The 7 Best Bluetooth Motorcycle Helmets
This wiki has been updated 35 times since it was first published in March of 2015. Whether you were born to be wild or you're just a weekend biker, you can get your motor runnin' and cruise in style and safety wearing one of these Bluetooth motorcycle helmets. Although they will, of course, protect your noggin in the event of a spill, these models are specifically designed to enable you to make and receive phone calls, listen to music, and communicate with other riders. When users buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn commissions to help fund the Wiki.
1. Bilt Techno 2.0
2. Hawk H-510
3. FreedConn BM2-S
Editor's Notes
June 06, 2019:
Cruising on your motorcycle will be a whole lot more fun, and perhaps social, when wearing one of these Bluetooth helmets. They feature an intercom system that allows you to communicate with your passenger or other riders effortlessly, and can connect to smartphones for music playback. If you like the protection of a full-face helmet, but would like the ability to open up the front for a little bit of fresh air now and then, then a modular helmet, like the Bilt Techno 2.0, FreedConn BM2-S, ILM Modular 953, or Torc T27 is the way to go. Of these four options, the ILM Modular 953 has the longest-reaching intercom communications, while the Bilt Techno 2.0 has the best sound.
Those on a tight budget can't do any better than the Hawk H-510. Unfortunately, it only comes in one finish and style, so you better like glossy black. While on the topic of style, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the Torc T14B Mako, which comes in a wide variety of cool graphics, from flags to radioactive symbols. Anyone considering the O'Neal Commander should know that it is best for simply listening to music, as the microphone isn't very high quality and causes a lot of distortion, so even if you are going slow, the person on the other end will rarely be able to understand you.
4. ILM Modular 953
5. Torc T27
6. Torc T14B Mako
7. O'Neal Commander
How Your Helmet Knows What Your Phone Is Thinking
No longer will you have to pull over and wait for your pals to catch up to you, or ride ahead at uncomfortable–even illegal–speeds to catch your friends and talk to them.
Gone are the days of complicated military hand signals passing between riders on the road. No longer will you have to pull over and wait for your pals to catch up to you, or ride ahead at uncomfortable–even illegal–speeds to catch your friends and talk to them.
But radio frequencies from all our devices must clog the airwaves like so much space garbage. If bluetooth operates on the same radio frequencies as cordless phones, baby monitors, and even garage door openers, how does one device manage to talk to another without interference?
That answer is pretty simple. In addition to bluetooth devices needing to pair with one another, the output signal of any given device is pretty limited, coming in at about 1 milliwatt compared to your cell phone's average 3 watt output.
So that covers your headset from showing up on a car driver's bluetooth earpiece, but what about those stronger signals flying through the air at similar frequencies? Won't they butt in on your tunes?
Well, bluetooth devices employ this very cool thing called spread-spectrum frequency hopping, by which method a single device will randomly select one of 79 unique frequencies, hopping from one to the next up to 1,600 times each second.
I didn't study statistics in college, but I'm willing to bet that kind of system keeps interference at a near impossibility.
Check Your Head
If this is your first helmet purchase, the most important thing you can do to make sure you're satisfied with your new shell is to carefully measure your head circumference.
A good set of speakers and reliable inter-helmet communication with a long range is going to be dear to you.
Most helmets on the market adhere to a pretty specific measuring system, and if a given brand or model doesn't fit that system, you're going to see that comment in every review, the positive and the negative alike.
Once you've squared that away, ask yourself what your primary purpose is for obtaining bluetooth capability? This question is meaningful whether this is your first or your fiftieth helmet.
Are you a marathon motorcycle tourist with an Iron Butt? A good set of speakers and reliable inter-helmet communication with a long range is going to be dear to you.
Are you more of a commuter popping around a complicated city with a great need for GPS direction? Your best bet is likely a helmet whose system has fewer compatibility issues, and the actual sound quality or comms distance might not be as crucial.
Know your noggin. Know your riding style. Choose accordingly.
100 Years On, The Tech Keeps Coming
Craig MacTavish was the last hockey player in the NHL to play without a helmet. His last game was in 1997. It's wild to think that such a dangerous sport could be played without helmets, that even goal tenders went without them for so long.
And, much like the advent of helmets in hockey, riders were skeptical of the new gear's necessity.
Motorcycle helmets have, by extension, been around for over 100 years now, with the earliest codified helmets appearing at races in 1914. And, much like the advent of helmets in hockey, riders were skeptical of the new gear's necessity. As lives were saved and concussion rates plummeted, the buckets became a mandatory standard.
Basic radio apparatuses crept onto the road with serious touring riders, at first in the form of hand held walkie talkies, and later with headset microphones attached.
In 2000, the first pieces of bluetooth technology hit the market, and among them was the bluetooth headset and the first mobile phone with the technology built in.
This made it possible, for the first time, to communicate from one helmet to the next, so long as riders were willing to outfit their own helmets with bluetooth systems.
It wasn't long before the industry caught up to the trend and began to release helmets with systems built in.
What tomorrow holds is equally exciting. Spurred on by technologies like the short lived Google Glass, independent innovators and helmet companies alike are exploring the next phase of helmet tech: The HUD, or Heads Up Display.
Any helmet you purchase has a safety shelf life of 5 years, so snatch up one of these bluetooth babies today, and come back here when you're investigating HUD helmets. We've got you covered.
A wandering writer who spends as much time on the road as in front of a laptop screen, Brett can either be found hacking away furiously at the keyboard or, perhaps, enjoying a whiskey and coke on some exotic beach, sometimes both simultaneously, usually with a four-legged companion by his side. He has been a professional chef, a dog trainer, and a travel correspondent for a well-known Southeast Asian guidebook. He also holds a business degree and has spent more time than he cares to admit in boring office jobs. He has an odd obsession for playing with the latest gadgets and working on motorcycles and old Jeeps. His expertise, honed over years of experience, is in the areas of computers, electronics, travel gear, pet products, and kitchen, office and automotive equipment.