Help! Trying to get a working intercom/audio to our Helmets?! SOLVED!!!!!

[bsavulis]

I am at the end of my rope. I have a 2014 RTL. Purchased May 2021 with 2700 miles. I have been working for the past year to get a workable intercom / bike audio piped into our Helmets.

I purchased a Sena SM10 dongle, and cheap Amazon headgear. It did not work at all. Kept dropping the intercom, and losing pairing. I am only trying to talk to my passenger seated behind me and hopefully hear some tunes on a long trip.

I gave up on the bluetooth and started to build my own interface using J&M goldwing headsets. It works, barely. I saw recently in the classifieds a set of cardo2+ for sale. I figured that a high end set of Bluetooth units have got to work much better than the cheap ones I bought last year, right? So they came in, I mounted them to our helmets, and gave them a try today.
They are horrible, the intercom has a huge latency, only functions 50% of the time, & seems to be getting interference.

What am I doing wrong? I am sure it is me and not the equipment. I am going to do a factory reset on both and reload the latest firmware. Re-pair them to each other and try again. I will post how I fare a bit later tomorrow.:yes:

SOLVED!!!!! See post #18.

 

[pegasus1300]

IMHO where you went wrong was going with cheap Amazon headsets. I have been using the Sena dongle and Sena 10 headsets for the same thing you want for 7 years with great success. I now have the S20EVO for myself and still the S10 for my wife, works great. They are bluetoothed to the dongle and to each other. I can talk to my wife and listen to music from my phone or the Spyder system.

PS, I see you user name contains 'bsa' - are you a BSA fan?

 

[UtahPete]

It seems to me that what you're doing wrong is trying to piece together something on the cheap. Why not buy a set of proven bt communicators and be done with it?

 

[bsavulis]

It seems to me that what you're doing wrong is trying to piece together something on the cheap. Why not buy a set of proven bt communicators and be done with it?

That is what I was doing with the Cardo units. I figured the 2+ units if I can get them to work would be a " high end option"

 

[bsavulis]

IMHO where you went wrong was going with cheap Amazon headsets. I have been using the Sena dongle and Sena 10 headsets for the same thing you want for 7 years with great success. I now have the S20EVO for myself and still the S10 for my wife, works great. They are bluetoothed to the dongle and to each other. I can talk to my wife and listen to music from my phone or the Spyder system.

PS, I see you user name contains 'bsa' - are you a BSA fan?

That is why I bought the Cardo units, I figured they would be the proof that it was thecheap units all along. Bsa is actually first initial and first 2 letters of last name. Though I did have a 441 Victor, and a Norton 750. My British rides all have 4 wheels now. A 58 triumph tr3a, and a 68 mgb (hers). Both driven very often. In fact I often commute with the TR.

 

[pegasus1300]

Do you have the instruction manual with both the Cardos and the Sena SM10? What do they tell you on pairing? Also, sometimes units from one manufacturer don't always play well with others. I would keep working with them, like I said, I have used a similar system for years.

 

[UtahPete]

That is what I was doing with the Cardo units. I figured the 2+ units if I can get them to work would be a " high end option"

Didn't you say you bought them used from a classified ad?

 

[UtahPete]

Why are you trying to pair with the bike's audio anyway? Just pair the two headsets and your phone. Much simpler.

 

[Peacekeeper6]

Why are you trying to pair with the bike's audio anyway? Just pair the two headsets and your phone. Much simpler.

That's what we do with our Cardo Freecom 4+.

It takes all of about 10 secs; no fuss, no muss.

 

[Bfromla]

do you have the instruction manual with both the Cardos and the sena SM10. What do they tell you on pairing? Also sometimes units from one manufacturer don't always play well with others. I would keep working with them, like I said I have used a similar system for years.

:agree: multiple brands is where I find most troubles not like talking to each other. Additionally the sequence of the primary device to subsequent secondary device & so on. Not necessarily impossible just more pain than reasonably acceptable. :dontknow::banghead::barf: (Proprietary plays big headache). Good luck with it all the same, might have to get devices to reset & forget previous pairings to start all over.

 

[PaladinLV]

Cardo & Sena allow two phones.
SM 10 allows two phones.
#1 Sena/Cardo 1st phone to smartphone 2nd phone to SM phone 1 (see page 13)
#2 Sena/Cardo 1st phone to smartphone (not same as on #1) 2nd phone to SM phone 2 (see page 14)
Last setup intercom between #1 & #2 (easier if using Sena or Cardo phone apps).

AJ

 

[pidjones]

I agree to leave BRP out of it. Our low-end Sena SMH5 sets still work great to speak to each other and answer the phone.

 

[LongIsland]

You have a 2014 RTL as I do, we cannot connect the bike's audio to anything unless you install a bluetooth dongle as Pegasus1300 did. I did not go that route and (as others have said) connected my Cardo's to each other and our phones. If you need a manual you can find it on Cardo's web page where you should register the set you have to get updates, etc.

 

[ThreeWheels]

I am at the end of my rope. I have a 2014 RTL. Purchased May 2021 with 2700 miles. I have been working for the past year to get a workable intercom / bike audio piped into our Helmets.

I purchased a Sena SM10 dongle, and cheap Amazon headgear. It did not work at all. Kept dropping the intercom, and losing pairing. I am only trying to talk to my passenger seated behind me and hopefully hear some tunes on a long trip.

I gave up on the bluetooth and started to build my own interface using J&M goldwing headsets. It works, barely. I saw recently in the classifieds a set of cardo2+ for sale. I figured that a high end set of Bluetooth units have got to work much better than the cheap ones I bought last year, right? So they came in, I mounted them to our helmets, and gave them a try today.
They are horrible, the intercom has a huge latency, only functions 50% of the time, & seems to be getting interference.

What am I doing wrong? I am sure it is me and not the equipment. I am going to do a factory reset on both and reload the latest firmware. Re-pair them to each other and try again. I will post how I fare a bit later tomorrow.

Just echoing what others have said.
You need to get better Bluetooth units.
I had a pair of Sena SMH10s and the latency in the intercom, and the music dropouts became infuriating.
I upgraded to Sena 20s and have been very happy.
The SMH 10 have been reassigned to ski helmets where the latency isn't an issue.

 

[Motorcycledave]

I am at the end of my rope. I have a 2014 RTL. Purchased May 2021 with 2700 miles. I have been working for the past year to get a workable intercom / bike audio piped into our Helmets.

I purchased a Sena SM10 dongle, and cheap Amazon headgear. It did not work at all. Kept dropping the intercom, and losing pairing. I am only trying to talk to my passenger seated behind me and hopefully hear some tunes on a long trip.

I gave up on the bluetooth and started to build my own interface using J&M goldwing headsets. It works, barely. I saw recently in the classifieds a set of cardo2+ for sale. I figured that a high end set of Bluetooth units have got to work much better than the cheap ones I bought last year, right? So they came in, I mounted them to our helmets, and gave them a try today.
They are horrible, the intercom has a huge latency, only functions 50% of the time, & seems to be getting interference.

What am I doing wrong? I am sure it is me and not the equipment. I am going to do a factory reset on both and reload the latest firmware. Re-pair them to each other and try again. I will post how I fare a bit later tomorrow.

I see many good answers here, In my opinion.... and you know about opinions, it seems best to always try to stick with the same brand headsets, sometimes trying to mix and match is just not a good idea. Whether you use SENA or Cardo. I would AVOID the low buck units you see on Ebay and Amazon. Stay with the good stuff and you will be happy. Always remember what my daddy told me ....
NOBODY but NOBODY has ever been sorry they bought the best.

 

[cruisinTX]

Chiming in just to agree with others above. We bought the dual set of Sena 10S from Motorcycle Dave last year. They were already paired together from the factory so all we had to do to talk to other bikes was pair with their units. Have only paired with another Sena 5S so far and seems to work great up to about half a mile with clear line of sight. Have not yet installed in wife's helmet yet but have tested indoors and they work great in close proximity except for a bit of echo. I think the others saying leave the bike's system out of it is good advice; just stick with quality matched units to talk to each other.

 

[ulflyer]

My riding buddy and I have the Sena 50S and when parked next to each other, or at gas stations, you can hear each other breathing (or grunting as the case may be while mounting) with exceptionally clear bluetooth. We've had them about a year now and they've never lost pairing (they did come paired).

Hopefully you can get the Cardo's working.

 

[bsavulis]

Update, issues solved

SOLVED!!!!

I started this thread a while ago Looking for advice with getting a working intercom setup on my 2014RTL. Many members posted advice which I am very grateful. I received lots of good information. I have the Cardo2+ units communicating perfectly to each other. I found a uTube video showing the process step by step. I also have these paired to the SM10 dongle, which works excellently.

I took this a step further. I tapped into the rear speaker outputs, attaching the radio output to the common terminals of a 4pdt switch, the speakers were routed to one set of terminals and a wire with mini stereo plug to the other set. So with the switch flipped one way the rear speakers work as designed; flip it the other way, and the rear speaker output is sent to the mini stereo plug that is plugged into the SM10.

I set the radio fader control to full back so no audio is heard from the front external speakers. Now, all that would have been heard over the speakers I hear in my helmets instead. All the handle bar and passenger grip controls function as they should but control the music etc. in the helmets.

This is working very, very well. If anyone is interested in an exact how to, let me know.


Thanks ALL!!!!! Thanks for the help everyone! :bowdown: