Hello,
I’m looking for a comm system for my helmet. I have one friend that has a Sena 30K and another with a Cardo Spirit HD. Cardo kind of irks me that they have a model with a subscription service, and I feel that will roll out to the others. Sena is expensive, that’s it.
I did find a model called Fodsports FX8 pro. Has anyone used it? It looks promising, and seems like they managed to keep the price down by not having an app.
Unpopular opinion here. I bought a pair of cheap-o units from Amazon for my daughter and myself. FreedConn R1 Plus. Includes a built in camera. Honestly couldn’t be happier with them. I almost never ride with anyone other than my daughter, so I don’t need compatibility with other people in group rides. They were cheap ($120 USD each) and they work. Bluetooth connected to my phone, it plays music just fine. I can hear it just fine through my EarPeace earplugs. Changing songs is a snap with gloves on, and pressing the big button on the side switches to intercom mode so I can speak with my daughter. Another press sends me back to my music. I’ve had a couple of phone calls through them and while not the best, you can hear each other. Exactly what we need and nothing more. The video is 1080p, but the audio is nothing but wind noise. I only have the camera for insurance purposes, so no problem there. The battery life is about 5 to 6 hours with both bluetooth music playing and camera running. Haven’t noticed much drop in battery capacity yet after a year. I will never buy a product that requires a subscription service to use, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, these units have been great value for the money. Whatever you get, have a blast and keep the rubber side down
I couldn’t resist and had to pick up a Freedconn. Got the R3 because I thought what the hell, I’ll give this the best chance of working well. It works. The functionality is there. But (I don’t know if the R1 is like this or not) the voice telling you what button you’ve just pressed is impossible to understand. I just sort of learned what the sound she makes is to what button, and hope for the best. Still am never sure if I’ve just got record start or record stop.
I have the R1 and I get a kick out of the voice every time. “Battery fulled” is my favorite. When I start recording it says “video recording” and when I stop recording it says “video recording stopped.” If I am moving, it’s too quiet to understand, but it stops my music while it speaks. I often forget to start recording at the start of my ride, so I press the button to check. I can only tell by how long the pause is while the voice speaks. That’s the only prompt I have a problem with, as it’s the only one I get when I’m on the move. The others are only when I turn it on. “Welcome to FreeConn product. Battery XX%. Connected.” It’s certainly not the highest quality product, but it meets my needs comfortably and paying more feels like a waste of money to me. I hope you get a lot out of value out of it.