Schuberth SRC comm system.. using it..

[deilenberger]

Guys. I have the G-9 unit on my Schubert C3. I have it bluetoothed to my Samsung Galaxy SIII. I had the same problems others have stated - cannot hear phone conversations with earplugs in. So I replaced the speakers in the helmet with a plug that allows me to plug in earbuds. Mine is the Klipsch S4 unit, which is noise isolating. Great sound. The G9 unit comes with speakers permanently wired to it. But I found a lady in Arizona who takes the unit apart, removes the headphone wires, installs a jack on the unit, and puts a male jack on the speakers. Now I can choose to use either the speakers or the earbuds.

That hasn't been a problem for me with the SRC. It is loud enough for GPS instructions and music with earplugs in and the stock speakers.. and I don't take phone calls while the bike is moving. It's plenty loud for a phone call if I'm sitting on the bike stationary.

With the earbuds, you need an inline volume control as now the G9 is so loud you cannot get the volume low enough without a seperate control. She also sells the volume control which I plug into the G9. Then plug the earbuds into the volume control. Now I have no problems hearing phone or music. I play both MP3's from the phone and iHeart Radio from the internet with no problems.

I am now going to work on getting the Nav IV into the mix. I know that it does not have anywhere as nice mp3 player as the Samsung S3. So All I want from the GPS is voice instructions.

I'm also interested in getting a voice recorder tied in. I use the GoPro HD with remote. But I would like to be able to input voice into the video while I'm riding without always linking it directly to the video. It is a pain to seperate the video from the audio when mixing a movie. But the vox on my voice recorder keeps the recorder going all the time when a mic is placed in the helmet. I'm thinking I need a remote control for the voice recorder. But that is not what this thread is about.

Will let you all know how the Nav IV connection goes. If your interested in the earbuds conversion, drop me a line. It costs $48 for everything and she has fast turn around service.

Sounds like a nice option, but - since the SRC is warrantied by Schuberth, and they make it very clear that any alteration of it voids the warranty, people may want to think about that before modifying it. The person who modifies the G9 -- have they seen the SRC? While electronically it's probably identical to the Cardo G4, physically its a very different beast, built into a Schuberth helmet collar..

[BMW Triumphant]

Richard and I got his SRC and my G9 working with your A button suggestion. Thanks for the help.

[deilenberger]

Richard and I got his SRC and my G9 working with your A button suggestion. Thanks for the help.

I managed to pair with a friend this weekend - he was running some version of a Scala/Cardo - I think a G2 (or Q2?).. same instructions worked fine.

[deilenberger]

Enfoman,

Somehow I haven't managed to do that little chore of making the button use chart (club newsletter on Tuesday took about 6 hours to do, and I've been out riding.. mebbe when the weather gets colder.)

Thought I'd report on the iPod/SRC use. I was on a 3 day trip the weekend of the 21st, and on another 3 day trip this past weekend. I had my iPod linked to the helmet (last BT device linked to it - which is important) and it worked just fine.

Typically when the NAV-III made an announcement, the music would stop. Once the announcement was done - in about 20 seconds - usually the music would restart all by itself. If it didn't - a long push on the A button (press, hear the button confirmation beep, then hold for the next beep - about 3 seconds or so) would restart it. I never had to stop and relink the iPod to the helmet.

This last weekend, the ride to Colors in the Catskills resembled parting of the sea - it REALLY rained, despite that the SRC performed just fine.

What did crap out was my iPod, and I think that was due to me (mostly..) I was keeping it in the inside pocket of my 'stich (which is waterproof), but eventually I think I ran the battery down. So that evening I went to plug it in to charge it back up, and the connector on the iPod was damaged. This wasn't the first time this happened. I'd bought it used from a young lady who delivered it with a connector cable attached. Problem was - at some point it seems the connector had been forced onto the iPod bending and breaking some of the 30 pin connector. I'd cleared out the broken pins and straightened the bent ones - and it was working for a number of weeks. That stopped on Saturday night, and I spotted another bent pin. It now won't charge, turn on or anything else. It's basically a brick.

That's what I get for buying used and not really checking out an item. And I could go into an engineering rant about Apples use of this sort of connector on a consumer item, but apparently they've seen the light, and the new G5 devices use a much simpler, less likely to get damaged connector. There is a thriving aftermarket business that has sprung up repairing various flaws with the iPod, including the docking/charging connector, so I am not the only one to have this problem. Unfortunately it's not a DIY, and the cost is enough that I have to think if it's worth it, or if I should just start looking for a newer GPS with streaming media built in.

Which brings up another question - anyone who is using a Garmin 660 or BMW NAV-IV - care to comment on the usability of the streaming MP3 feature with the SRC?

[BMW Triumphant]

Don,

1) I suspect any GPS will send GPS directions and music so they are treated as higher priority than intercom. But, it sure would be nice to know for sure. Maybe Garmin has improved the way units more modern than my Zumo 550 work with Cardo units.

2) the new Nano has bluetooth and Christmas is coming ...

3) Richard updated his SRC firmware a couple weeks ago, but i don't know if it was a recent release.

4) I did get a new update for my G9 yesterday. It may make it faster to initiate intercom calls, we'll see.

[deilenberger]

Thought I'd update..

Got the iPod working (as best it can) again. Turns out the broken off pin on the connector really wasn't needed. Reason it went dead was - it is possible to discharge an iPod to the point where a normal USB charger (or PC USB port) can't charge it. Finally plugged it into a high-current charger (for the HTC phone) and it started charging. Lesson learned - iPod is dumb. It will happily destroy itself trying to keep playing even when the battery is almost totally depleted.

It was connecting as I described above to the SRC.. IF connected last to the SRC, it usually reconnected after GPS announcements disconnected it, and if it didn't it usually could be connected by pressing the A button for 3 seconds (wait for the 2nd beep.) Note - usually.

Got the Garmin 660. So far - I'm happy with it. It is a bit slower in initially drawing maps when I turn it on, it seems to take about 45-60 seconds before the map displays. It doesn't have a problem scrolling and keeping pace with me after that (I used to be able to outrun my Garmin Quest if I really worked at it..) Display is better then the NAV-III - more visible in sunlight. Bluetooth volume is fine with the SRC - considerably more headroom available and works great even with my earplugs in at 70MPH. Phone function works OK (HTC-Incredible-II) and - finally - the streaming seems to work just fine (so far.) I put in an 8gb Micro-SD card, filled with music. The directory structure is //root/MP3/Artist/Album - this seems to make the Z660 happy (some people had problems with incredibly LONG boot times when they just dumped 3,000 songs in a root directory of an uSD card.)

So - I finally have streaming music that seems reliable. It mutes for GPS announcements, but comes right back after the announcement is done. The track selection buttons work fine (up/down volume button held for 3 seconds).. and it pauses or starts back up with the "A" button. I believe the Z660 is what Scala tested the Scala Rider G4 against (which is basically what we have in the SRC) and it does all seem to work fine. Bluetooth reconnect happens automatically, no fuss, no bother (a spurious error message appears on the Zumo, despite it actually connecting. The message is a known bug - that can be ignored. Hopefully Garmin will fix this with the next 660 firmware release.)

That's today's story.. subject to change at the drop of a hat (and hopefully not the helmet.)