Can You Hear Me Now?

 

If you said, "Commercials for Verizon, featuring actor Paul Marcarelli, in the 2000s, showcasing Verizon's network reliability," you get 10 bonus points.  If you knew he bailed from Verizon and went to Sprint for a while, but is now back with Verizon again, you are watching too many commercials.

With the new e-bike and Joan's renewed interest in her Trail Viper e-bike, we have been riding together again.  Joan asked if anyone made helmet communicators for bicycle helmets like what we have for our motorcycle helmets... "Well, as a matter of fact, yes they do."  I told her I would do some research.

We had a couple units picked out that attach to the bike helmets we have.  Right before clicking "Buy Now," I came across a hot deal from Sena.  For those not familiar, Sena is a company well-known in the motorcycle world for making very nice helmet communicators.  Not inexpensive.  But, they had bicycle helmets with Mesh Technology (faster, more reliable connection between riders) at a really good price.  As in: about the same as the inexpensive units I had picked out, but these Sena units are built in to a very nice smart bicycle helmet... nothing hanging off the side!  I have no idea if this model is being updated by a newer model, but the price was too good to pass on.  

We ordered them.

And yesterday afternoon they showed up...

 After giving them a full charge, I connected each of them to our respective phones, then checked for a firmware update, and then paired them... yep, pretty slick.  And, they are comfortable.  That black area you see on the helmet at my forehead is the microphone.  The speakers are built into the helmet just above the ears.  Nice design!  And easily the nicest bicycle helmets we've had.  Besides all the whiz-bang connectivity, they have flashing red lights on the back for added visibility.  And, these communicators come with Alexa... I'm thinking you could place an Amazon order while out for a ride, but they say it's more for "checking weather, listening to music, etc."

"Alexa, tell me a bicycle joke..."