Cardo Packtalk Pro Review: Slick Intercom Gets Better Than Ever

Just as when you board a plane, it’s probably going to be either an Airbus or a Boeing, if you’re about to buy an intercom for your motorcycle, it’s likely to be from Cardo or Sena. The two have a duopoly on the market, and that means each company is constantly trying to outdo the other, giving us things like the Cardo Packtalk Pro.

The Cardo Packtalk range of intercoms is already very good, but the Pro seeks to take all the strengths of the Edge and add extra niceties. Are the additions enough to warrant parting with extra money? To find out, I tested a Packtalk Pro for thousands of miles, using it for audio (I’m partial to a podcast on a long motorway slog), to talk to other riders including on a European tour, and for turn-by-turn directions.

Key features

• Larger JBL speakers
• Crash detection system
• Auto on/off

Of the unit’s changes, it’s the crash detection system Cardo seems to want to make the biggest deal about. It works through an internal measurement unit, which picks up an accident and triggers the sending of an SMS to your designated emergency contact.

The system has been developed through extensive crash testing, so it should know the difference between an actual accident and you dropping your lid on the garage floor. In the unlikely event of a false alarm (I’m yet to experience one), you get 30 seconds to cancel the message.

If you’ve crashed out in the sticks or perhaps have ended up down a verge and out of sight from other road users (which does happen), this tech could be a potential lifesaver. You also get an audio clear warning if for any reason the detection isn’t on, so you won’t ever head out assuming you’re protected when you actually aren’t.

On the subject of audio, in terms of quality and volume, the 45mm JBL speakers are noticeably superior to the 40mm items supplied with other Cardo intercoms. It’s certainly easy to hear what’s coming through them, be it music, a podcast or other riders chatting to you, at motorway speeds. Admittedly, these aren’t a completely new development - the 45mm speakers have been available for a while as an accessory and were previously bundled with the discontinued, limited-edition Packtalk Black.

Connecting with other Cardo units is as easy as ever, and the system works well enough that you can easily have a conversation with other riders or your pillion on the move. You can even connect to systems supplied by Cardo’s arch rivals Sena, which I did on a European tour with some family members, but we ran into issues with interference from the Sena’s. It’s hard to know if the problem stemmed from the Cardo or the Sena’s end.

While the crash detection software is a great piece of tech you’ll hopefully never need, the new auto on/off feature is something you may, if you’re like me, find useful constantly. With other Packtalk models I’ve tested, I had an annoying habit of leaving them on after a ride, particularly after a long day in the saddle when my priorities lie more in things like finding a good pizza to eat and/or a pint to drink.

With the Pro, though, the auto on/off function has saved me from coming back to a flat Cardo the day after several times. There is still some battery drain in standby mode, though, so it is still worth turning the unit off - if you remember.

Should you buy a Cardo Packtalk Pro?

The Packtalk Pro is every bit as slick an intercom system as other Cardo models we’ve tried like the Packtalk Edge and Packtalk Neo. We did have some issues getting the ‘hey Cardo’ voice commands to work, but a factory reset solved this. Installation was simple enough on the Arai Concept XE we used to test the device.

For the extra audio quality, the genuinely very useful standby function and the crash detection system, the £51 premium over a Packtalk Edge seems very fair. It’s not quite that simple, though - as the Edge has been around longer, there were some great deals available at the time of writing allowing you to snag one for under £300. The same can’t be said for the much newer Pro as of yet.

Make sure you check the latest prices for both, then, and weigh up carefully if the new features are worth a ~£100 uplit for you.