Sena Vs Cardo

There are few battles as ferice as the great Sena Vs Cardo battle.

Up until maybe about 5 years ago, Sena was the top dog in the motorcycle intercom space. Sena was the most recognized brand in a sea of cheaper devices, all pretty much doing the same thing. But, in the last 5 years, Cardo has amassed somewhat of a cult following. The introduction of Mesh from Sena and DMC from Cardo changed the game and boosted the two companies above all others.

Today if you ask the question "What Bluetooth intercom should I get?" You're going to be bombarded with fanboys each offering their 2 cents. Opinions mainly based off regurgitated, half-baked, hot takes from the internet and some first hand use of one brand of the other. but it seems no many people have direct first hand experence using both brands current flagship models for an extended period of time.

So, let's break it down, and go point for point, in an attempt to decide who makes the better intercom, and if you're in the market, which one you should spend your hard earned dollars on.

In this comparison, it is important to note each brand offers a range of intercoms at different price points, each with different benefits and features. We will be comparing the top-level offering from both companies, Sena's 50S and Cardo's Packtalk Edge.

Another point to remember is that your experience with any intercom mounted and installed to your helmet is going to rely heavily on the helmet it's-self. Different helmets can impact the experience of using the intercom greatly, such things as speaker placement, distance from the ear, material the helmet is made from and the list goes on.
Our testing was done across a range of Road, Touring and ADV lids, testing the Sena back to back with the Cardo.

On the face of it, both units do (mostly) what they say on the box. Both have 2 bluetooth phone channels, up to 2 bluetooth intercom channels and mesh connection. Meaning they will both connect to your phone and/or GPS, a non-mesh intercom, and their own mesh network with up to 16 other riders. But the differences are many and nueonced.

Below is a quick rundown on the features. Side-by-side, you can see they're both very similar. The biggest difference though is the waterproof rating. The Sena offering is classed as "Water resistant" which is an ambiguous term, and without any internationally recognised standard to back that up. Sena dont seem to expand on this on their website, but I did find this emplination in a review of the Sena 50S by Bennetts.co.uk
"In what's been a design oversight for several generations of devices, the Sena 50S has no Ingress Protection (IP) rating. It's claimed 'water resistant', and in showers it tends to be fine, but in heavy rain at speed, water can stop it working."
This fits with our findings as well. During a ride through Wairarapa in heavy rain, the unit did start to malfunction. we turned it off, and later that day, after drying it out, it came back to life and continued to function correctly for the remainder of the ride.

Edit: Since writing this story, Sena have come back to me regarding their apparent lack of waterproofing.
"Our devices are all weatherproof and will handle natural weather that gets thrown at them. Officially we will not call the 50S waterproof because it is not made to be and stay submerged. But that said - after having done side by side testing with competitor devices, the Sena performance is the exact same as or superior to devices who's makers claim they're waterproof. (Plus if anything ever goes wrong with your 50S, it has a three year warranty!) "

While the Cardo Packtalk Edge is IP67 rated. What does that mean? The first digit of IP67 (6), is the highest level of protection against solid ingress, such as windblown dirt and other airborne solid materials that are invisible to the naked eye. Combined with their high-level water-ingress protection indicated by the second digit (7), IP67-rated enclosures are able to withstand waterhose and jet sprays and can sustain momentary water immersion in depths of 150mm to 1000mm up to 30 minutes maximum. IP67-rated enclosures are guaranteed to function in indoor, outdoor, and demanding industrial and commercial settings.
In the real world, we have ridden with the Cardo Packtalk Edge through many very wet days and never had a single issue. This round easily goes to the Cardo.

Installation

In our testing, we found the Cardo to be easier and quicker to mount to the helmet, and it seems to fit better on a wider range of helmets. Mainly due to the smaller form factor of not only the unit, but the mount either using the sticky adhesive mount or the clamp mount. The main difference being, with the Cardo unit there are only a few wires that come out and need to be routed into the helmet and hidden behind the padding. With the Sena, the mount/cradle is substantially bigger, and needs to be mounted to the bottom lip of the helmet shell specifically, either by clamp mount or sticky (we had to use the adhesive mount more often than the clamp mount, even on helmets where the clamp mount on the Cardo was fine). This means that the Cardo's ability to be mounted to practically anywhere on the helmet boosts the Packtalk Edge to the position of top dog in the installation category.

Range

Neither brand did very well in the range test. I understand the claimed range is the best they can expect in perfect conditions blah blah blah, but the numbers are so wrong, I don't really get why they bother putting them on the box other than a pissing contest against each other.
In our testing both units did well, but nowhere near their claimed range. About a kilometer was all I could get on a nice open straight and flat road in Wairarapa. In the trees where line of sight was limited, the signal dropped out very quickly, however the Cardo was quick to reconnect, generally reconnecting before I regained line of sight to my riding buddy. The Sena generally took longer, sometimes to the point I could see my riding buddy before it reconnected.
Thats 3 rounds to Cardo so far.

I do have to say that at the time of writing this, Neither Sena or Cardo's Mesh system will talk to each other. The only way to bridge the two different Mesh networks is with a Bluetooth link. Both brand's units are capable of this, though it does seem that Cardo are working harder than Sena to improve this. Currently, You can use one of the Bluetooth intercom channels on your Cardo to reach out to the Sena, they will connect and bridge the two Mesh networks. The two riders who are the bridge, do need to stay within 100m of each other or the connection will drop. The Cardo unit will then continue trying to repair the link for up to 5 minutes. No word from Sena on any improvement to meet Cardo half-way on this.
Round 4 to Cardo.

A tick for Sena, is the function to run "Open-Mesh" so instead of pairing all your riders at the start of the ride, you can simply select one of 9 "Open Mesh" channels, and talk that way. The downside to this is it's an open channel, so anyone else on this channel will be in on the conversation too. Not a big deal in NZ, but I imagine on big group rides in the US, you'll want to be on a private Mesh network, which both Sena and Cardo are capable of.
We'll give Sena kudos on this one.

Sena also has some nice add-ons in their ecosystem, such as the Meshport Red, which is a device that connects to the Open Mech network, and via Bluetooth to a standard set or airpods, or a GoPro Hero 12 for example. This gives you the ability to bring a non-motorcyclists into a mesh group. Maybe its a crew member in the pits talking to a rider on track, a motorcycle trainer in a car, taking a motorcyclists through a license test or recording a group conversation to camera while riding. At this point, cardio dont offer such a device with quite as much flexibility. There is a Cardo headset that can pair to a Bluetooth or mesh network, but the only way to record a group conversation is using the function in the app.
This is a difficult round to score, as both brands have different solutions to achieve similar results.

Cardo's app does offer "Over-the-air" firmware updates, meaning you dont need to plug your unit into a computer to update it. I noticed int he Sena app there was this function also, but I was unable to use it for the firmware update I had to do out of the box.

Speaking of apps, Sena's app is nice, friendly looking and simple to use. it connects quickly to the device when powered up and offers a fair amount of functionality. Cardo's app is not quite as nice to look at but still pretty east to use. Both brands offer a fair number of settings and customisations through their app, but at the time of testing the Cardo offering had much more the user can change.

Sound from both the Harman Kardon speakers in the Sena and the JBL speakers in the Cardo was great. the Cardo appeared to offer slightly more volume, but there was no clear winner here. We tested at a range of speeds, and when doing longer rides on open roads, both units were still audible using ear plugs.

Remembering the combinations buttons to make things work on both units was confusing, but if you only owned one then you might get used to it. We found the apps invaluable, as all settings, pairing and other functions we wanted access to were there. All you really need to remember is how to turn the unit on and off, which was easy in both cases.
Both units offer voice commands for virtual assistant, eg Siri. and both worked fine. However, both units also offer voice control for other non-Siri functions. The Cardo's "Hey Cardo" functions worked most of the time, where we could never quite work out how to get the Sena equivalent to function as described.

So, at the end of 12 rounds, it's still pretty close. we favored the Cardo, but not really enough to say that's our recommendation. If youre usually riding buddies have Sena, its going to be a complete pain if you get a Cardo unit. Put simply, these sorts of rider aids need to be simple to use and they need to work. if you have a competing brand, its not going to be easy, and youll end up not liking the experience. If you dont have any riding mates with units, then the next question is, do you ever ride in adverse weather conditions?
If so, then you'll want the peace of mind of that IP67 water and dust proof rating.