Regular readers will know that we are confirmed advocates of mobile communications … as long as they are hands-free and used intelligently. Bike-to-bike conversation can be a major contribution to road safety, bike-to-home can aid marital harmony, SatNav – with or without a screen – offers a freedom to roam without fear of ever getting lost and access to your music library (the modern term for a record collection, I believe) or streamed radio can shrink those necessary but otherwise dull stretches of motorways.
With Uclear’s Motion Infinity – their highest spec Bluetooth 5.0 unit – you can now add helmet impacts to that list, covering those times that we don’t like to think about but need to consider. USafe detects helmet impacts – using a triaxial sensor – and in the event of an incident will send a warning message to the wearer.
If they don’t respond within 30 seconds, it can notify up to three pre-saved emergency contacts via email and SMS, including contact details, GPS location information and a satellite and road map of the crash site. Unpalatable, but potentially very useful for solo riders.
Without USafe it is the Motion 6, looks identical and includes all the Infinities other features, which Uclear tell us include two more industry firsts: Auto ON/OFF to save battery life when not in use, and Gesture Control that can take care of unit’s volume, stop/start/pause and navigation when playing music. I’m going to take a punt that it will allow you to initiate intercom and phone messages and respond but that isn’t nailed down in the brochure – in terms of a phone call, voice commands to Siri or Google Voice can take care of the rest, and it does give you access.
In terms of the intercom, it claims the range of a mid-priced Sena – up to 1.2km / ¾-mile – and will pair with other brands, including optionally through Sena’s MESH Intercom system: a self-healing, self-pairing public intercom that works across all such-equipped Intercoms. I suspect that will hit its 18-hour battery life, which I would anticipate is if paired bike-to-bike and local activities.
We are hoping to review this properly, in which case we can also test their claims relating to the voice quality of their boom-less microphone – a pair of MEMS microphones with patented ABF noise suppression – among other things.