More than 30 years ago, a friend inserted a sound probe up inside her helmet and went for a ride. She discovered riding on the freeway generated enough wind noise to cause permanent hearing loss over time. It’s that loud at highway speeds that unless you ride a bike with a large enough screen to really block the wind rushing by your helmet, chances are you’re experiencing wind noise that can result in headaches, fatigue and potentially hearing loss.
So earplugs are a great idea, but being able to listen to some tunes, podcasts, navigation instructions and take phone calls can make motorcycling a lot more convenient, too. So I started using Plugfones a while back, $40 units that are earplugs with a microphone and speakers… but they also have a cable and 3.5mm jack, which I had to adapt to an Apple Lightning plug to use with my phone, and I couldn’t charge it and play at the same time. Combine my experiences with readers asking me about Bluetooth solutions and I thought it was time to revisit the options.
I considered trying Apple’s Airpod Pro units, but at $400 and with a reputation for falling out whenever a helmet is removed, I wasn’t too keen. The local distributor of Plugfones, Earjobs, has an excellent blog post on its website outlining some of the options for Bluetooth-equipped hearing protection and supplied ARR with a set of the Liberate units after I contacted them about a review. These are very similar to the Plugfones I’ve used in the past, but with a cable connecting them together and an extra block for the battery that powers them.
The speaker units are compact and fit inside the ear cut-outs of your helmet really well while providing loud, head-filling volume for music and clear spoken words for podcasts and audiobooks. The foam tips (which I found to be a bit itchy) will cut up to 29 decimals of volume to your ears; the silicon ones (more comfortable for me and can be cleaned) will cut 27. While that’s not cutting out all the wind noise, it’s certainly cutting out the bulk of it. Two pairs of each type are supplied in the box and extras can be ordered.
The microphone has electronic noise cancelling, but I’ve had mixed results. When stationary it’s fine, but when moving, sometimes the person at the other end hasn’t been happy with the quality of the audio. Other times I’m not sure they realised I was even riding a bike.
The battery is permanent, which isn’t unusual for Bluetooth headphones, but the battery life is up to 12 hours (listening) and you can get around two hours of playback with a five-minute charge. Unfortunately the charging is old-school USB micro, not modern USB-C.
There’s an inline controller to switch the units on and off, pair them (which was easy), change volume/track and more, but I don’t really like using it. If my phone is mounted on the handlebars I’d rather use that, because the inline controller’s buttons are a bit fiddly with gloves on (but at least it sits on the collar of your jacket). I prefer to control everything through the phone, mounted on my handlebars (although that requires touch-sensitive gloves).
Plugfone Liberate BT units are supplied with a carry case, spare tips, charging cable, flexible cable collar and quick start guide.
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PRICE: RRP $138.95
