Cardo Freecom 4+ Duo: The best?

Jun 16, 2022 · 13 min read ·

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In this modern world motorcycle riders (Bikers) have many great options for communicating wirelessly with their riding buddies. Or so you should think. In reality, there are two major players in the motorcycle communication industry, namely Sena and Cardo. Of course there are other brands and options, but Sena and Cardo are considered the "top of the line" in bluetooth helmet-to-helmet audio communication, supporting music, talk, navigation instructions, Siri and Google Asistant support, and even group chats between multiple riders.

I used to have a really cheap brandless bluetooth headset in my helmet to hear navigation instructions, but in the end all it did was just produce some distant unintelligable voice in my helmet which triggered me to have a look at the screen on my handlebars to see what the next instruction was. That was sort of okay, until I found myself in need of helmet-to-helmet communication.

I decided to spend some money on a good product, expecting to have a hassle-free, seemless and good sounding solution which would not distract from the riding. After reading online reviews and seeing a bunch of youtube videos, the Cardo Freecom 4+ JBL Duo set seemed like the best fit. With a list price of €449,95, I fully expected smooth sailing. It turns out that the waters in the motorcycle bluetooth world are a bit rough.

Receiving and installing the goods

No unboxing video here, but I can tell you that the packaging makes a good impression. Installation of the JBL speakers inside the helmets was very easy for the Shoei Neotec helmet, where they precisely fit in the cutouts, but the Nolan helmet was prepared for a Nolan communications set, so I had to cut up some plastics in the helmet to make it work.

The Neotec is a flip-up helmet. Cardo provides a boom mike for that but I wanted to have the mic in the chin bar. Sadly, the wire for the provided chin-bar mic was too short to run towards the hinge and back so I had to lengthen that myself.

For two helmets, this took me roughly an hour or so. Take your time to install everything in the right place, this will save you some time and frustration later.

Step 1: Software update?

After installing the Cardo Connect app on my iPhone and pairing the Freecom 4+ with my phone, the app shows a warning that the firmware of the Freecom is version 3.3, and the newest version is 3.6. Although the Cardo website and the manual state that software update can be done "over the air", this turns out to not be the case. The Cardo Connect app on the phone tells you to connect the Cardo to your laptop with a USB cable, and install the Cardo Updater app on your laptop. This process takes around 5 minutes (updating the Freecom takes a long time). In my case, I needed to update two Freecoms.

Step 2: Talk

The Freecom 4+ Duo set comes paired out of the box. It is a selling point, until you learn that pairing the two Freecoms is as simple as pressing and holding the intercom button (top button) on both units at the same time. If you see two single units for less than the Duo option, buy the singles. This is the complete process to establish an audio connection between two (paired) units:

Turn on both units by pressing the play and phone buttons simultaniously.
Wait for the Freecom to say "Rider A connected" (note that this does not start the audio channel yet)
Shortly press the intercom button on one of the two Freecoms. You will hear 3 beeps going "up". You can now talk to the other rider. You can keep this channel open for as long as you want. We generally keep the intercom open for the whole trip.
Pressing the intercom button again will stop the intercom channel. You will hear 3 beeps going down. This feedback is good to have so you know when the other rider decided to stop listening to you ;-)

If you use the Freecom to just talk, it will do that beautifully out of the box. If you also want to pair it to your navigation, you might want to take your helmet off first, as it will damage your ears on the default setting. To pair your navigation, you need to pay close attention to what you are doing:

Press and hold the Phone button (rear button) of the Freecom.
When you hear "Mobile one, pairing", let go and press the rear button again. You will hear "Mobile two, pairing".
Then, turn the volume control wheel forward (clockwise). You will hear "GPS, pairing".
Go to your navigation device (a Tomtom rider 550 in my case) and in the bluetooth menu select "Pair Audio device". The Cardo Freecom should be visible in the list. Tap it.
Make sure the tomtom 550 does not use the AD2P high quality audio setting. High quality audio will make the Cardo loose connection with your phone and possibly your riding buddies (a list of problems and fixes is at the end of this article). Use HSP (low) audio quality only.

IMPORTANT: The only audio channel of the Freecom that actually goes to 11 is the navigation volume, and that is it's default setting. In the volume settings of the Cardo Connect app there is no way to correct this. Here's how to fix that:

In the Tomtom Rider, go to the settings screen where you can choose a voice. In this screen, when you tap on a voice, you will hear something like "Hi, I am Mike, I can read street names". When the Tomtom plays this sound, you can roll the volume wheel of the Cardo Freecom to turn it down. The Freecom will remember this setting (yes there is an internal setting, but the Cardo Connect app does not show it to you).

Step 4: Listening to Music

You probably already paired your phone to the Cardo Freecom by now, it's the first thing I did, hoping to be able to set it up easily. If you did, you can probably already play some music on your cardo, although it will be a bit wierd to get it going.

Say "Hey Cardo, Music On" in your helmet, or press the "play" button on the front of your freecom. Cardo will respond with "Music On"
Depending on what your phone is doing, and wether you have an intercom channel open (more on that later), you can press "play" on your phone to listen to some music. If that does not work, switch off the Cardo Freecom and try again. I have the real fix for you further down in this article, but for now lets go for the reliable route.

If you have the JBL speakers with your Freecom 4+ like I have, the music will sound pretty good, when you have the helmet on your head in the living room. But for riding the bike, it might not nearly be loud enough. If you have an iPhone, this can be improved by going into the iPhone "Settings", "Audio", "Headphone safety", and then switch off he headphone safety feature. This will make the volume of the music almost twice as loud, but be careful when connecting normal earbuds to your iPhone, as you can now ruin your ears. It's sad that this setting is not device specific.

The funny thing is, that even with this setting and all settings in the Cardo Connect app, I have never gotten my music volume to play at the rediculously loud volume of the navigation instructions. When riding at 100+ km/h, the volume of the music is just enough to hear it, but don't expect ear-shattering sound.

In the cardo flyer, it says that you can share the music you are hearing with your riding buddy by holding the intercom button for 2 seconds. This does not work. The way to get musing shared with your riding buddy is:

Stop the intercom mode if you had it open.
Start playing music by using the "Cardo On" and maybe "Hey Siri" commands.
When musinc is playing, press the intercom button shortly (just click). The music will stop, and you will be able to talk to your buddy.
With the intercom channel open, press and hold the intercom button. The music will start playing and after a few seconds your buddy will hear the music.

The strange thing is that in this mode, you can not talk to eachother (although you are in intercom mode). To return to intercom mode, press and hold the intercom button for 2 seconds. Music will stop and intercom will be on again.

Pairing order and other myths

You will find a lot of articles online about the order in which you pair devices, and also that you should pair your phone to your Tomtom to make things work. This is all nonsense. The order in which you pair devices has nothing to do with the audio settings or functionality. The tomtom does not need your iPhone to talk to your Cardo Freecom. Even worse: Pairing the iPhone to the Tomtom will lead you into a lot of connection trouble (this is a tomtom problem I won't go into right now), and it will only add to the confusion.

The correct pairings (in no particular order) are:

Tomtom to Freecom A (optional)
Phone A to Freecom A (optional)
Freecom B to Freecom A (optional)
Phone B to Freecom B (optional)

Trouble shooting

The Freecom 4+ (like other Cardo's I've seen) has some strange usability problems which can make life pretty difficult. Here are the problems I had and what I had to do to fix them. Note that the units were new, with default settings, and not all stuff "just works" out of the box.

I can't get any music to play, even though Cardo says "Music On"
The Freecom replies "Music On" even when it is not able to play music. Check that intercom mode is off, and that the tomtom is not in AD2P mode, and that your can hear the tomtom instructions at decent volume. Check the volume setting on your phone, it should be turned all the way up. Check that the hearing damage safety feature is off on your iPhone. Check that there is actually something playing on your phone, and slowly turn the volume wheel of your Cardo. It will beep when you reach the highest volume.

I can't share music with another rider
Sharing music can only done by first stopping the intercom, then starting the music, then starting the intercom, and then starting the sharing mode, see earlier in this article.

Bluetooth connections drop
Your tomtom is in AD2P mode. Do not connect your tomtom in AD2P mode, only use HSP mode.

Navigation audio is rediculously loud
Make your tomtom talk by going into the settings meny where you can select a different voice. Tap any of the voices and while it is talking, turn the volume wheel of the Freecom. This will change the individual setting of the navigation volume (music volume will stay unchanged).

Hey Siri does not work
The Cardo Freecom listens to "Hey Siri", but noth through your phone. You need to talk American English to make the Cardo detect that. Once Cardo responds with "Hey Siri", you can then talk to your iPhone in your normal language or dialect. The easiest way to circumvent this reliability problem is to just press the phone button (rear button of the Freecom) to summon Siri. There is a delay before Siri starts listening. See what this delay is by trying a couple of times with your phone in your hand to see what it does.

Siri says I need to unlock the phone
Even if you configured Siri to also listen on the lock screen, you can still have problems when using Siri to try to call someone. In the privacy settings of your iPhone, find the "Allow Voice Dialing" setting and turn it on. Note that your iPhone does not need to listen to "Hey Siri" for this to work, as Cardo sends the Hey Siri command to your iPhone in a different way.

Conclusion

If the Cardo Freecom is indeed the pinnacle of Motorcycle communication, then I am pretty dissapointed with the whole industry. Usability is awful, and features were added before getting even the basics working correctly. Things that surprised me are:

When navigation starts talking, your intercom stops working, regardless if you were mid-sentence. Your riding buddy could be talking and you would not even know. Your buddy does not hear the audio instructions.
Although Tomtom has a "high quality AD2P mode", this will confuse your Freecom to the point where it randomly drops connections. With your tomtom in AD2P mode, you will not be able to play music (reliably) from your phone.
When giving voice commands to the Cardo, it will not inform you that it can't do what you asked. "Hey Cardo, Music On" will not always start playing music. It would have been more useful if Cardo would reply with "Sorry, can't play music in intercom mode"
Even though the Cardo Connect app has this fancy volume levels mix panel, none of the audio channels can actually play simultaniously. You can not intercom while listening to music, and you can also not intercom when tomtom starts shouting at you.
The audio level for navigation is an internal setting in the Freecom, but this setting is not available in the Carco Connect app. There is no explanation or obvious way to change this other than what I described in this article.
Navigation audio can not play in AD2P mode, and the Freecom can not reliably simultaniously handle (and mix) two AD2P audio streams from your navigation and phone.
Reconnecting devices after power off and on is noticebly slow. Any bluetooth speaker pairs to my iPhone in under 2 seconds. The Freecom however sometimes needs close to 20 seconds to say "Phone paired" or "GPS paired".
Even if you give your intercom the highest priority in your Card Connect app, the tomtom can still override your intercom discussion.
The recently added "audio mixing" feature in the Cardo Connect app renders the Freecom useless. As soon as I switched this on, everything stopped working. No music, no intercom, no tomtom. How did this pass any testing or QA process?
The standard speaker sets that come with Cardo products are inferior, low volume and useless. The only way to fix this is to buy the expensive JBL option. The default speakersets of Cardo are not very usable on the road.
Even with JBL speakers, there is only so much Cardo can do (apart from the rediculous default navigation volume). Simply repositioning the speakers is not always possible in modern helmets with predefined cutouts for the speakers. Sounds nice when you are in a living room, or reviewing it on youtube, but too low when you ride with ear protection.
Response from Siri are way too low volume to be intelligable on a motorcycle.

I am surprised to learn that motorcycle riders need to pay so much money for such a buggy, finnicky and frustrating product which has too many features without focussing on what it should do. Is it really that hard to create a hassle free audio connection which can handle navigation and intercom simultaniously in high quality? It is also saddening that there are so many youtube videos praising this product without mentioning these flaws. I can only guess that most videos are sponsored, and not actual rider reviews. You can do better guys.

I hope this helps. Cheers, Rolf