(Robert Browning)
And if he had known about bluetooth, intercoms and headsets, they would have been in there as well.
I have a Cardo Headset as do many other riders in the club.
My brother acquired a Sena.
They both use Mesh intercoms - so like a fully connected mesh in internet terminology - anyone can talk to anyone else, and the range is much better than the BT range. Also the range is extended the more people that there are in the group. So 2 mesh units can be about half a mile apart if the terrain allows it. 4 people in the group can each have half a mile or so between them. 1.5 miles covering the entire group if they are evenly spaced.
Except Sena uses Mesh and Cardo uses Mesh. And they are not the same. Think VHS and BetaMax.
But they can both use Bluetooth as well - as a means of communicating one to the other. So we tried that. What a dead loss that was. It worked fine until he dropped behind by about 100m, when the conenction was dropped and it didn't reconnect when he came back into range.
Except ... Cardo introduced a way of connecting them by building a BT bridge. But it still relied on BT, so no use for me.
And then ... Sena introduced a device called Meshport Blue. A device with an aerial - no bigger than a headset. It takes a BT signal (from a headest) and passes it on to a Sena Mesh. All it needs is for a Cardo on a Cardo mesh, in close proximity to the the Meshport Blue, to act as a bridge between the two systems.
So I bought a Meshport Blue. And just about the time I was going to start playing with it to see how well it would work - one of the buttons on my Cardo froze solid, and it had to be sent for repair / replacement. A brand new unit came back a couple of weeks later. Just enough time to have ruined a touring holiday. WHen I had autocom intercoms, I always carried spare mics and leads and a couple of spare earphones. And that reminded me of how not having intercom would ruin a holiday tour. Having a spare Cardo would not be a bad idea. So I bought another Cardo unit as an emergency standby.
Today I got round to trying to get these two new toys to work together - without having a Sena headset to try it on.
There are two ways of doing this that I could see.
1) Have the Sena set up to use BT. Set up the spare cardo as part of the cardo mesh, but have that as the BT bridge. Put the spare cardo in my brother's pocket so he never gets more than a few feet away from the Sena headset. Except, if we are on a ride with the club, there isn't always a convenient place to stop and hand back the Cardo.
2) Set up my Cardo with the BT bridge and link that to the Meshport Blue which is mounted on my bars. The BT link is only a few feet and the Meshport Blue will connect to the Sena Mesh whenever it is in range.
So it is the second option I went for. And I've spent all last night, and all today so far, trying to get it wo work.
And here I have to confess to a bit of stupidity. I thought that the Cardo Edge could handle more than one BT connection. Partly because when conencting the Headset, you get to choose: Phone 1, Phone 2, GPS, or Bike. And I thought the cardo app on my phone was conencted while the headset was also paired to the Zumo.
Apparently not. Every time I tried to make a BT bridge, I lost all sound from the Zumo. I stillc ant believe that the Cardo can olnly connect to one thing.
So instead I decided to use the new (spare) cardo, put that in my Mesh group and make that have the BT bridge. That cardo will go into my pocket and stay turned on. It will talk to the meshport blue on my handle bars which talks to the Sena mesh. All of the connections remains after the units are turned off, but the meshport blue might need a tap of the single switch to wake it up again.
Technical bit to get this working.
This is completely irrelevant unless you have the same set up. But one day someone will come along and want to know....
Factory reset the Meshport Blue.
- From off, hold in the button for about 11 seconds until the LED flashed a white colour. Release the button.
- With the Cardo turned on, press the top intercom button for 5 seconds. "Searching for Group"
- All other users intending to be part of the group do exactly the same thing.
- After a minute, the message in the earpiece says how many have joined the group.
- Once powered up, hold the phone and intercom buttons (top and bottom) for 5 seconds. The light changes to flashing blue - 1 flash every four seconds.
- Press the intercom pairing button on the Cardo for 5 seconds and then turn on the Meshport blue. That is a short press until the light flashes. A series of light flashes will follow and then a rapid red/blue flash to indicate that it is pairing. (It goes into pairing mode the first time it is turned on after a syetm reset)
- After a minute or so, the lights stop flashing. A message in the earphones will indicate Rider A connected and that Mesh Intercom is availabale , Channel 1.
- A single short press of the switch on the Meshport Blue will turn on / or off the connection to the Sena Mesh. "Mesh Intercom Off" (or "Mesh Intercom On, Open Mesh, Chanel 1")
- A single short press of the Intercom button on the Cardo will break the connection, and then say that "Rider A is not available". Another single short press will restore the connection.
- All single short presses take a few long seconds before the other device responds. Don't be tempted to press the button again, otherwise you willc ancel the previous press.
- All members of the CArdo Mesh will hear the message about the connection being made or broken.
I have not given up completely on getting it to link from my headset. I can't believe that it isn't possible without destroying my GPS connection.