Scala G4

[GeorgeH]

I'm thinking of moving from a wired Autocom to the Scala G4 bluetooth headset stuff.
Anyone think these are good or bad?
What is the DAB radio really like and the comms to another bike...

 

[Bumpkin]

For bike-to-bike your riding buddies will need to be using Scala kit as well, there's no cross comparability between brands for the long range Bluetooth comms. That's unless you use an Interphone Tribe, Midland G8 Bluetooth PMR or a Bluetooth PMR dongle.

Just bought a Tribe for my misguided, Interphone using, touring buddy to use next week.

IMHO I think Bluetooth bike comms haven't got there yet. For the use that some people put them to they're fine. Not as versatile as a decent wired system though and you need to charge them.

 

[mermoto]

A friend of mine has just got these and used them for a trip to Wales last week and said they were brilliant and covered a long range. He said if it broke tomorrow he would go straight out and buy another one. That sounds like a good recommendation to me.

Mermoto

 

[GeorgeH]

A friend of mine has just got these and used them for a trip to Wales last week and said they were brilliant and covered a long range. He said if it broke tomorrow he would go straight out and buy another one. That sounds like a good recommendation to me.

Mermoto

Now thats just what I wanted to hear...

 

[andyclift]

Just bought a pair of these and still experimenting but first impressions are very good but there are a few things to think about.

The unit have priorities on what input to send to ears and these are not user selectable. This means that a mobile phone or satnav signal will cut any voice comms. So far makes sense but my wife uses her Garmin 550 as an MP3 player which means it is outputting all the time. The result is that it is not possible to talk to her. Maybe there is a solution but have not found one yet. The only answer so far is to use her iPod for music as that has a low priority.

On the other side the sound is much clearer at higher speeds than our Autocoms, they pair easily with our GPSs, battery life is good and it seems possibly to use while charging from the bike which could not be done with earlier Scalas (standard USB lead). Also I can walk away from the bike or stand on pegs without any cables to worry about.

The killer feature for me is the radio. I had read reports that it was not very good but I have set up the presets for a couple of BBC stations and some local stuff and its great. Coming home from work on the M25 today I could listen to the news at OTT speeds with no problem. Much better than any o the DAB or FM personal radios I have tried in the past. Maybe it will not be so good in poor reception areas but I mainly want a radio during boring commuting and it does the job perfectly.

 

[mr badger]

Happy so far after 15 months.

Could be a little louder at speed as we both use heavy duty ear plugs.

 

[daesimps]

andyclift,

The problem with your wife's setup is that the Zumo 550 doesn't actually output music as bluetooth "music". It actually outputs it as "phone sounds".

The upshot of this is that your wife's Scala always thinks she is on the phone. The other drawback is that the quality of the music will be terrible as it's only telephone quality.

There are 2 options for you, both which will result in you being able to talk to the wife and also her receiving proper stereo quality music. The options are either connect the Zumo to the Scala by a cable (what my wife does with her Zumo 550) or connect an A2DP transmitter to the Zumo and pair the G4 with the transmitter. If you do this then you'll have to go into the Zumo settings and set the bluetooth to "phone only". This will mean that the Zumo talks bluetooth to the G4 for phone calls, but sends music and navigation out over the wire to the transmitter. This will get your priorities correct on the G4 and allow everything to work.

One point to note - if you connect music to the G4 via a cable then you will lose the VOX feature and have to press the button at the beginning and end of the conversation to open and close the intercom.


Dae.

 

[SkyGod]

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