It’s common to see motorcyclists cruising down the road with their Bluetooth headsets on. Snowmobilers, on the other hand, have yet to embrace the idea, but once you've ridden in the backcountry with one, it’s hard to go back. In spite of the funny looks we get from riders who see us “talking into our helmets,” my partner and I never leave home without our headsets.
There’s a few different companies on the market that offer snow-specific headsets and UClear is one of them. Unlike some of the other headsets, though, UClear’s HBC 220 Force is boomless.
It features Adaptive Beam Forming technology so that when you speak, it shoots an invisible beam in front of your face to capture your voice. The headset can even differentiate between your voice and ambient noises.
A problem we have run into with our headsets is our conversation breaks up if trees or other obstacles get in the way. UClear claims to have solved this problem, to a degree, with its Multi-Hop Technology.
Between two riders, the range of the HBC 220 Force is 700 metres but when another rider connects, the range grows by another 700 metres, and so on. And, according to the company, this technology will allow for non-line-of sight connections—which means you could still communicate with your riding partners even if they are on the other side of the ridge. The headset can connect with up to 10 other UClear users.
The HBC 220 Force is water resistant and weatherproof and it can also be paired with your smartphone to allow you to make and receive phone calls hands free or listen to music while you ride.
For more information, see UClear’s website.
