Has anyone bought the new Interphone U-Com 16?

[Rasher]

I have compared new Interphone (UCOM-16) to my old Interphone Tour I bought 7 yers ago with the "pro-sound headset" and the difference is night and day with the new units "HD" Speakers being a lot quieter - hardly progress

As soon as I put lid on and tried music it was clearly not that loud, compared to old system and definately quieter, lined both helmets up on table, put in my "motorway" earplugs on, rather than putting lid on I played music through intercom, on old unit I could clearly hear the music and identify the song, on new unit I could not hear a thing, even with putting my ear right to the front of lid.

My guess is by 60-70 mph I will have no sound, compared with being able to speak normally and listen to music at a steady 80+ on French motorways.

Also the Interphone voice commands refuse to work for me or my wife, we have tried all sorts of speech volumes and Mic positions (mic working as made phone call to confirm) and the fast dial is not working, you hold down the phone key and hear "speed dial" from the unit but it does not dial, about 3 seconds later it declares "cancelled - this worked fine on my old unit.

So IMHO the old Tour units were great, especially with "pro-sound" speakers, simple to use and did everything promised on the box, I could do 2 long days touring with music no problem, or a weeks commuting of 10-11 hours of music at full blast, and at 7 years old the battery life seems about the same as when new, maybe it has dropped a little - but I cannot tell as it lasts longer than I even need it.

This new all singing all dancing Mesh system is just crap by comparison, key features do not work, volume is poor and it is not what I expected, apart from temping proce I bought it as I had been so impresses with the earlier unit, something has gone badly wrong over at interphone with Marketing budget almost certainly exceeding the devlopment budget, they have gone from under-promising and over-delivering to massively over-promising and delivering fuck all.

YMMV

Only downside to swap to Sena is the fact the unit on side of lid is the size of a brick, and it won't be compatible with Mrs old Interphone so I will need to upgrade her unit as well :-(

But no point spending £200 on something that does not work, when £300 gets me something that does - if it was not for desire to connect with mates Sena systems I would just get a refund and go back to old unit.

 

[Rasher]

UPDATE - UCOM-16 Vs Sena 50 Series

I have now bought a Sena S50R with Harmon Kardon, it is noticeably louder than the UCOM, but not by much - and maybe not enought to justify the £100 price differential, they were also still noticeably quiter than my old Interphone Tour "Pro-sound" headset - so nobody has bettered this with about a decade to do so, very surprising, althought the sound quality / depth on the HD & HK speakers is noticeably better.

Sena have just knocked 25% off the 50S / 50R, which was handy, and steered me easily to one of these over the integrated SRL Mesh, which was now a full £100 more.

On great benefit of going to a real store (Helmet City Oxford) and not buying online is I was able to see all of these units on a table in front of me, and how they looked, felt and fitted my helmet - handy, as it turned out the 50S was almost impossible to fit onto the "futuristic" shape (i.e. not a goldfish bowl replica like the helmets from when the average Tosser was a lad) of my Neotec 2, which has some thick edges at the bottom, and some sharp lines rather than curves, the clip on mount was really not gonna fit very well at all, and the stick on one could not fit anywhere on the side with part of it jutting away from the helmet - and possibly coming loose over time?

This led me to the issue of I now had no compatability with the Mrs old Interphone, so a the choice of a cheap Sena Spider - mesh only, and few "advanced features" - but seeing as they never appear to work that well anyway, and she would never piss about with them, it was not a deal breaker, but the chances are the sound would be similar to the U-Com 16 anyway, I decided to keep the U-Com and put it on the Mrs Arai, I say "I" but Helmet City did it all for me which was very kind of them - and then checked they connected up OK etc.

So I now have both, and a few hours of fucking around later...


Sena 50 Vs Interphone UCOM-16
Now back to the OP question here (maybe a bt out of date though it it) the Sena 50 & UCOM-16 are clearly virtually identical, the 3 buttons work exactly the same, although they are in a different order - like phone button at back on UCOM and front on Sena - but apart from that all the key presses are the same, the app is identical, except one has "Sena" in the name / branding and one has "Interphone" - but it is identical!

I think it is as close as buying the same spec Laptop from Dell or HP, you open them up and inside is the same chipset, memory modules, processor etc and they may bundle slightly different software with them. For example there are more voice commands that do not work on the Sena than there are to not work on the Interphone, a different coice for the instructions / information from the unit - annoyingly the Sena does not give remaining battery when turning off and the Interphone does - but minor point.

Look / Feel / Fit

The 50R has buttons rather than the mouse wheel thingy of the S, which I am more used to / prefer, it is fairly slim and neat as these things go, tidier than my old Interphone tour, however the UCOM is much slimmer still and looks great, mainly because the battery sits behind the helmet, which is fine, and probably it is way less likely to add wind noise like a large unit may.

On the Mrs Arai the UCOM clamp mount fitted easily, and the battery is stuck on with 3M stuff (Almost impossible to remove, but heat it up and it comes off leaving no trace - I know this as we had to do it to swap the unit form one lid to another) worth noting the 40mm HD speakers (same size / shape as Sena ones) fitted neatly in the pockets (whice are much smaller than the spaces in touring helmets) The U-Com also fitted beautifully on my Neotec 2 with the sticky mount.

The 50R fitted pretty well onto the Neotec 2 with the sticky mount, and the Harmon Kardon speakers are not any bigger than the HD ones from the UCOM (and probably the Sena HD ones)

The 50S is HUGE compared to both of these, but can be detached for charging, has a 3.5mm headphone socket and (ever so) slightly larger battery - but does stick out much further than the S, apart from that should all be the same.

Operational

Not used them in anger, but have played about with the apps for both (which are identical) and hooked them up to phone / sat nav etc - exact same process for both, down to button press sequences and hold times.

With helmet on and no earplugs both are very loud and give great audio quality, if I put in my "Motorway" earplugs, which are high SNR rating fam jobbies both systems give good sound quality and clarity - with a slight edge to the HK equipped Sena, but it really is quite close I think, road testing at speed may reveal a bit more difference, but its still gonna be close.

One interesting point is the Sena manual states if you pair GPS as a GPS then in Mesh mode it won't interupt shat, so if you are babbling on you may miss your motorway exit and end up on quite a detour, pairing as a second phone may resolve this - I need to get out to see.

The UCOM manual did not mention this, so perhaps another slight difference, but I need to wait until we are out on the road, babbling away, and a junction we need to turn at comes along.

Compatability

Sena and UCOM are 100% compatible on Mesh, again it is the exact same button presses to turn mesh on / off on both units, they connect instantly on open mesh, and Helmet City also setup a private group between the two units and that also worked fine.

The Sena will do a BT connection with other Sena's, and the Interphone will pair with other Interphones, including the older Interphone units like my old Tour (Handy as I will still use my old lid on occasions as it is not quite dead yet, so I can use my old lid and still connect to Mrs new comms)

Cardo brings a challenge, however they themselves have worked to get better BT connection to Sena, and you could have a load of mates with the Sena on Mesh, and the Cardo guy could BT to one of this group, and this would drag him into the mesh - but he would need to stay close to the fellow bikermate he paired to or will lose the connection.

So in theory if you had a mix of Sena and UCOM users on mesh, and a bloke with an old interphone and another with a Cardo you could all hook up in theory - however much easier if you can all join the Mesh.

Summary

There is very little between the UCOM-16 (most compact, best instruction manual & compatability with older BT Interphones) and the Sena 50R (Marginally better speakers, potentially better Mic / NR due to hook up with HK, but I think this is nore marketeering than anything and compatibility with older BT only Sena units.

The 50S gives a slight improvement on battery life over the 50R and has the 3.5mm Jack, and can be removed to charge - all handy extra features, but it is very big compared to other 2, has iffy waterproofing (Neither sena has a WP rating - whereas the UCOM does, however the 50R has less external facing ports or the electrical connection on the outside the S has, and is supposedly waterproof - but wthout official IPX rating)

IMHO all 3 units are so close as to being a personal preference kind of thing, or getting "what your mates have" - but remember the UCOM is really the Sena as far as I can tell, but they may take the piss out of you buying the "inferior cheaper one"

One last thing I almost forgot, battery life (MESH / BT)

50S: 12 / 11
50R 13 / 8
SRL Mesh: 8 / 8
UCOM: 15/10

Odd how the 50R claims more BT and less Mesh than the 50S, real world test by Bennets Bike Social show them much closer, and why the S only drops about 10% running Mesh and the R drops by 40% is a ral mystery - or a typo in their website???

For those who like to ride for more than 10 hours a days the UCOM does a 20 minute fast charge that gets you 3 hours Mesh and 6 Hours BT time which is impressive, you can also buy a slightly larger battery to give a bit more time, or carry two (or more) batteries if your going for some Iron-Butt 24 hour world record.

....

 

[Morety]

I bought the U-COM16 over the 50s because it was much neater, slimmer and has the option of uprated battery packs and is waterproof. Mesh compatible with all Sena Mesh equipped intercoms. Does what it says on the tin and works well. Impressed with volume and clarity, even at motorway speeds although voice commands occasionally play up (same is true of my Sena SRL Mesh unit).