Anyone out there have the Sena SMH10?

[jeepinbanditrider]

I dunno.


Sent from my iPhone

[tbenzie]

So....My gear will be here this week so I figured I'd get a head start and read the manuals. I seem to be getting myself all wrapped around the axle on this BT stuff and making it more complicated than it really is maybe. I'd like to run some stuff by you guys to verify my (mis)understanding of this.

Available pairing profiles, my understanding:
HFP - phone functions
A2DP & AVRCP - media functions
Headset - SMH10 to SMH10

My profile questions:
1. Am I right?

2. The SR10 pairs to the SMH5 as HFP. It's not capable of A2DP/AVRCP. Correct?

3. The SMH5 is capable of having 2 HFP(phones) devices attached of which only 1 will be able to use the A2DP/AVRCP profiles


SMH5/10 Pairing options, my understanding:
"normal" - HFP and A2DP/AVRCP are available here. Only one device can be paired with this method.
Selective - This is actually a sub-option of the normal procedure. You can restrict the device being paired to only the HFP or A2DP/AVRCP profiles. This will allow 2 devices to be paired to the "normal" slot - 1 to each profile.
Multipoint - allows a 2nd HFP only pairing. A2DP/AVRCP is not available. Only one device can be paired with this method

My options questions:

4. Am I right?

5. In theory you could have 3 devices (not counting other Sena headsets) paired to the SMH5/10. 1-A phone (selective HFP), 2-an MP3 player (selective A2DP) and 3- another phone, gps, SR10 (multipoint HFP). If you have a phone that functions as a media player, you would pair it normally and it would aquire the HFP and A2DP profiles. In this scenario you could have ony 2 devices (not counting other Sena headsets) paired to the SMH5/10 - 1-A phone (HFP & A2DP) and 2 - another phone, gps, SR10 (multipoint HFP). Correct?


SR10/SMH5/smartphone pairing strategy:
6. Is there a specific order these devices should be paired? My phone (HTC Android) will require HFP,A2DP/AVRCP. If I pair the phone first to the SMH5, using the normal procedure, I'm assuming it will aquire these profiles. This will leave a 2nd HFP profile which will be used by the SR10 that I'll pair next with the multipoint option. If I pair the SR10 first would I do it using the multipoint procedure and then do the phone normally? Does the order not matter as long as the phone is always paired normally and the SR10 always paired with the multipoint procedure? What will happen if I pair the SR10 using the normal procedure? Would I need to pair the phone with multipoint and then I would have no A2DP ability? Same thing would happen if I paired the SR10 with Selective HFP, correct"


Pairing with other Sena headsets:
7. The SMH5 is capable of pairing with 3 other Sena headsets. Say you have a group of guys, A,B,C,D that are paired up. These guys ride together every weekend for 3 weekends. When they re-convene their group each weekend and turn on their headsets, they automatically reconnect and the intercom order remains the same. Right?

8. Same group of guys as above, except the next weekend, driver C can't make it but Driver E shows up with his own Sena headset. They want to include him in the BT group so do they all need to clear/reset their devices and run through the entire pairing process again? Including re-pairing to their phone/MP3/GPs/SR10? Any way to selectively delete specific pairings?


Headset pairing topology:
Many have provided scenarios where they show that they paired in a chain topology: A-B-C-D. The book shows pairing in a star/hub topology: A-B,A-C,A-D.

9. Reading between the lines, I'm assuming the star/hub method is actually more of a mesh topology: A-B,A-C,A-D,C-D,C-B,B-D but they don't show it for simplicity's sake or is it that when paired as a star/hub there are inherited pairings? So if A is paired to B and A is paired to C, C inherits the pairing to B so it's unecessary to pair C to B.

10. Is the chain pairing only valid if the headsets have intercom conference abilities? Being that the SMH5's don't have conferencing, the chain pairing doesn't pertain. Correct?


Whew! I really need to learn how to shorten posts.
Thanks for any and all opinions and advice.

[danham]

Wow! I have to run to an appointment, but in general, yes, you are over-thinking it. Intercom pairing is not as convoluted as the manual makes it sound, but also not quite as automatic "next week" as you are saying.

SR-10 is a mono, HFP-only device. It doesn't do selective or multiple pairing.

Be aware that for selective you need the other (non-SMH-10) device to be capable of it too. This is where the zumo 660 is a big fail: you can't shut off A2DP and pari selectively using only HFP. That's why I turn off its BT and hardwire it to my SR-10.

I'll try to answer point by point when I get to the keyboard again, later, but with some luck BlueLghtning will bail me out first [g].

-dan

[BlueLghtning]

See in Red

Originally Posted by tbenzie

So....My gear will be here this week so I figured I'd get a head start and read the manuals. I seem to be getting myself all wrapped around the axle on this BT stuff and making it more complicated than it really is maybe. I'd like to run some stuff by you guys to verify my (mis)understanding of this.

Available pairing profiles, my understanding:
HFP - phone functions
A2DP & AVRCP - media functions
Headset - SMH10 to SMH10

My profile questions:
1. Am I right? Correct

2. The SR10 pairs to the SMH5 as HFP. It's not capable of A2DP/AVRCP. Correct? Correct

3. The SMH5 is capable of having 2 HFP(phones) devices attached of which only 1 will be able to use the A2DP/AVRCP profiles It could technically be 3 different devices. (IE GPS, non smart phone, BT transmitter or standalone music device, but this is less common). In your case it could be a smart phone (Android or iPhone or something) for Phone & Music on the main phone connection and the SR10 on the Multi-point connection. All 3 pairings are occupied and you have full control of your phone & music and access to the SR10

SMH5/10 Pairing options, my understanding:
"normal" - HFP and A2DP/AVRCP are available here. Only one device can be paired with this method. Normally yes, but some devices allow you to restrict it on their end so technically you could do "selective" pairing and pair a phone on HFP only for phone only functions and a stand alone BT transmitter hooked to XM for music or something to that effect. However, certain devices like iPhone don't really like selective pairing and cause issues here, so 1 device that has both is more simple. I see I kind of overlapped your next one here.
Selective - This is actually a sub-option of the normal procedure. You can restrict the device being paired to only the HFP or A2DP/AVRCP profiles. This will allow 2 devices to be paired to the "normal" slot - 1 to each profile. [COLOR="Red"]Correct.[/correct]
Multipoint - allows a 2nd HFP only pairing. A2DP/AVRCP is not available. Only one device can be paired with this method Correct

My options questions:

4. Am I right?

5. In theory you could have 3 devices (not counting other Sena headsets) paired to the SMH5/10. 1-A phone (selective HFP), 2-an MP3 player (selective A2DP) and 3- another phone, gps, SR10 (multipoint HFP). If you have a phone that functions as a media player, you would pair it normally and it would aquire the HFP and A2DP profiles. In this scenario you could have ony 2 devices (not counting other Sena headsets) paired to the SMH5/10 - 1-A phone (HFP & A2DP) and 2 - another phone, gps, SR10 (multipoint HFP). Correct?
Yep, you got it

SR10/SMH5/smartphone pairing strategy:
6. Is there a specific order these devices should be paired? My phone (HTC Android) will require HFP,A2DP/AVRCP. If I pair the phone first to the SMH5, using the normal procedure, I'm assuming it will aquire these profiles. This will leave a 2nd HFP profile which will be used by the SR10 that I'll pair next with the multipoint option. If I pair the SR10 first would I do it using the multipoint procedure and then do the phone normally? Does the order not matter as long as the phone is always paired normally and the SR10 always paired with the multipoint procedure? What will happen if I pair the SR10 using the normal procedure? Would I need to pair the phone with multipoint and then I would have no A2DP ability? Same thing would happen if I paired the SR10 with Selective HFP, correct"
Your first part is correct, order doesn't matter as long as you pair your phone as phone and SR10 as Multipoint. IF you pair the SR10 as phone, then yes it will grab that HFP profile instead, now if your phone was already paired, the Sena remembers a certain amount of past devices and it will be which ever one grabs the profile first. I have 2 different phones paired to my main phone connection and if both are on when I turn on the headset, it just depends which one see's and grabs the connection first. Usually I turn BT off on the one I don't want to use. There really is no reason to pair the SR10 as the phone since it works best paired under Multi-Point.

Pairing with other Sena headsets:
7. The SMH5 is capable of pairing with 3 other Sena headsets. Say you have a group of guys, A,B,C,D that are paired up. These guys ride together every weekend for 3 weekends. When they re-convene their group each weekend and turn on their headsets, they automatically reconnect and the intercom order remains the same. Right?
Correct, as long as no one has paired a new headset in that time frame. No you don't specify it here, but I'm assuming you mean that each person is paired to each headset so technically every one is paired in some way to each other. (A>B, A>C, A>D, B>C, B>D, C>D) In reality, you might be only paired as A only to B & C and not paired to D, but since D is paired to C, as long as C is the bridge, you can hear D without being paired to them

8. Same group of guys as above, except the next weekend, driver C can't make it but Driver E shows up with his own Sena headset. They want to include him in the BT group so do they all need to clear/reset their devices and run through the entire pairing process again? Including re-pairing to their phone/MP3/GPs/SR10? Any way to selectively delete specific pairings?
Nope. It could be as simple as only one person pairing to E and really anyone could pair to him, it would just bump everyone on their pairing list out one and if they already had 4 pairings, someone is booted off.

Headset pairing topology:
Many have provided scenarios where they show that they paired in a chain topology: A-B-C-D. The book shows pairing in a star/hub topology: A-B,A-C,A-D.

9. Reading between the lines, I'm assuming the star/hub method is actually more of a mesh topology: A-B,A-C,A-D,C-D,C-B,B-D but they don't show it for simplicity's sake or is it that when paired as a star/hub there are inherited pairings? So if A is paired to B and A is paired to C, C inherits the pairing to B so it's unecessary to pair C to B. Yes unless B & C want to talk privately then they would need to be paired directly. In that case, B & C can't talk unless they are both connected to A at the same time

10. Is the chain pairing only valid if the headsets have intercom conference abilities? Being that the SMH5's don't have conferencing, the chain pairing doesn't pertain. Correct?
??? I thought the SMH5 were given this update in a recent release? You might have to look at the releases for the SMH5 and see. Maybe the manual you were looking at is out of date

Whew! I really need to learn how to shorten posts.
Thanks for any and all opinions and advice.

Hopefully that helped, but I think you overall have a good understanding of this.

[BlueLghtning]

The easy way to think about headset pairing is.

You have Dan & Sarah (husband & wife), & John. John is joining in for the day and wants to pair up. Dan & John pair their headsets and both become rider #1 on each others headsets. Dan however doesn't want John to be #1, he wants his wife Sarah to be #1. So even though Dan & Sarah were already paired before this and Sarah had moved down to #2, they pair again. Now on Dan's headset, Sarah is back in the #1 slot and John is #2. On John's headset, Dan is #1 and he's not paired to Sarah (although he easily could be). At any time during the ride, both Sarah and John can connect to Dan, but John & Sarah can't talk unless they both are connected to Dan at the same time.

The manual doesn't make a good point of this, but anytime 2 people are talking and you want a 3rd or 4th person to join, those people have to join in by connecting to someone already in the conversation. If I'm in a conversation with Sarah and we want John to join, I can't double tap to get John. Now if I can't get John's attention, I could tell Sarah, hey I'm going to disconnect and connect to John, then you come back and connect to me. Now we have a 3-way conversation going on.

Easy way to remember pairing process of headsets.
* Hold down both jog dials of each headset until they both start blinking red/blue
* Quickly press only 1 of the two jog dials again.
* headsets pair and go to double blue flashing meaning they are actively talking
* Press one of them again to go to standby.

One rule we usually come up with is the person that started the conversation is the one that ends it. If both people try to end the conversation at the same time, you end up connecting again.

[BlueLghtning]

If you want to setup a larger ride and try the daisy chaining effect like was outlined on a previous post, I think for simplicity sake, you should pick an order you are riding in and pair backwards to that. You could obviously make it more complicated than this with many more pairings, but this keeps it simple and straight forward as long as everyone stays in order.

So start with the last person in the group and pair forward.
6 -> 5-> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1
6 pairs to 5
5 pairs to 4
4 pairs to 3
3 pairs to 2
2 pairs to 1

This way the rider in front of them is always their number 1 rider.
Connect to each other from front to back in logical order.

2 connects to 1 - raise hand when connected
3 connects to 2 - raise hand
4 connects to 3 - raise hand
5 connects to 4 - raise hand
6 connects to 5 - Everyone is connected as long as no one drops or gets out of range

[tbenzie]

Thanks BlueLightning! That helps tremendously.
Dodged a bullet danham

I don't believe they gave the SMH5 the conferencing capability. It will pair to 3 additional units but you can only talk to one at a time. This is my understanding at this point anyway. It would be nice if they had conferencing ability though

With regards to that, are your responses to questions 7,8,9 (and your Dan, Sarah, John post) above based on conferencing ability? If I'm understanding this correctly,unless they're directly paired with each other, the only way 2 units can talk is in a conference. So if the SMH5 cannot conference, we need to follow the mesh pairing -all pair to all- in order to have the ability for everyone to talk to everyone - 1 at a time though.

Am I getting there?

Thanks

[tbenzie]

Hmmm......... your daisy chain example is predicated on conference ability I assume. If the unit is only capable of 1-1 communication that system becomes ineffective. Right?

That being said, if all the units were SMH10's with intercom conferencing, you show 6 devices in the conference. Does this method overcome the 4 device conference limit that Sena states?

Thanks

[BlueLghtning]

Originally Posted by tbenzie

Thanks BlueLightning! That helps tremendously.
Dodged a bullet danham

I don't believe they gave the SMH5 the conferencing capability. It will pair to 3 additional units but you can only talk to one at a time. This is my understanding at this point anyway. It would be nice if they had conferencing ability though

With regards to that, are your responses to questions 7,8,9 (and your Dan, Sarah, John post) above based on conferencing ability? If I'm understanding this correctly,unless they're directly paired with each other, the only way 2 units can talk is in a conference. So if the SMH5 cannot conference, we need to follow the mesh pairing -all pair to all- in order to have the ability for everyone to talk to everyone - 1 at a time though.

Am I getting there?

Thanks

Okay, yeah if they haven't given the SMH5 conferencing ability (basically the ability to open up 2 different conference BT channels at once and mix them) then any of those response where it would depend on being in a 3 way conference are null.

Correct, but sort of. If its all SMH5's yes, then the daisy chaining won't work. You'd have to paired with anyone you want to talk to. However, just one SMH10 in the mix would allow two SMH5's to connect to it and basically join in on a 3 way conference because only the SMH10 is bridging two different connections.

[BlueLghtning]

Originally Posted by tbenzie

Hmmm......... your daisy chain example is predicated on conference ability I assume. If the unit is only capable of 1-1 communication that system becomes ineffective. Right?

That being said, if all the units were SMH10's with intercom conferencing, you show 6 devices in the conference. Does this method overcome the 4 device conference limit that Sena states?

Thanks

Yes, the daisy chain would only work with the units that are connecting to 2 units at once are SMH10's and can do conferencing. I've heard though as I posted above though that an SMH10 can allow 2 SMH5's to basically be connected together by acting as the bridge.

Yes, forgot the posters name, but he posted that they had 5 riders connected together in the UK by using the daisy chain effect.

If the two units on either end of the daisy chain were SMH5's, they could still be connected, but obviously no one could join into them to start a 3 way conferenc. Also of course the distance would be cut down to the limit of the SMH5's also.

Maybe you'll end up with an SMH10 after all.

[BlueLghtning]

So tbenzie, you are correct. The SMH5 doesn't have any 3 or 4 way conferencing ability on its own. I guess that is the biggest thing going for the SMH10 these days other than distance, battery, and MP3 port on the mount.


It still technically can be involved in a 3 way by connecting to an SMH10 or say that 2 riders on a motorcycle both have SMH10's and both passengers have SMH5's. With the two SMH10's linked in the middle, there could be a 4 way between the 4 of them.

The SMH5 recently got the multipoint upgrade in v1.2, but that was it.

SMH5 Firmware Version 1.2 Release Notes
November 27, 2012

Copyright (c) 1998-2012, Sena Technologies, Inc.

INTRODUCTION
=============
These release notes describe new features added and bugs fixed since the SMH5 firmware V1.1 release.

CHANGES
=======
- Multipoint
- Improved compatibility with Bluetooth onboard audio systems and GPS devices
- Minor bug fixes in audio management and intercom


REVISION HISTORY
================
1.1 April 26, 2012
- Enhancements in Bluetooth interoperability with mobile phones
- Enhancement in power management
- Performance improvement in intercom function
- Improvements in noise suppression at stand-by time
- Minor bug fixes in audio management and more

[danham]

Procrastination pays off, again! Thanks BL!

An easy way to think of the 5 vs 10 issue is that only the 10 can act as a bridge. A 5 can participate in a "conference" but cannot act as a bridge to enable that.

The only other small point to add is that the "how many taps" question can seem complicated, but it's really just like a stack of dishes. The very last dish put on the pile gets the "address" of one tap for intercom. Next dish down -- the headset you paired to before Mr. One-Tap -- gets assigned the address of two taps, etc. Seems backwards, but the newest guy is always One Tap.

I can't recall if the 5 and 10 have different numbers of intercom pairing slots available, but I do know that when they fill up it bumps the oldest one, so no need to erase or do a reset to get rid of old ones.

As for pairing order, I agree that it's not an issue, BUT, power-up order can be fussy with some systems. I find the most reliable sequence is to turn on my iPhone first, then the SR-10, then put on my helmet and power up the SMH-10 (so I can hear it acknowledge finding both phone and the SR-10), then turn on the devices wired to the SR-10 last so that I can also hear them join the party and verify they are working.

Have fun!

-dan

[tbenzie]

It's all becoming clearer. Thank you so much!

I fully expect to be upgrading to more capable units if the SMH5/SR10/VHF thing works out for us. We're just starting out with a couple units for a trial run. The big test -and big difference from the Collets from a usability standpoint - will be the PTT switch manipulation and potential delay when first opening the audio channel. I expect advantages of the 2-way range, no persistent vox keying, quality, robustness, less finickyness (I hope), etc of the Sena equipment far far outweigh that minor inconvenience. The safety factor of communication ability is much greater when snowmobiling than motorcycling, I believe - tight, twisty trails in the woods with hills, rocks, logs, deer and other sleds approaching you at 50 mph on a 12' wide trail so reliability and range are key.A few in our group don't ride motorcycles so if the SMH5's work out with the 2-ways, they'll become proud new owners of SMH5's and I will be upgrading to the next best thing. I think the BT conferencing intercom will be great for motorcycling.

Again, I truly appreciate all the effort and time you've spent educating me. Hopefully I can do in kind some day.

[jeepinbanditrider]

Originally Posted by TowPro

Don't it have a 2 year warranty?

Turns out yes it does have a 2 year warranty and I now have a RMA number for my unit.


Sent from my iPhone

[TowPro]

Originally Posted by jeepinbanditrider

Turns out yes it does have a 2 year warranty and I now have a RMA number for my unit.


Sent from my iPhone

glad we could help