A quick report on my new Sena 50S (I upgraded from a 20S I've owned for several years).
Packaging, as always with Sena stuff, looks great. Nicely organized. The product itself looks slick, also as per usual. Lots of instructions...which leave out a few key/essential details about the software.
Installation into my Shoei was simple (of course I had the older 20S layout as a guide).
Output sound quality is >>much<< improved. And that's before I turned on the "enhance bass" setting in the firmware. More on what that sounds like after I take it out for a spin.
Microphone sound quality is great according to the couple of people I did test calls with. That may be because I used the default boom mike this time rather than the non-boom glue on mike I was using with the 20S. But still, good pickup, at least at home (more on that, too, when I take it out for a spin).
I really like being able to reach my iPhone's Siri interface by just saying "Hey Siri". Assuming it works okay with air noise that'll be much easier than reaching up to punch a button on the device.
Now the bad news...
I really, really dislike Sena's hardware/software engineering team. Meaning that the software (a) isn't well-tested before it's released, (b) often fails in obscure ways that are hard to work around and (c) never works, out of the box, like the documentation says it should.
In the case of the 50S one of the neat new features is it can connect to your home wifi network while it's turned off and charging and automatically update the firmware as needed.
Except that, at least up through firmware version 1.0.2 (which is what I received) it don't work. When you follow the directions to connect to your wifi network via your phone it almost always fails and, when it does succeed, the connection lasts for no more than 5 seconds before dropping completely.
I struggled for almost an hour trying to get this "simple" process to work. I was particularly disturbed to read, on Sena's community support forum, about many other users having the same problem. And sometimes being able to work around it by changing their wifi network's name (SSID) and password to not include spaces or special characters. Which, in 2020, is b*ts**t crazy and a sign of monumental incompetence in a software development team.
Luckily -- and luck plays a bigger role in getting Sena's products to work the way they claim they can in my experience -- updating the firmware to version 1.0.3 via the desktop update software (different from the phone-based updater) solved the problem. At least to the extent the phone software could connect to the Sena's wifi point and configure it to work with my home network. All without having to change my home network's name, which contains spaces, or its password, which contains (as it should, for security reasons) special characters.
But, great ghu, what a lot of work to solve a problem which should've been caught before the first unit was shipped!
Again, I'll update with a road report as soon as I take it out for a spin.
- Mark
Packaging, as always with Sena stuff, looks great. Nicely organized. The product itself looks slick, also as per usual. Lots of instructions...which leave out a few key/essential details about the software.
Installation into my Shoei was simple (of course I had the older 20S layout as a guide).
Output sound quality is >>much<< improved. And that's before I turned on the "enhance bass" setting in the firmware. More on what that sounds like after I take it out for a spin.
Microphone sound quality is great according to the couple of people I did test calls with. That may be because I used the default boom mike this time rather than the non-boom glue on mike I was using with the 20S. But still, good pickup, at least at home (more on that, too, when I take it out for a spin).
I really like being able to reach my iPhone's Siri interface by just saying "Hey Siri". Assuming it works okay with air noise that'll be much easier than reaching up to punch a button on the device.
Now the bad news...
I really, really dislike Sena's hardware/software engineering team. Meaning that the software (a) isn't well-tested before it's released, (b) often fails in obscure ways that are hard to work around and (c) never works, out of the box, like the documentation says it should.
In the case of the 50S one of the neat new features is it can connect to your home wifi network while it's turned off and charging and automatically update the firmware as needed.
Except that, at least up through firmware version 1.0.2 (which is what I received) it don't work. When you follow the directions to connect to your wifi network via your phone it almost always fails and, when it does succeed, the connection lasts for no more than 5 seconds before dropping completely.
I struggled for almost an hour trying to get this "simple" process to work. I was particularly disturbed to read, on Sena's community support forum, about many other users having the same problem. And sometimes being able to work around it by changing their wifi network's name (SSID) and password to not include spaces or special characters. Which, in 2020, is b*ts**t crazy and a sign of monumental incompetence in a software development team.
Luckily -- and luck plays a bigger role in getting Sena's products to work the way they claim they can in my experience -- updating the firmware to version 1.0.3 via the desktop update software (different from the phone-based updater) solved the problem. At least to the extent the phone software could connect to the Sena's wifi point and configure it to work with my home network. All without having to change my home network's name, which contains spaces, or its password, which contains (as it should, for security reasons) special characters.
But, great ghu, what a lot of work to solve a problem which should've been caught before the first unit was shipped!
Again, I'll update with a road report as soon as I take it out for a spin.
- Mark
. Some days...
