Ride Gear Review: Cardo PACKTALK Bold Motorcycle Communication System Keeps You In Touch

Remember how you and your riding buddies would agree on some basic hand signals before heading out on a group ride? You had gestures for low on gas, need a bathroom break, road hazard and that special one for “police ahead with radar guns.” Handy to be sure, but ultimately ineffective because Randy Racer, who saw the cop first, is a mile ahead and can’t tip off the group, so it looks like everyone is getting a ticket. Bummer.

Enter modern technology.

In-helmet “intercoms” or “helmet radios” aren’t exactly new; they’ve been on the market for decades but were usually hard-wired systems and the purview of big-rig touring platforms. Back in the 1980s, I DIY’d a set of old headphones and some microphone internals into my Bell full face helmet so I could rock out to my Walkman and chat up truckers on CB as I rolled mile after mile on my old Honda GL500 Interstate. It worked pretty well – when it worked. Rainproof? Uh… no.

Technology offers a bit more functionality these days than our impromptu Motorcycle Sign Language inventions and my Radio Shack-approved DIY setup, and after my geeky-cool NUVIZ HUD system bricked because the company turned to vapor and hit the off switch on their app, I’ve been using the robust and flexible Cardo PACKTALK Bold system in my helmet. Thankfully, it takes advantage of all the connectivity modern tech has to offer.

Like most add-on systems, the Cardo PT Bold consists of a small transceiver module that mounts to the outside of your helmet, plus in-hat speakers and a mic on a flexible boom that mount up with adhesive pads. The mount has a quick-release for fast removal of the primary Cardo device. A built-in battery powers the whole affair for up to eight hours on a charge and naturally, it connects to a smartphone app wirelessly via Bluetooth for maximum performance. It even has a built-in FM radio and a snazzy little sci-fi pop-up antenna.

A glove-friendly roller control is used for hands-on volume adjustment and there are a trio of buttons you can blindly poke at while riding, but really, it’s just much easier (and far safer) to learn the short list of spoken commands the PT Bold understands (and understands surprisingly well) and just talk at it like you would Siri or Alexa. Keep those hands on the bars…

But the real special sauce in the Bold’s recipe is the “Dynamic Mesh Communication” (DMC) intercom tech, which allows riders to chat with a passenger as well as up to 15 other riders (who will all need a unit of their own) over a fair distance. It will also integrate with non-Cardo intercom systems and GPS devices that use Bluetooth. Cardo claims the mesh intercom can work over a distance of a mile under the best of circumstances, but I found it usually cut out in about a quarter of a mile, which they also say is fairly typical. Still, that’s impressive. Also, audio quality for those on the other end of your conversation, such as phone calls or the intercom, is consistently excellent. My wife could not tell I was on my bike when I called her while blowing down a lonely stretch of highway in Eastern Oregon (story below).

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There are no push-to-talk buttons to deal with while chatting over the intercom, you just talk, and it works. Flawlessly. You can also share music between units, and the overall flexibility of the Bold is fairly astonishing: I could listen to music from my phone, get directions from my Garmin XT GPS, talk on the phone and chat with my passenger and/or other riders, pretty much all at the same time. When I start talking, music and GPS volumes automatically mutes or drops as needed. Sounds levels also automatically adjust to road noise and the sensitivity is settable. Additionally, I could access my smartphone assistant by simply calling it out (”Hey Siri”) and have it send a text or have Siri read it to me. I try not to do this while riding, mind you, but I have done it on occasion while stuck in Portland’s now gridlocked traffic (no lane splitting here – yet), so I know it works. Please refrain from actual texting while riding or driving.

Setup is key to make it all work, but it’s also minimal and easy to do using the well-designed Cardo Connect smartphone app. How Cardo has pulled all this off is a minor tech miracle (or more likely just good design and hard work) and the company continues to refine the Bold operating software through updates, which require plugging the unit into your computer and using a simple updater app. The smartphone app tells users when an update is needed. It does not update over the air.

Bold units also charge through a micro-USB connection, which was very handy on one very long day in the saddle when I simply plugged it into the USB on a portable phone charger. The system operates while charging. You can even check the battery level using voice commands (they really didn’t miss a trick).

Any in-helmet comms system is fairly worthless if it sounds like crap, and Cardo has given the stock in-helmet earpieces both good volume and fidelity, especially while riding in town, where volume is plenty loud and sound quality is quite good, including bass response.

But at highway speeds on a motorcycle with no windscreen, typical for me, in-helmet noise levels are very high, mostly due to wind noise, and I often wear earplugs to help seal that out. At max volume, I can hear the Cardo through the earplugs, but the quality of the sound (especially for music) is greatly reduced, as is the volume. Cardo offered a plug-and-play upgraded set of speakers for 2019 models of the Bold developed with JBL, and while they sound even better than the stockers in town, earplugs, no matter what “strength” you use, still greatly reduce the audio quality and volume. I’d love to see Cardo introduce some earbuds (perhaps from JBL…) using Comply foam bits or something similar that can be replaced as needed. I used earbuds with foam inserts for years before I tried the Cardo PACKTALK Bold system, and I’m here to say a $20 pair of earbuds sounds better than the Cardo JBL bits running at max volume through earplugs. Here’s hoping it happens at some point.

That’s really my only complaint about the Cardo PACKTALK Bold system, and I have to say I now use it on pretty much every ride now. You might think it’s more “distraction” while riding, but I refuse to mount my phone on my handlebars because, hello, talk about a massive distraction. Instead, the phone stays in my jacket and the Cardo voice commands and automated systems let me keep my focus on the road ahead while supplying music, phone ups, intercom, nav bits and more in the most unobtrusive, automated way I can really imagine. And, it has an “off” button when you don’t want any interruptions into your Zen riding experience. Absolutely worth having.

Cardo PACKTALK Bold helmet comms system: MSRP $339 single unit, $599 for a pair (tested)

Connected:

• Easy to use, amazing flexibility

• Voice command system works very well

• Good sound quality

• App makes setup and changes simple

• Works with other intercom systems and devices

Static:

• Using earplugs dampens volume and audio quality

• No earbud option

• Expensive, but you get a lot for the money