Sena R1 Evo - Intercom while music playing?

[RawhideKid]

Question for y’all - my wife and i got Sena R1 EVO helmets for Christmas. Tested them today.

When we both have music streaming from our phones to the helmets, how do we intercom to each other? We know that if we both turn mesh intercom on at the same time (via button or voice control), we can speak to each other. But if I’m streaming music from my phone, with mesh intercom off (although we connected earlier), and if my wife is behind me, if she hits her mesh intercom button (or verbally), how do I know to turn mine on so I can receive from her?

I don’t think there is a way for her to speak to me unless I also press my intercom button or say “hey Sena, enable intercom”.

We are thinking perhaps we can do a hand signal, or a horn sound - 3 bell chimes - if I can hear it when I’m ahead of her.

Overall, we like the helmets but concerned about this issue. We don’t want to be on mesh intercom all the time, as we want to listen to music. But we do want intercom to interrupt our music when needed, even if we have to press a button to do so. Just knowing when to do so seems like the key question - wish it beeped or something at me so I would know an intercom was trying to contact me.

Thanks for any thoughts. Much appreciated. My sena motorcycle helmets have a “live intercom” mode where the streaming music pauses when my linked other rider speaks to me, and the music pauses when they stop speaking.

 

[Deacon Blues]

I've thought about getting a two of these helmets for my wife and I, but my main concern is the same as what you're talking about. I listen to music while I ride, but my wife doesn't. Reading the literature I couldn't figure out how she would be able to talk to me, with my music playing.

With my Aftershokz bone conductor headphone I now use I hear a 'beep' sound when someone is trying to phone me. I would think it wouldn't be too difficult for Sena to have a similar function with their intercom system. If not, the helmets would be a waste of money for my wife and I.

I'll be interested if you find a solution.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Does anyone own the Sena R1 Evo helmet? Can it connect to two Bluetooth devices or just to one?

 

[AlanDB]

It would be nice if the R1 Evo had some way to alert others using your channel with something like a beep to tell them to switch on their intercoms. We use the intercom feature almost exclusively and leave it turned on during our ride except when we stop at a rest area we will sometimes listen to FM or music. I do think the inability to alert other users listening to music that they are being hailed over intercom is a flaw in the mesh network intercom concept and design.

We really like our R1 Evo helmets and wouldn't be without them. Most of the software bugs have been resolved with the latest firmware. The only other problem we still have is from ambient noise giving false positives on the voice prompt. In other words, it goes into voice command mode even though we never said "Hello Sena".