No phone ringtone in my helmet - who's to blame?

Incoming phone calls show up on the Nav VI screen but do not sound in my helmet speakers. So some incoming calls I notice, some I don't. If I do notice and tap Accept on the Nav VI, all's well - normal conversation is possible. But of course I'd prefer to see every incoming call.

My devices: Nav VI, Shoei/Sena SRL, iPhone 7 (ringer On), and R1250RT.

I find Traffic useful so I always enable the Garmin SmartLink to display it on the Nav, which Bluetooths notices and route directions to my helmet with no problem. (I have not yet begun to try to bluetooth music or radio to the helmet so the bike's Audio remains Off).

I think I've tried all combinations of device bluetooth pairing and have on rare occasions actually succeeded in getting the ring into my helmet (with phone ringing simultaneously). But the good pairing doesn't seem to stick - next ride is back to screen only.

The devices I'm using seem to be fairly common so I'm hoping someone's figured out a good combination of settings and pairings that permits my helmet to ring. Thanks.

You might try increasing volume on the Sena while the phone is ringing. That is, when you see the incoming call on the screen, but before you answer it. Most of the Sena communicators save separate volume levels for each source. Granted, separating ringtone from other phone or media levels is a pretty fine distinction, but it's worth a try.

OMG man ... are you riding a motorcycle or trying to re enter the atmosphere....? You should re consider the whole ride to get away concept.

flhfxd said:

OMG man ... are you riding a motorcycle or trying to re enter the atmosphere....? You should re consider the whole ride to get away concept.

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Not everyone has the choice to ride without a phone. Job issues, ill family members, other life problems make it necessary to have phone contact while you take a few minutes of enjoyment. Have you considered if he could not receive phone calls while riding, he may not be able to go? I used to be on call for my job 24/7/365. I would go boating with the family, the cell phone in the boat, in a holder with the volume turned up. The family knew if the phone rang it might be a race off the lake and dad goes to work. If I didn't have cell phone handy I couldn't go to the lake. With the cell phone I could take the chance and spend the afternoon at the lake. Only once out of many times we had to bail out and head home.

Not everyone's life is as simple as we would want it to be.

PoorUB said:

Not everyone has the choice to ride without a phone. Job issues, ill family members, other life problems make it necessary to have phone contact while you take a few minutes of enjoyment. Have you considered if he could not receive phone calls while riding, he may not be able to go? I used to be on call for my job 24/7/365. I would go boating with the family, the cell phone in the boat, in a holder with the volume turned up. The family knew if the phone rang it might be a race off the lake and dad goes to work. If I didn't have cell phone handy I couldn't go to the lake. With the cell phone I could take the chance and spend the afternoon at the lake. Only once out of many times we had to bail out and head home.

Not everyone's life is as simple as we would want it to be.

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Thanks for this reminder. I have been retired for 16 years. No serious family issues. My phone is off half the time and never on while riding. But thanks for the reminder that we are not all in that same situation.

I have ringing in my helmet and I don't even have a phone.

Is the phone on mute? I see people with there phones who run their phones on mute (vibrate) and forget why they miss calls.
OM

Omega Man said:

Is the phone on mute? I see people with there phones who run their phones on mute (vibrate) and forget why they miss calls.
OM

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Thanks, but no, the phone's not on Mute. And the volume is fine for the actual conversations. It's just the ring that doesn't sound in my helmet, but the phone itself does ring in my pocket. As long as I notice that the Nav VI is displaying an incoming call, everything's fine - but I do not always notice.

I'd like to make one small adjustment to my setup/settings/pairing so that I don't miss any incoming call - but I can't figure out what that adjustment is.

A ray of hope, so far untested: yesterday I updated the Sena from ver. 1.0.7 to 1.0.8.

I have the same setup and the same issue. I don't think there is a solution, other than pairing your phone directly to the Sena.

Have you actually tried adjsuting the Sena Volume while the phone is ringing?

Before I switched to the Cardo Packtalk Bold I used Sena and remember a similar issue, adjusting the volume on the Sena 20 while the phone was ringing cured the problem as I remember. YMMV

bigjohnsd said:

Have you actually tried adjsuting the Sena Volume while the phone is ringing?

Before I switched to the Cardo Packtalk Bold I used Sena and remember a similar issue, adjusting the volume on the Sena 20 while the phone was ringing cured the problem as I remember. YMMV

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I don't see how adjusting the Sena volume will work. In this configuration, the Sena only knows that it is connected to the Nav unit, not the phone. The only volume you can adjust on the Sena is the combined signal from the Nav unit. Pairing the phone to the Sena will allow you to adjust the phone and ringtone volume. It will also allow you to use Siri or Alexa by tapping the phone button on the Sena.

lkraus said:

You might try increasing volume on the Sena while the phone is ringing.

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bigjohnsd said:

Have you actually tried adjsuting the Sena Volume while the phone is ringing?

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These suggestions were the solution when this "no ringtone" thing happened to me. But then it reoccurred, and this did not fix it. I reset the Sena back to factory settings and then did an update. That fixed it.

Is the phone also paired to the TFT on the bike?

DeVern

azgman said:

I don't see how adjusting the Sena volume will work. In this configuration, the Sena only knows that it is connected to the Nav unit, not the phone. The only volume you can adjust on the Sena is the combined signal from the Nav unit. Pairing the phone to the Sena will allow you to adjust the phone and ringtone volume. It will also allow you to use Siri or Alexa by tapping the phone button on the Sena.

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My general pairing strategy is to first pair Sena and Nav and then pair phone and Nav. And I don't deliberately pair Sena and phone as I think this would deactivate the Garmin Smartlink's Traffic feed, which I find useful, and also the Weather Radar feed.

But that setup so far hasn't permitted ringtone to Sena. So my next experiment will be to go ahead and ensure phone to Sena pairing - to see what happens to Smartlink and to the missing ringtone. I'd like to be able to use Siri too.

PoorUB said:

Not everyone has the choice to ride without a phone. Job issues, ill family members, other life problems make it necessary to have phone contact while you take a few minutes of enjoyment. Have you considered if he could not receive phone calls while riding, he may not be able to go? I used to be on call for my job 24/7/365. I would go boating with the family, the cell phone in the boat, in a holder with the volume turned up. The family knew if the phone rang it might be a race off the lake and dad goes to work. If I didn't have cell phone handy I couldn't go to the lake. With the cell phone I could take the chance and spend the afternoon at the lake. Only once out of many times we had to bail out and head home.

Not everyone's life is as simple as we would want it to be.

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Yeah. You may be right and I will gladly apologize for my hasty judgement. Some people do indeed need to be accessible. I’ll blame it on covid alcoholism.

I believe you need sena paired to phone to get the ringtone.
I have my sena paired to my wife's sena, then paired to Nav VI, Nav VI to android phone, and phone to sena in that order.
The only issue I run into is when pairing to a second sena, the Nav VI loses BT connection to the phone. An annoying message pops up on the Nav VI screen every minute or so.
My sena in a 30K, it has 2 independant BT channels so that may not work for your SRL.

I have my Nav VI paired to my iPhone 6S and to my Sena 20S, and have the Nav VI in the BMW mount on my GS. The iPhone is NOT paired to the Sena, and the Sena is intercom paired to my wife’s 20S. And her Sena 20S is paired to her phone.

I get ring tones in my headset, usually a couple seconds after the call pops up on the Nav VI, but they do always come through. We can each make or receive phone calls independently while on the move, and she listens to her music from her phone while I’m listening to my music that is loaded on the card in the Nav VI. GPS instructions override everything, and intercom usually overrides music although we do get some hiccups when I simultaneously have music playing, the GPS blares an instruction, and the intercom gets activated—the intercom connection cannot then be opened from my wife’s headset.

So you should definitely be getting ringtones. I’d suggest a hard reset on all the devices followed by a check for updates on each device and a fresh re-pairing. I normally pair my headset first to Nav, then iPhone to Nav, then intercom between headsets. BT seems to be like that—periodically requiring all connections to be cleared and re-paired. It would help if BMW used the most current version of BT on the Nav and TFT devices. I gave up trying to get consistent connections for *anything* through the TFT.

One last thing make sure you know which mode of pairing you are using between Nav VI and headset—phone pairing or GPS pairing mode.

Good luck,
DeVern

BMW expects you to hard wire NAV to the bike radio and then pair the bike radio to your helmet. Phone is paired to NAV and phone and NAV will interrupt radio as required.