomorrow.

 

[Top_Speed1]

Got it todayand its charged and installed ready to test it tomorrow.

C'mon u know u paired them and then u and the wifey walked around the living room talking to each other. Oh wait, they already come paired so all u had to do was do the living room test.

Btw.. Checkout how the farther away she is from u the better she sounds :-0

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Some advice.

I hit the button to leave it on all the time. I never use the voice activation. If I want Pop to know what I am saying, he does not need the first part of the message cut off.

If you Bluetooth your GPS to it, you are going to get aggravated. When the GPS says, "Turn left in 1 mile" it cuts off the bike to bike comm. The comm link will re-establish just in time for you to say, "We gotta..." then the GPS will override the comm link again to say, "Turn left now." You will never be able to communicate this to your riding partner with anything other than the turnsignal.

I got in the habit of never turning them off at all during the day. The ONLY drawback I found from this happened while eating lunch. The Bluetooth connection to your phone will reach farther than you think. The phone will ring in your pocket, you can answer it, but all the talking still has to happen through the headset on the helmet in the saddlebag of the bike. Try not looking like a fool in the middle of rural Mississippi while trying to figure out why your phone is only half working.

If it starts to sound like one of you is an adult on a Charlie Brown TV show, just cycle the power. Everything comes right back.

 

[FJRMGM]

I got in the habit of never turning them off at all during the day. The ONLY drawback I found from this happened while eating lunch. The Bluetooth connection to your phone will reach farther than you think. The phone will ring in your pocket, you can answer it, but all the talking still has to happen through the headset on the helmet in the saddlebag of the bike. Try not looking like a fool in the middle of rural Mississippi while trying to figure out why your phone is only half working.

If it starts to sound like one of you is an adult on a Charlie Brown TV show, just cycle the power. Everything comes right back.

LOL - I have done the same damned thing with my original Scala Rider Teamset!! More than once!

Ours has worked well for the last six years but I should have upgraded to the PRO model when I bought it - you know, the one where I can talk to her but she can't talk back to me!

My wife has this annoying habit when we ride - going into a hard left or right hand turn she comes on the MIC as she is poking me and says "oh honey, quick look over there!!" I have to remind her that one of us has to pilot this unit and it better be me and that distracting me in a corner is not condusive to a good ride!

It is good to know that you can buy an extra helmet mounting module with the mic so you can swap between helmets by just swapping the core unit.

 

[Intech]

I got in the habit of never turning them off at all during the day. The ONLY drawback I found from this happened while eating lunch. The Bluetooth connection to your phone will reach farther than you think. The phone will ring in your pocket, you can answer it, but all the talking still has to happen through the headset on the helmet in the saddlebag of the bike. Try not looking like a fool in the middle of rural Mississippi while trying to figure out why your phone is only half working.

I had the same experience! I just put my helmet back on for the conversation!

 

[Top_Speed1]

Some advice.
I hit the button to leave it on all the time. I never use the voice activation. If I want Pop to know what I am saying, he does not need the first part of the message cut off.

If you Bluetooth your GPS to it, you are going to get aggravated. When the GPS says, "Turn left in 1 mile" it cuts off the bike to bike comm. The comm link will re-establish just in time for you to say, "We gotta..." then the GPS will override the comm link again to say, "Turn left now." You will never be able to communicate this to your riding partner with anything other than the turnsignal.

I got in the habit of never turning them off at all during the day. The ONLY drawback I found from this happened while eating lunch. The Bluetooth connection to your phone will reach farther than you think. The phone will ring in your pocket, you can answer it, but all the talking still has to happen through the headset on the helmet in the saddlebag of the bike. Try not looking like a fool in the middle of rural Mississippi while trying to figure out why your phone is only half working.

If it starts to sound like one of you is an adult on a Charlie Brown TV show, just cycle the power. Everything comes right back.

The GPS cutting comm was a pain. Since I went to the big 7" Tab2 GPS, I did away with the GPS audio (lost/forgot the BT connection entirely). Much easier, no cutoffs and all those multiple warnings when you have turns upon turns... blah crap.

Never missed a turn on my last trip with this method, then again, the screen is so big and w Co-Pilot software, if you can't see those big orange/yellow turn icons overlayed before the turns I would consider myself blind or asleep at the wheel.

Big = attention, speaking of which, sure wish I had those Gen-1 'Big turn signal indicators'

..prob the only thing off the Gen1 I would want too!

 

[ionbeam]

It's amazing some of the conversations we have had with the Scala headsets. Take last fall while riding in the Stowe Vt area. We were riding a road that followed a very winding river yielding a very curvy road. We were traveling roughly 60 mph about to apex a corner and we were leaned over far enough that the right foot peg was just hazing and ticking on the road. Suddenly the Scala lights up and pillion says to me,.............."Look at the engineering that went into shoring up the river bank over there."

My reply, "How many couples in the world would be having this conversation in a situation like this?" Earlier this year we were in the same situation, leaned over until the peg was grinding and once again the Scala lights up and this time I hear, "Look at the color and geology of this rock embankment we are going around."

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Suddenly the Scala lights up and pillion says to me,.............."Look at the engineering that went into shoring up the river bank over there."

My reply, "How many couples in the world would be having this conversation in a situation like this?" Earlier this year we were in the same situation, leaned over until the peg was grinding and once again the Scala lights up and this time I hear, "Look at the color and geology of this rock embankment we are going around."

How many couples you ask? I don't know how many would but I know one that would not. For one thing Mrs. Redfish Hunter will not ride on a motorcycle, ever. Second, if she did I would have to modify the rear subframe, suspension and install a Truck tire on the back. Third, our conversations would not use words like "engineering" and "geology". It would be more like, "Oooh, look at that Grocery Store! Do you think they have a deli?" Or, "STOP! A Dairy Queen! A Chinese buffet! A Baskin Robbins!" Some of you don't realize how fortunate you are.

 

[ericboutin]

Got it todayand its charged and installed ready to test it tomorrow.

C'mon u know u paired them and then u and the wifey walked around the living room talking to each other. Oh wait, they already come paired so all u had to do was do the living room test.

Btw.. Checkout how the farther away she is from u the better she sounds :-0

Lol!! Guilty but it was the kitchen and then down the hallway!! Lol! We use ours bike to bike as wifey rides her own. They are great starter models, highly recommend!!

 

[Dunk43]

After a short test ride here are my impressions........

Driver to passenger works great, MP3 through the wire connection very but the cell phone not so good everyone I called could hear

me fine but I was having trouble hearing them.

I think a better full face helmet would help instead of my HJC 3/4.

This thing was well worth the $159.95 for my needs.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Pay careful attention to the placement of the in-helmet speakers. If they are not positioned JUST RIGHT the whole system is garbage. Too tight against the ears is uncomfortable and distorted. If they are the slightest bit too far away, the volume will never be loud enough. Your observation about the helmet is probably spot on. I cannot tell you how much I wish Pop and I were using Shoei Neotecs instead of Nolan Noisemakers. At least the Nolans have a perfect recess for the speakers at each ear.

 

[Further]

We've used a Chatterbox XBi for years. It's OK, but the major sell point is it WAS the only unit that would allow my wife and I to share a Bluetooth MP3 player. And I mean SHARE, not she has one and I have one. Now that's all changed. The Scala Q1 (this model, and the Q3 are their newest models) allows the same sharing of music, plus a lot of other nice features. I just spoke with the local rep a few weeks ago and demo'd one. It's GREAT. I'm going to replace the Chatterbox as soon as I can. Here is a real good review from Bike World:

 

[Further]

Sorry, for some reason the post I just sent cut off the link to the Bike World review. Here it is https://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-intercoms/cardo-scala-rider-q3/cardo-q1-q3-intercoms.htm