Cardo Connect

I’ve had my Cardo Freecom 4+ for 4 years and I use it every time I ride my 2012 GoldWing. I initially bought it to replace using my 40 channel bc my riding buddy didn’t have a cb. He has a Pack Talk Bold and they work very well together. Over the years I’ve gradually started using it on my solo rides for phone conversations with clients for work. This allows me to enjoy the freedoms of riding with missing conference calls. The Cardo system does a great job of eliminating road noise as my coworkers and clients can’t tell that I’m not in the office on the phone. It easily interacts with Siri for extended hands free operations. I’ve gone on road trips for multiple days without charging and it has never run out of battery. The sounds is very clear rather I’m listening to music, intercom or receiving a call. It also plays well with other brands. I’m not sure if the JBL branded sound is worth the extra. If you can get a model without it save the money. Those speakers within a helmet environment is not going to blow your mind. The voice commands all work wonderfully with the majority of my voice commands being for the intercom, receiving calls selecting music. They are very easy to update when new firmware is available. I highly recommend the Cardo brand unit.

Just got the Edge which took 10 minutes to install on my helmet (awesome) and another 10 to update the firmware. Took about 25 minutes to connect to my old unit (Sena 10r) using Bluetooth functionality. I’m not very experienced with the 10r either but after a little trail and error my GF and I were chatting it up on the road. I messed around with this app a bit and got music playing on my end but I wish I could have shared it with her as well, not sure if it’s possible but that was one of the biggest reasons I went ahead with buying another unit, ya know, would be nice, jam some tunes together and chat but I guess I’ll have to buy another Edge to make that a reality. I will say the Cardo Edge sounds waaaay better than the 10r. Not sure if that’s much of a surprise considering the Edge is a much newer unit but they’re still not much different in price so it’s a no brainer which unit I would purchase a second of. However the 10r is nice and sleek, I like the design much more but I know Cardo has their Slim version as well so whatever. Pros and cons, always. I give 4 stars only because this is still new to me.

Considering the top tier “edge” device, the pairing process between DMC supported and non DMC supported devices is a very poor experience. The app does an awful job of making things as self explanatory as possible. When all you and your group wants to do is ride and enjoy, there’s a good change that you’ll spend half your day on the side of the road looking for shade while pressing an endless amount of buttons and listening to ear bleeding beeps and boops that could instead be helpful voice prompts trying to keep it together. The app struggles to control music volume consistently between listening to music as background audio during a conference or when not in a conference at all. When music is playing during a conference, source audio is forcefully set to “100%” regardless of changing iOS playback volume and the volume jog wheel on the Edge becomes the ultimate controller but music always sounds “hot” or clipped with some distortion even at lower playback volumes. When intercom is turned off, this strange behavior goes away. Considering these units have been around for nearly a year now and this app for years beyond, this is a D+ for user experience. This app / these devices also REALLY need true EQ control. The mids/highs coming from the cardo edge in particular has awful hard coded EQ options with very, very low treble. No amount of adjusting the speakers to be flush with the ears, using earphone cushions to seal the audio to one’s ears, etc does not help.