I'm certain others will have a different view but this was my experience with Packtalk Slim and Tour X4.
This is my first communication unit ever. So I have no reference to compare too however, I did a fair bit of research, reading reviews and watching youtube videos of which there are many that promote it as a top rated item….and some that suggest it isn’t quite that. It certainly wasn’t the cheapest at £412 for a duel set but I decided to come off the fence and picked PT Slim.
Apart from the reviews I settled on this unit because it was unobtrusive on the outside of the helmet, voice controlled (in part), waterproof, simple to use and connected to your phone via the Cardo app.
The unit was fairly easy to fit to my Arai Tour X4 and after I’d set mine up with a firmware update I sat in the living with my hat on and using the ‘app’ phoned my wife in the kitchen…the sound was excellent. Not that I bought it to do so I played a few tunes and the voice controls all seemed to work at advertised too. So far so good. The next day I went for a ride and used the telephone and music function again. At slow speeds (30-40mph) it was no problem to hear/communicate but at 60 -70mph it was a struggle to hear anything.
Perhaps I could move the JBL speakers around and it would be better. I tried and it wasn’t.
Perhaps I could adjust the audio settings and that would make things clearer. It didn’t.
Even at full volume it was a struggle to hear when travelling at anything above 60mph but maybe they're all like that!
I normally wear earplugs when riding but even at the lower speeds with the highest volume level it was still difficult to hear and even without earplugs it was a competition between road noise, wind noise and the speakers. I wear a helmet size that actually fits properly and my hearing is fine so that was a little disappointing.
I returned home and then tried to pair it with my wife's helmet to test the intercom. No joy. The instructions were fairly straight forward but it simply didn’t seem to work very well at all. It really should be this difficult should it!
I tried connecting them back up to the Cardo Community (the place where you can link the units via your computer and then make adjustments) to see if there were some alternative settings. However, neither unit was now recognised by Cardo. Strange I thought….maybe I was tired or the internet was playing up so I put my new toys down to return the next day.
Refreshed and keen once more I tried connecting the intercom function….nope, nothing, zilch, nada. Bugger.
I tried connecting them to the ‘community’ again and still they were not recognised.
I know ... Factory reset - control alt delete …..standard operating procedure right. Wrong….nope, nothing, zilch, nada. Double bugger!
I emailed Cardo and unexpectedly received an email back within a few hours stating that the ‘community’ was no longer used and that all adjustments were done via the ‘app’. A bit strange as the ‘community’ remains active and nothing on Cardo pages state this. Not to worry. I connected one device to the app…..nope, nothing, zilch, nada. I tried the other device….and you know what’s coming….triple bugger!
So now neither device connects to the ‘community’ or the app rendering me unable to make any further adjustments to any of the settings.
Maybe they were faulty units but it really shouldn’t be this difficult and in any event the sound quality was poor and not as expected at all but thankfully returned to Amazon for full refund.
So back to the drawing board.