Cardo scala rider PACKTALK SLIM With Natural Voice Motorcycle Communication and Entertainment System, Connect 2 to 15 Riders (Dual Pack)

Okay, so, here’s a list of my first impressions of the Cardo Packtalk Slim (Duo):I’m using one Cardo Slim on an HJC (about 4 years old, can’t recall the model) and the other on a brand spanky new Icon Airmada.Overall:I’m pretty happy with the packaging. While that surely doesn’t mean all that much with respect to the quality, fit and function of the product, I can say that most companies that spend any real amount of time and effort on their packaging to assure the customer experience is a good one is also highly likely to have spent money on the R&D of the product itself. The packaging is pretty awesome. I was quite pleased with how they packaged all of the pieces in the duo setup. It was obvious they took time to assure there’s be no damage, even internal to the kit. Everything was nicely labeled and easily found. Not a lot of extra crap you don’t need, but certainly everything you did.The actual Packtalk Slim unit itself is small yet well constructed. The buttons are very easy to find, even with gloves, and the fact that there’s only buttons I feel makes it easier than something with a ‘selection wheel’. Buttons are easy to ‘feel’ as there are ridges between them and the volume buttons on the bottom jut out just enough to feel where they are. Everything is well encased in rubber. The button push has a reasonable tactile response. Would be a little nicer to have a more ‘solid click’ when pressing the button, but given the need to keep the unit small, I can understand the buttons not having sufficient ‘throw’ to allow for that. All said, it’s fine and you can tell that you’re ‘clicking’ something.Taking the equipment out, you could see that it’s quality material. The units use quality materials in their construction. You can see the wiring is shielded, heat shrink ends and with good solid materials throughout. The boom mics are seemingly top notch. Though I didn’t use them at all as I opted for the ‘wired mics’. I picked one up and moved it back and forth several times to see if it is malleable and it was, but what was nice is it didn’t feel like I was going to break it if I moved it back and forth too many times. The speakers are heavy for their size, which is typically a good thing for a speaker. They ship the kit with TWO set of speaker PER unit. So, in the duo, you get four SETS of speakers. The reason is they send you the very large (40mm) speakers for those that have the helmet space, and the smaller version for those that don’t. I used the 40mm in my lady’s helmet and she said they were extremely clear, quite loud (should you turn them up) and with a very good frequency range. Obviously the lower lows (20-90hz) aren’t all that well represented, but that’s a near impossibility given the lack of space available to do so without ultra-expensive massively engineered ones, the likes of which tend to cost significant cash. So, I’d prefer to get a good solid speaker that has great clarity and good mid to high response at a reasonable price than to spend hundreds and hundreds more just to get slightly lower lows. But, if that’s not for you, find a way to integrate some Dre Beats into your helmet and good on you. Now, after all that, I personally chose a different route with my speakers. I didn’t use any. I used the Bose QC20i’s. I’ve been riding with them for a year and I LOVE them. They do a fantastic job of ambient noise reduction while still allowing me to ‘hear the road’. My helmet is a little older, so it’s a bit easier for me to slide it over the ear buds once I have them properly placed in my ear. They bump off from time to time when I put on my helmet, but it’s merely a quick nuisance of taking off my helmet real quick and reseating them. Once the helmet is on and they are in place, they never budge, nor do they become uncomfortable in any way. I think Bose got it right with that rubber surround. Firm enough to keep it in place, soft enough to wear all day. I plumbed those into my helmet in a semi-permanent fashion and placed the battery pack under the Cardo Slim battery pack that mounts at the rear of the helmet. It’s pretty nicely tucked away. It does cause the Cardo Slim battery pack to protrude slightly further down and away from my helmet, but it’s about 3/8 of an inch and worth and in my mind, well worth the esthetic loss. What’s nice is that now when I charge the Cardo Slim, I simply use a dual USB plug and plug in my Bose as well. When traveling, I can use just one plug in (as they both use the same type adapter, which is nice).Install:The install on the HJC was quite simple and straight forward. All in, with removing the padding, cleaning things up a bit and then installing the unit, was maybe a total of 20 minutes. Yep, that’s it. It’s quite intuitive and the mounting bracket slid right up the back of the HJC helmet with no issue. Now, admittedly, I didn’t install the speakers, so that’s likely another reason why it went so quick. But, the 20 minutes includes the ‘install’ of my Bose QC20’s which conceivably took longer than would the install of the speakers. However, I can see how installing the speakers would be the area that could take the most time. The fact is that helmet manufacturers probably don’t make it a priority (appropriately so) to consider installation of speakers, especially these larger speakers. The wired mic was easy to place and came with a mounting Velcro that has a very strong ‘stickiness’ to it. I don’t think you’d need to worry about this dropping out, ever. The kit supplies an alcohol wipe to clean the surface before placing the adhering strip to the surface. Now, I probably should have used it, but the area I placed my mic was somewhat porous so I just left it alone. But now that it’s in there, I dare anyone to try to pull it off without ripping things apart. That baby is in there for life. Good. The wiring is small but rugged looking (well mounted to the soldered ends), sort of what you’d want for the application as you don’t want a bunch of 8 gauge wire running around your helmet, even if you do have plenty of padding.The install on the Icon Airmada took just about the same amount of time. At first, when looking at the construction of the helmet, there’s a rubber surrounding part to the helmet at the bottom. It appeared that it was going to cause a problem in mounting the Cardo battery pack as that rubber surround folds over the back part of the helmet by a fair bit. But….I was wrong. It actually made for a very very slick install. That rubber surround in the back is pliable and after working it for just a minute or two, I was able to slide the battery pack and mounting bracket between the shell and the foam and then allow the rubber surround to sort of ‘cradle’ the pack. You can’t even really see the battery pack at all, which I like. Now, some might not like that because Cardo puts a little light on the back of the battery pack to give you status indications. This install hides that little light. But to be quite honest, there are about 25 different light status combinations (using blue, green, red and purple….yeah…seriously) and there’s no way in the world I’m going to remember what each one means; ‘Wait, did three quick green followed by alternating purple and red mean it’s linked, or was the two quick green followed by slow flashing blue, or wait….’ Ugh. I’ll just reference the ‘Cardo Connect’ app when I need something or if it stops working, or is in an unknown mode. Besides, hiding that light means people behind me won’t be wondering why I have some flashing purple or green light on the back of my head. In this install, I DID install the larger speakers. But in this helmet, there’s a small notched area just above the chin strap mount on each side that pretty much perfectly fits the speakers, and when the cheek padding is reinstalled, it’s not even noticeable. My lady has a ‘normal shaped head with normal ears’ (yeah, that was kinda weird to say and she’d probably get after me for not saying something more like, ‘a beautifully shaped head…’), but I’m just saying that for someone that has normal proportions, she couldn’t even tell the speakers were installed, and I had her try it on before and after. The location of that notch is just about perfect. Just about. It’s slightly low and aft of the perfect location, but I’d say the center of the speaker is aligned with that sort of soft spot just up from your earlobe. Close enough, I’d say. With the Icon install, I’d say I spent about 25-30 minutes completing the install.Use:So, here’s a pretty big downfall of the Cardo system; the incredibly wonky interface you have to use to update the firmware. You log in to the website and download a small applet. This then takes a LONG time to recognize your Cardo unit. I actually unplugged mine a couple times and started over thinking it was the connection or that it was in an improper mode, but I finally used some patience (yes mom, I hear you) and found that after waiting a minute it ‘discovered’ the Cardo. But that’s just the start of the ‘wonkiness’. The website is a rather ‘simple’ site that has a very ‘underdeveloped’ feel to it. Maybe it’s that I’ve grown used to application developers spending more time and effort on the GUI and making things very user friendly that this app/site seems poorly done. Maybe it’s fine for others, but it really needs some work in my opinion. Now, from the site, it allows you to register your Cardo, set it up, update firmware, rename the unit to something more ‘friendly’ and save everything to the unit. Once you get past the 3rd grade coding of the site, it’s pretty straightforward.Cardo has produced THREE different apps you can download. But only one of the three is designed for the Slim. Don’t ask me why they have THREE different apps for their products that all generally do the same thing, but it was a point of frustration for me in that I attempted to get the other apps to work properly and they didn’t. Yes, it’s my fault for not reading all the literature first to see which worked with the Slim, but call me crazy, I figured the newest ‘looking’ app would be the one for their newest units. Wrong. Actually, those are the older apps and the newest one (Cardo Connect) is the most basic looking one. Bit of a bummer there as there’s settings in the other apps that this ‘newer’ app doesn’t have (the biggest being able to set, individually, the volume level of EACH input). This new Cardo Connect allows a single slider to ‘blend’ those volumes. Maybe that’s better for some users because it’s MUCH less complex, but I really wish they gave us an option. Maybe give the app the ability to select “simple mode” vs “detailed mode” for that. That’s a drawback, if you ask me. I understand trying to make things ‘caveman simple’ for the cavemen out there, but seriously….there aren’t many cavemen left. Let’s start giving people more options and if they can’t bash it with a club to make it work, then maybe they should learn to read and then use it properly.The MESH network is flawless. Yep, flawless. The sound is crystal clear, the connectivity is fantastic. There’s nearly ZERO lag, tested as far away as about 100 yards. I’m anxious to test it to its distance limits to see how that works out as I’ve heard that’s a sore spot for most of these units. But as I’ve said all along to people, if you end up separating from your riding group by a distance not covered by the MESH network, just place a quick phone call (using the VOICE COMMAND, by the way….) and tell them to hurry up and catch up! If you separate from your passenger by too far for the MESH network, then you probably don’t want to make that phone call because she/he’s gonna be pissed you left her/him behind. Better to just keep on riding and send an Uber. Wait a few days to go home...The music is clear and pretty well integrated. I have an iPhone and I use Apple Music. I simply play the Apple Music as I normally would and it goes to the Slim. I have an Apple Watch that I use to control the music and it works the same now that it goes through the Slim. I can control volume, track, pause, play, etc. There’s lots of capability in the Connect app to also control it, but I’m so used to using my watch that I’ll likely just stick with that. A nice thing about the Connect app is that it has a sort of ‘quick access’ screen that places just about everything on one screen. For those that have a handlebar mount, it’s a quick and easy screen to navigate. Kinda nice (though I’d still like it to ‘look’ nicer, but that’s just me). What I really like is the nice attenuation (see earlier statement on setting volumes) feature that will quiet the music nicely when someone in the MESH network is speaking. You can set it to completely attenuate the music or varying levels between that and no attenuation at all. No one likes when the chatty-cathy ruins the entire 37 second into to Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion. So, you can set it up to assure you get the full Aerosmith experience while still saying you were listening to how great that garden looked around that last bend.If you order the DUO kit, right out of the box, they’re set up with both a Bluetooth and MESH connection to eachother. I’ve not yet ridden with anyone else with the Cardo so I can’t say how easy it is to set up a group, but simply by looking at the app (there’s a way to set it up using just the unit’s buttons, but you’d likely have more luck guessing the vault combination at Fort Knox), getting close to people with the Cardo’s and creating a group. It truly does appear to be intuitive.There’s my first impression. Buy it.

I am an electronic gadget guy and I have had a lot of communicators for motorcycles starting way way back in the 80's before they were popular. These new wireless units are the best I have ever used and the most versatile. You will see reviews that say there are a lot of problems with these units but that usually is a result of the nuances of installing them correctly and understanding how to twink them to work for your situation rather than faulty units or bad engineering. That being said...these units are very versatile but try to do almost too much for many people. Being versatile is usually good but it always adds more complication so if you are not good with gadgets you can have trouble with these units getting everything dialed in correctly. I do believe that Cardo has a superior product and it's engineering is sound. There is room for improvement in several areas. 1. The documentation is good but less than great. I find that the company could update it's online manuals to be more accurate and reflective of their updates in their software. They do have an online set of videos that go a long way to explain how to use their units but it not that detailed. There are other places you must go on line for solving tricky technical problems or go to a friend that is well versed in the product. 2. The app that cardo puts out for your smartphone to assist you in operating these units has a few bugs that still needs to be worked out. You don't need the app to use the units but boy I can tell you that the app is very very helpful. Again there is a balance of versatility vs complication. I think over time these units will get even better especially as they are able to clean up a few bugs in their software and documentation. There are now forums on line that are starting to form from users that hare having problems dialing in these units. Be aware that people don't usually write in these forums unless they have a problem so problems are often statistically overstated. Of course a product that you can't use is of course a bad product by anyone's measurement. I would guess that of the 100,000 units that are sold 10% have problems that the user could not solve himself. I would buy only from a source that would take a return. My bottom line is that these communicators are on average amazingly good in most all but every situation.

I have nothing but great things to say about the Packtk bold. It has worked flawless on my bike trip. After downloading the. Cardo app and setting it up I have been so happy with all the product. Communication is great to about 1/2 mile and music and telephone connections have worked very well. Absolutly reccommend to anyone thinking of purchasing the Cardo product

Me gusto mucho el intercomunicador justo lo que buscaba

After dealing with a couple of problem SENA units I decided to try Cardo as recommended by a friend. Wish I would have bought Cardo from the start. It checks every box and out performs SENA in every category. I'm comparing it to SENA's flagship the 50S. Garbage unit and the apps are even worse. Sound quality on packtalk bold is outstanding and the volume is perfect. Voice commands are on point and it hasn't called random contacts as my SENA was doing when I asked it to change the song. Do yourself a favour and buy Cardo.

El mejor intercomunicador del mercado, funciona de maravilla con la r1200gs adv tft

Muy bueno