SENA SPIDER INTERCOMS

Mark Byers

As frequent two-up riders, Betsy and I have used a number of intercoms, from a cheap wired model to a more expensive, but effective wired one. Our rst wireless model used Bluetooth technology, was not a common brand, and worked well except it wasn’t loud enough to use with earplugs at highway speeds. Then came the Sena Spider wireless mesh intercoms.

The Spiders are not classic Bluetooth units - in fact, they won’t communicate with legacy Bluetooth intercoms. Yes, they will still connect to your phone, GPS, and other devices using Bluetooth; however, they do not communicate with each other over Bluetooth. The Sena Spiders use a military-derived “mesh radio network” to talk to each other.

As you may be painfully aware, Bluetooth devices must be “paired” with each other, whereas mesh systems all talk freely with anyone on their mesh frequency.

Think about it like this: with Bluetooth, only the people with a special invitation (pairing) can come to the party. With mesh, everyone can come to the party - no pairing required! But what if you don’t WANT everyone to talk to everyone else? Well, you can set up closed talk groups from among the participants in the mesh party line. We weren’t able to test that feature because no one else at the Backroads Spring Break had mesh systems, but as they become more prevalent, we will.

What we DID test was the ability of the systems to pair with our phones and to communicate not only through them, but with each other. I called Betsy on my phone using the Spider ST1 system in my helmet and she reported the audio was “clear as a bell.” I received a call on the way to the Spring Break and pulled over to take it. The lady on the other end was shocked at the clarity coming through a helmet microphone and Bluetooth link to my iPhone 13.

The real thing we needed to hear, however, was the pilot-to-pillion comms with earplugs installed while riding at highway speeds. And hear we did, as the volume settings were loud enough to work under those conditions! Voice communications using the Sena “HD” speaker systems were excellent and one night I sat around listening to music from my phone via the helmet speakers and they proved very good in that regime, on a par with ear buds.

The two systems are slightly different: the ST1 has 3 buttons plus a circular “jog-dial” for volume control and some functions, while the RT1 has a simpler, 4-button control scheme. Both worked well for our purposes. Both systems come with a mounting clamp or adhesive pads to attach them to the helmet. Using the clamp on our Shoei Neotec helmets, only the ST1 is readily removable for charging and storage, while the RT1 is adhesively mounted to the clamp and doesn’t come off. It’s a minor inconvenience.

Otherwise, mounting was a snap, with the HD speakers tting exactly into the holes Shoei provided in the Neotec. Two mics are included, one for ipfronts like the Neotec and one for solid chin bar helmets. The boom mic t perfectly into the groove provided in the Neotec. Charging was quick and easy with an included, 90-degree USB C cable and the charging ports were capped by a rubber plug when not in use to keep things waterproof. The units are small and unnoticeable on the left, bottom side of the helmets, just aft of center. Battery life was very good - enough for us to use them all day on our way to/from the Spring Break, a travel time of six hours each way. We deliberately left them on when we sat down for lunch and we still had power when we reached our destination. I did learn that if you have them paired with your phone and take the phone out of range of the helmet, it will burn power as the Spider tries to re-pair with the phone. There’s an easy x to that: turn it off when you’re not using it! Or, you can shut off phone pairing with the touch of a button.

After four days of use between pilot and passenger, I can say that we believe Sena has a real hit on their hands with both the Spider ST1 and RT1 mesh intercoms. They are now our go-to systems. We look forward to the ability to try them with more mesh users, so go get one! ,