Received Friday and played with a bit on Saturday a new helmet. It's my first experience with a full face helmet so there is a lot to be gotten used to. So far first experiences are pretty good though.
The N102 NCom helmet is just their new N102 with the place built in to the shell to accept their NCom communications accessories. I got the hat, the "basic kit" (which includes a surprisingly clear set of speakers and microphones on a flexible circuit board made specifically for the helmet) and the Bluetooth module.
The Bluetooth module works with a phone as one would expect and also allows another Bluetooth enable helmet to function as a wireless intercom. A buddy here with a hangon Bluetooth rig on his helmet tried it out with me. Wandering around the garage it worked fine. Even riding two bikes it worked if we managed to stay within 20so feet of each other (I know, that's not what it's designed for, but we were playing).
The "basic kit" is also wired with an audio plug that would let you work with a wired intercom to a passenger helmet and a fixed audio in plug that will take inputs from other sources (like MP3 players, Ipods, etc etc etc).
The Bluetooth unit grabbed my phone without any problem. The voice commands to dial out work as well as they do through the phone by itself (which isn't so hot, but I've never trained the phone). Receiving calls is dead bang simple though. It can be programmed to automatically answer or to answer with one touch of an easily accessible button.
All tolled so far I'm surprisingly pleased with the setup. Very easy to assemble. Very easy to use once you begin to get even minimally familiar with it. After the manuals are read perhaps even more so.
To top it all off the helmet is surprisingly comfortable (i.e., it doesn't suck). Only had it on a couple hours of riding so far. But I think it'll be ok. And getting used to the full face thing doesn't seem like it'll be as major of a transition as I feared.
The N102 helmet has been available in the States for a little while now. This NCom version it seems we won't have here for another three or four months (according to Nolan). But the few European vendors that did have them already had comparable prices to what they're going to be here and DHL from London was only 25 Pounds. So getting it here really wasn't any big deal.
Anyway, just a new lid. So nothing earth shattering. But it's got decent styling, very good venting, completely satisfactory vision out of it and a fully integrated Bluetooth\Intercom\Com set that actually includes surprisingly good sounding audio components. So if someone is thinking about these kinds of capabilities in a lid it's at least worth considering.
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Topic: Nolan N102 NCom helmet w/Bluetooth (Read 1835 times)