PRODUCT REVIEW
CARDO LETS THE PACK TALK
Music, no shouting at junctions and more, Ray Heron looks at Cardo’s mesh communications.
Words & Photos: Raymond Heron
F
or some time now the motorcycle
communications game has been something
of a two horse race on the world scene,
but here in NZ only one of those horses was
actually running. In 2020 Darbi Accessories
become the Cardo agent here in NZ, making
it a two horse race.
Cardo Systems makes wireless communicators,
that fix to your helmet, allowing you to talk
to other riders, pillions, listen to music, hear
turn by turn navigation and make phone calls
– all as you ride.
Up until now, wireless communicators have
been a bit average with non-waterproof,
Bluetooth units being used across the, which
were a pain to use. A group of riders would have
to pair their communicators in a certain order,
and they would have to remember to ride in
that order for the duration of the ride in order
to get full communication from the front to the
back of the pack. If one rider dropped out of
the line, they would break the chain of
communication. Game over.
MESH
It seemed Bluetooth was the only way to
do this, but Cardo’s R&D team came up with
Dynamic Mesh Communications (DMC), which
it says is the next generation of intercom tech.
With mesh, all the riders are continually
28 KIWI RIDER