Sena & Cardo

Does anyone know for sure if the Sena 30K and the Cardo Packtalk will pair up with each other .

178592 said:

Does anyone know for sure if the Sena 30K and the Cardo Packtalk will pair up with each other .

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Should in good old Bluetooth mode but not in mesh mode. Limited function and typically one connection per headset in Bluetooth mode. Can’t guarantee this works with 30K but I know it does with 20S. As far as I recall the 30K can connect via “legacy” Bluetooth mode to work with older headsets.

Go Cardo Packtalk and you will never look back. My riding group of 4 all switched to Cardo and we have NO regrets and zero issues connecting now. Plus the natural voice commands are great.


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Now y'all know why in our 5 or 6 hundred thousand miles of riding together Voni and I use headlight, driving light, turn signal, and hand signals to communicate with each other. We may make it into the 21st century, but the more I read about pairing, and mishaps, and mismatch and failure the less I am eager to invest in stuff that doesn't work. WE tried bike-to-bike communication in the 2003 Iron Butt Rally and wound up shipping home the electronics at the first checkpoint because they were a failure and a distraction. While I know the stuff is better now, I still recall working a half dozen IBR checkpoints where riders were working to fix comm problems in the rain, or otherwise when they should be sleeping. So I have not yet invested in stuff that works sometimes, but sometimes also not at all.

PGlaves said:

Now y'all know why in our 5 or 6 hundred thousand miles of riding together Voni and I use headlight, driving light, turn signal, and hand signals to communicate with each other. We may make it into the 21st century, but the more I read about pairing, and mishaps, and mismatch and failure the less I am eager to invest in stuff that doesn't work. WE tried bike-to-bike communication in the 2003 Iron Butt Rally and wound up shipping home the electronics at the first checkpoint because they were a failure and a distraction. While I know the stuff is better now, I still recall working a half dozen IBR checkpoints where riders were working to fix comm problems in the rain, or otherwise when they should be sleeping. So I have not yet invested in stuff that works sometimes, but sometimes also not at all.

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My riding group of 4 suffered through about 4 years of trips with mixed success using comms, various model Sena’s. It was always a challenge whenever 2 of us, or all 4 of us rode together. Trouble getting all in the group to work, intermittent disconnects, dropping out and wasted time getting it all to work.

Last year we all switched to Cardo Packtalk and it all just worked the way it should have. 8 days around Lake Superior and about 2500 miles, no issues from initial setup until we split off at the end. Meeting up in subgroups or the entire group throughout the season and we just connected when we were within range. Being from 3 states we would not ride together for over a month but all was good when any of us rode with any other rider in our group. And the Cardo units are truly waterproof now. Not saying never will be issues as with any electronics, but the latest units work well together if using the same devices and connection types.



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178592 said:

Does anyone know for sure if the Sena 30K and the Cardo Packtalk will pair up with each other .

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Yes they can talk to each other using Bluetooth Universal pairing. Basically, it's one of the device that has to connect as a cell phone. In my experience, it does work but it is clunky.

Neither Cardo nor Sena have the best customer support when there is a problem. I ride with a sena 20s but mainly for music and Nav, it's been a great unit even in days upon days of heavy rain [ guess I've been lucky, sometimes I'll shut the unit off if it's really bad. It's always come back up when I wanted it to ].

That said, my brother and I had Cardo Packtalk Bold duo packs with jbl speakers installed while he was out here for a week last summer. They came paired, worked properly, MOST of the voice commands worked most of the time. I was able to connect to my mp3 and Nav much easier, and those connections between helmets were seamless [ every time we turned them on they paired automatically ] without any issues.

If I were going to be riding with others a lot, the PTBold cardo's would be my choice. As I don't ride with others with comms often, my 20s will continue to do until it fails [ which I expect it to sometime in the future ]. At that point, it's a Cardo for me.

I have had zero issues with my Sena 20s, but I do not talk to more than one rider. Both Sena (30k and 50k) and Cardo (Pac talk) now support mesh connections for groups of more than 2 people. Neither of them is perfect. I have connected to non-Sena riders with my 20S without an issue as well. The latest devices, from both companies, are MUCH better than prior versions!

Best advice is to use the comm device brand that your riding buddies use. You can connect Sena to Cardo but universal paring uses one of the two phone pairings and reconnecting after a shutdown is problematic. Same brand to brand devices are easier to connect and reconnect. Mesh is best but not everyone is there yet.

Sena has a not cheap solution if you have a non-mesh Sena in your group. Sena offers a mesh adaptor, +MESH. It creates a bridge between a single Sena non mesh device to a public mesh group.

30K and Cardo Plus

I recently "upgraded" from a 10-R to 30k. I ride with a friend who has a 20s and 30k. My experience is that 30k mesh does not work. While you can connect the quality of the audio is very poor and inconsistent even when you are no more than 10m away from each other. Another feature of the 30k is that ambient mode does not work. I checked with Sena support about these issues and was told that they know about them and there is no fix available. They did offer to send me a new 30k though I did not understand the logic of that suggestion as the problems still exists.

I purchased the Cardo Bold. While you can connect with a Sena 30k it uses on of the 2 available bluetooth channels and not the normal intercom. Connection is unstable and frequently disconnects. Of course the mesh feature on each unit is not compatible and can not be used. Some type of industry standard would really be helpful. Probably too much to expect.

Expecting Cardo and Sena to work together at the moment seems to a frustrating experience with limited success. I do think that the Cardo Bold is a much better device than the 30k. Great sound quality and voice recognition. Hopefully future software updates will improve the situation.

A new version of the software for the 30K came out along with Mesh 2.0 on May 1. I've done the upgrade to my 30Ks but with the current situation haven't had the opportunity to test it.