Hearing difficulties and intercoms

[DaddyPaddey]

I suffer from considerable hearing difficulties, which is made worse with the wind whistling through the hearing aids. I ride a recumbent trike and my regular cycling buddy gets fed up with having to repeat everything three times!

I recently saw a couple on a tandem who appeared to have some sort of 'intercom' attached to their helmets. Does anyone have any experience of these and if so could I be pointed in the right direction, please. It would need to be of the wireless variety, for obvious reasons.

Roger

 

[Emanresu]

I use a Sena M1 which is linked to my phone. It was heavily discounted as the bluetooth didn't work which was fixed by updating the firmware.

Linked to the phone over bluetooth you can get anything the phone offers such as GPS, calls, music etc. If you cycle with other Sena owners you can set up a mesh intercom which is what I think you are suggesting. Sena make versions for motorbikes, skiing, marine and other outdoor needs.

 

[numbnuts]

Even with an intercom you will still get wind noises

 

[Conrad_K]

Some driving schools use helmet intercoms for "track days." A flat earphone slides up inside your helmet, with a boom mike in front. Friction from the helmet keeps it in place.

My problem was the earphone part. I'm mostly deaf, but loud noises fire my tinnitus up to where I can't make out anything at all, no matter how loud. It just sounds like a radio with a busted speaker.

The intercoms didn't have any kind of noise limiting functionality, so if the instructor got excited it was like having someone shoot a firecracked off in my ear, at which point I was doing good to keep the car on the track due to the pain, and then we were reduced to hand signals for an hour or so afterward. After that I refused to wear the intercom.

I would expect that problem has been addressed in modern hardware, but it took a remarkably long time before hearing aids got them, and even then, audiologists typically don't enable the function. The last set of hearing aids I got, the audiologist said he'd never messed with those settings before.