The first thing I want to say about the UCLEAR HBC 100 Moto helmet communicator I've been testing is that it is fantastic.
Kelly Kern was helping me do the testing, because she has a bluetooth-enabled cell phone and I don't. I asked Kelly her impression.
"Love it! The sound quality is amazing. The no cords is fantastic."
Then later, in an email to our mutual friend Alan Baumbach, which Alan forwarded to me, she told him, "You think I like these things? I told Ken I HAVE to have one!"
So let's back up. Kelly came over and I installed the communicator in her helmet, which was a pretty simple procedure. The combination speaker/microphone has Velcro-like hooks on the back side so once we determined where best to put them it was just a matter of pressing them into place. The wires between the speakers and the unit itself tucked into the recesses of the helmet and the unit clipped to the shell. The weather-resistant unit sits on the outside where you can reach up and press whichever of the three large buttons are appropriate depending on what you want to do.
We went outside and started walking opposite directions down the sidewalk to see how far we could maintain a connection. At about 100 feet the signal started breaking up. We didn't take that to be a good sign but we got on our bikes and took off and it appears the signal carries better when you're in motion than when you're not. We got out on the highway, going up to 75 mph, and found that even at a distance of perhaps 1/10th of a mile the signal was just as clear as could be.
And the thing was, we were just talking.
"You just talk like you're standing next to each other," Kelly remarked afterward.
There are no annoying booms to position close in front of your mouth. There was no need to make some preliminary sound to fire up voice-activation. We just talked. It was that simple.
And it was so nice to be able to do that. Leaving the neighborhood, I was in the lead and had deliberately gotten a way ahead of her, so when I came to a traffic signal, which was green, I just asked, "Are you going to be able to make this light?"
"Yep," she replied. "I'm right on your tail."
And later, when we wanted to stop and switch over to a different mode on the communicator I just said, "Let's turn left here into this parking lot." And we did.
Switching modes
The HBC 100 does a lot more than just provide rider to passenger or rider to rider communication. It will connect with your bluetooth-enabled cell phone, allowing you to make use of many of the phone's functions. I will make the point, however, that it won't do more than one thing at a time. In order to switch over to playing music or talking on the phone, Kelly had to break off the connection to me.
So we pulled off and she switched to music.
"I use an iPod when I ride now because it's smaller, more compact than my phone is, and I can slip it in my pocket and do it that way. But I have cords. It's really nice to have this, plus, if a phone call comes in I can answer the phone and then it goes back."
Then she called her dad.
"I asked him to tell me if he could tell when I started riding. And he said he never could tell a difference between when I was sitting still and we got up to about 55 mph. He said the quality never changed. I had him hang up and it automatically flipped back to music. So he called me back about 15 seconds later, the call came in prefectly clear, the music shut off, the call came in, and he hung up, the music came back, no problem."
Answering the phone was no problem because that is voice-activated. All Kelly had to do was say "Hello" and the call came through. Many of these capabilities are dependent on you having a cell phone that offers them -- Kelly has a Droid X -- so if you do, for instance, you can push the right buttons on the unit and then speak the phone number you want to call.
Now, it's pushing the right buttons that is kind of an issue, at least at first. We motorcyclists rant endlessly about distracted drivers paying attention to their cellphones instead of to the road. The last thing we want to do is copy them, which is why when we wanted to switch to music and the phone, Kelly and I stopped. And then we never switched back to bike to bike communication until we got back to my house. All that would have required, by the way, would have been for her to push the right button twice, but we were still learning.
We did have troubles at first figuring out how to do what we wanted to do but it was a learning curve kind of thing. Neither of us had any doubt that once you did it for a while it would all come pretty naturally. And as opposed to someone texting while they drive, there's nothing here for you to look at, so you'll continue to watch the road while you reach up with your left hand to push a button or two. And I'm sure it's no accident that the buttons are large.
Finally, we wanted to test the unit with Kelly's half-helmet, wondering about the wind noise. I called her from the home phone while she was out in the driveway, she answered the call, and then rode around the block. We could hear each other perfectly the whole time and at no time did I ever hear the sound of her bike, a Harley. Even when I could hear the bike coming up the street I couldn't hear it over the phone. And when we were both on bikes neither of us could hear the other's bike.
Summation
The one unfortunate thing I will point out about the HBC 100 is that you cannot connect more than two helmets at one time. So if you're riding with five guys, you cannot all five be in on one conversation. If I was one of the honchos at UCLEAR I would have multiple connections at the top of my list for the next product upgrade.
Still, my wife Judy and I have used another communicator and the HBC 100 is so far, far better than that one that there is no comparison at all. We love using this one. And Kelly loves it, too. I'd say we all give it the highest rating available. This thing is fabulous.
The HBC 100 is available from the UCLEAR website for $199.95. You would need to either buy two, which would give each of you full music and cell phone capabilites, or buy one and also get the Universal Accessory Kit, for $49.95, which includes "Everything you need to use your HBC 100 controller with a second helmet."
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