I Bought The Fodsports Fx7 Bluetooth Mesh Intercom

Never heard of this make. If you group ride your choice will generally follow what the other members of the group are using, purely for ease of connection. The two big names out there are Cardo and Senna. Reviews of the latter make have cast doubts as to its water resistance. Whatever you go for choose one with a Mesh capability.

 

Does this forum allow free advertising?

 

Are you referring to the occasional hyperlink that members have included in their posts or are you asking about placing an advert for something you wish to sell? If the latter see the forum sections at the bottom of this page.

 

A response would be most welcome.

 

Hello! I've made an account here specifically to give you an honest review of the Fodsports FX7 and why I personally believe you SHOULDN'T buy it. In short: Bluetooth intercom audio quality is TERRIBLE. Read the details below.



First of all, the manufacturer / seller has employed dishonest marketing strategies by posing as a random motorcyclist reviewing a product. So don't believe the stellar review given in the first post here, because it's simply advertising.

I bought a pair of FX7 units last summer and fitted them to my flip-up Nolan N100-5 and my girlfriend's full-face helmet (also a Nolan). The key feature was Bluetooth Mesh technology. The hope was that we'd motorcycle with friends and convince them to get the same system so that we could all talk on the same channel. The FX7 was the most affordable option in its class, promising crystal-clear intercom audio quality.

Unfortunately, it soon turned out that Bluetooth intercom audio quality is terrible. The voices are highly compressed and sound muddled, lacking clarity. We end up asking "What?" every other sentence, that's how bad it is. Meanwhile, the lethargic voice activation delay - part of the noise-cancelling tech, surely - makes you 'eat' / miss the first word of just about anything said. This happens on either of the 3 available BT-intercom modes: 'multi-rider friends mode', 'multi-rider intercom make friends mode' and 'two-rider intercom mode'. One would expect lower bandwidth for the multi-rider modes and higher at least for the 1-on-1 mode, but it doesn't change at all depending on the selected Bluetooth profile.

The Fodsports FX7 has, in my personal experience, the worst Bluetooth intercom audio quality of any intercom I've ever owned! I'm not kidding. And this is the 2nd most expensive motorcycle intercom system I've had. After my old helmet got stolen with its Nolan N-Com B4 intercom system (great quality, btw!), I got a cheap pair of Q58 intercoms from the Chinese market. This was just before the FX7 deal. The Q58 were dirt cheap and had no noise cancellation tech; the music sharing mode was hopeless and choppy, and the units themselves could only connect to a phone or to each other - no universal intercom pairing. Despite all this, the Bluetooth intercom audio quality between them was excellent, even at speed. Voices were clear and crisp to a fault. It must be said we ride a BMW R100RT with a barn-door windshield protecting us from wind noise, so that's a non-issue in this case.

Paying 6 times the cost of the Q58 only to get a downgrade in the gadgets' main function is unacceptable to say the least. The irony is that this horrendous Bluetooth intercom audio quality doesn't seem to be hardware-related: we tried using our FX7 units connected to a mobile phone each, and made a call through the local mobile carrier network. The audio sounded fantastic! Sharper than ever. So the microphones and speakers are good. The problem, therefore, is with the intercom modes and / or noise cancellation system.

I would provide an audio sample to prove my point, but the speakers have a USB-C jack and there's no easy way to tap into the audio stream reliably.

To make matters worse, Fodsports simply... don't care. I have been pestering them via email since last summer, though never got a reply. Similar complaints have surfaced on the Fodsports Official User Group on Facebook, my voice being one of several who have tried raising the issue. Fodsports doesn't seem to care, beyond pretending to engage with customers and suggesting that they need to move the microphone around a bit, or tuck better behind the windshield. It was only until I made a post informing Fodsports I'd leave unfavourable reviews around the Internet (to set things straight, prevent other people from wasting their money, and HOPEFULLY motivate the manufacturer into fixing the problem) that a rep from that group got in touch with me and we went through the same motions. This went on for a few weeks, during which I re-updated the firmware for both units and re-tested everything, to no avail. Notifying Fodsports of this, they half-ignored my input and suggestions to push out firmware tweaks, until they gave up and disappeared. Eight days later (which was yesterday), I contacted them again and asked for a resolution. They said:



I've owned a whole bunch of intercoms over the years, and lost count of how many I've fitted. I also worked at a Yamaha dealership for a few years, during which I also installed intercom systems into customers' helmets. Sometimes, light modifications in the polystyrene shell are required to fit the speakers properly, which is something easily done with a hot iron and / or gentle dremelling. Which is all to say I have a reasonable amount of experience with proper fitment and usage of motorcycle intercoms. Despite Fodsports' insistence that I've done something wrong, that is plainly not the case.

So what's good about the FX7? Music sounds OK in it, and music sharing between two FX7s works fine. The FM Radio function works fine. It has Bluetooth Mesh, though this is non-standard tech so it won't Mesh with other brands - I've heard that not even with other Fodsports intercoms. The units connect to phones and to each other quickly, which is one of the reasons we got them. But they suck at the ONE job they really needed to be decent at - Bluetooth intercom.

Until Fodsports fixes the problem, AVOID the FODSPORTS FX7 !!! Save your money and buy N-Com, Cardo, Sena, or Lexin.

 

It's so unfortunate that you have had to find out that, in my experience, the only way to go is Cardo.

Even their reputable competitor, Senna, have had their problems, insofar that some of their units were found not to be entirely watertight.

Sell these dodgy units and bite the bullet.

 

@Muravey650 Worth knowing and may assist other buying units.