So… I’ve been gearing up for a promising new snowboarding season and I saw this setup on TramDock the other day. I had to indulge. Here are the impressions:
The Initial Problem:
I’ve been struggling with snowboarding audio setups for years. Nothing ever seems to fit. iPhone earbuds are plain awful. The wires freeze and then the cold seems to crawl up into the earbuds – freezing my eardrums. They don’t like to cooperate with a helmet at all. In general, it’s just a horrible experience.
The Solution:
The Giro Omen solves this problem beautifully using Motorola’s S805 Headset. I’ve never seen a better product come from the collaboration of a snowboarding company and a phone company – *Cough cough ‘Burton Audex’ cough*
Motorola’s S805 has great audio quality for a bluetooth headset. I’ve used Moto’s S9, and although it’s an in-ear wrap-around headphone, the S805 still seems to have much better clarity. Call quality is also superb. I never got anything like this with the S9.
The integration with Giro’s Omen helmet is wonderful. It takes about a minute to change headphones over from their Stereo Headset mount onto the Omen’s earpads.
Use with the iPhone:
With iPhone OS 3.1, Apple added support for Voice Control through Bluetooth Headsets. This update really makes the Omen a worthwhile purchase for iPhone users (who snowboard/ski). The only complaint I’ve heard about the Omen was – “My jacket rubs against the dial that controls Next/Previous song, and it keeps resetting the song I’m listening to”. With the iPhone, everything aside from Play/Pause and Volume is operated via Voice Control. The microphone in the S805 seems to do quite well for that purpose.
Conclusion:
I have yet to take it up on the mountain, but from what I’ve seen (and heard) so far, the Omen and S805 combo is a total winner. I’ll toss on an update when I’ve actually snowboarded with the thing, but it’s looking great so far. I’ve already been listening to music with the Stereo configuration for a few hours.
