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I’m a rider of many styles, with my main riding being either adventure or sport touring. One thing that I’ve found about sport touring is that the slab is torturous. It’s not the butt-numbing mile munching, it’s that I can only stand singing cappella in my helmet for so long. To combat that, I listen to music. But let’s not get into the pros and cons of listening to music or radio in the helmet. If you hate it, you know why, and if you love it, you accept the additional risks associated. Enter the Interphone F5.
The Interphone F5 is a Bluetooth intercom system. What’s that mean? It means you can talk to another nearby intercom of the same type. The units are conveniently sold in pairs ($499 list) or singly ($299 list). The manufacturer claims that if you daisy chain six of these units, each will act as a repeater, and interestingly, your conversations can be strung out over a mile. We weren’t able to verify that as we only tested a pair for this review.
The unit uses A2DP for streaming stereo music, and it also comes with a 3.5mm plug (and cable—a nice touch) for your non-Bluetooth devices. I found there was little-to-no sound quality loss using the Bluetooth instead of the plug, and the Lithium ion battery had enough guts to play at full volume for more than six hours.
The unit is very well constructed. The outer coating is rubberized, and while light weight, it has a very solid feel. Squeezing and twisting it gave no creaking sounds, and it’s certified as waterproof when the included silicone grease is applied to the connector with the included applicator. Off the helmet, the buttons seemed awkward and pointy, but in use, they were easy-to-locate with gloved hands, and more importantly, easy-to-operate.
I installed the Interphone F5 on an AFX FX-39 DS helmet in about ten minutes. The instructions were useful, and as the kit included everything I needed, mounting was trivial. I ended up using the helmet clamp for mounting, and there was even a small screwdriver in the kit to make things easier, a nice touch. I used the Velcro method for securing the speakers in the helmet, and I’m glad I did—because it took a bit of trial and error to get the speakers into the exact right location—as speaker placement had a huge impact on volume, sound quality, and comfort.
RTFM... seriously. I decided that it should just be intuitive and didn’t read the manual beyond getting it paired with my Blackberry, and it didn’t always behave exactly how I anticipated. However, I was always able to get it to work, and the voice prompts made navigation a breeze. Also, Bluetooth pairing was completely painless, and once set up, it paired very quickly thereafter. The device is loaded with features, even including a built-in FM radio. Not so useful when you’re covering lots of ground, but handy if you’re staying local.
After many hours with the Interphone F5, I’m very pleased with it. Because I wear earplugs when I ride, other headsets have come up way short—they simply don’t have the oomph to get out enough sound. The F5 not only had enough power when the volume was all the way up, it didn’t distort like the Scala. The result was that the Bach sounded as clean as the Bachmann Turner Overdrive. Using the Bluetooth, and having the volume at max, I got eight hours of battery life. I suspect that changing either of those factors would extend the battery life closer to their claimed eleven hours. Recharge time with the included charger is just a couple hours—something that was really handy during this trip. I had several hours of rain, and the unit never skipped a beat. InterPhoneWireless.com MSRP: $299.99
PROS |
CONS |
| ▲ Ease of installation, and everything is included | ▼ Costly |
| ▲ Ease of use | ▼ Battery life |
| ▲ Loud enough to cut through ear plugs | |
| ▲ Respectable battery life, and quick recharge |
Where to Buy:
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