A few years ago, I bought a Sena SMH5 Bluetooth intercom, mainly so I could listen to Nagging Nadia, my GPS, tell me just how lost I was.
Compare that to the Sena Impulse – the flip front modular helmet with built-in, top-of-the-line, Sena Mesh Bluetooth intercom, complete with the enhanced Harman Kardon speakers and microphone – and we are light years from where we once were.
Motorcycle intercoms have come a very long way since we marvelled at being able to talk to a pillion or listen to Nadia.
Having put the excellent Sena 50S through a long series of real-world tests and used them for the last couple of years, those excellent people at Sena sent us one of their Impulse helmets, along with the note we always love to read – “Test This”.
OK – Challenge accepted.
Fit and Comfort
The Sena Impulse is a good-looking helmet with simple accent markings that complement the overall shape. Helmets must be aerodynamic, or noise-generating vortices are generated, and the accents stylishly detract from what would otherwise be a plain white helmet.
Compared to the Schuberth helmets we are most familiar with, the sizing of the Sena Impulse is on the small side. I wear a Schuberth C4 XL/61, and the same size Sena Impulse is too small for me to wear comfortably.
This made Carle excessively happy as the Impulse fits him perfectly, so he was tasked with completing a couple of months of real-world testing. His Schubert C3 and C4 Pro are both LG/59 compared to the Sena Impulse, which according to the label, is an XL/61.
As for shape, it is an intermediate oval, although Carle finds it is marginally more oval than the Schuberth and better fitting across the crown (top) of his head.
Removing the optional ear pads gives plenty of room for the arms on glasses and, best of all, does not push the arms onto the side of your head.
The lining is comfortable and does not irritate the skin, and importantly, considering it also contains an intercom, the Sena Impulse is quiet at motorway speeds. We asked Carle what a “motorway” speed was. He carefully avoided the subject of specific numbers, but he is rarely last to the tea stop.
Put simply – the Sena Impulse is a well-made, high-quality helmet that doesn’t skimp on the finish to save a few pennies.
Weight
Considering the Sena Impulse has a built-in Sena Mesh and Bluetooth intercom, the weight is in line with the Schuberth C4 and other modular helmets. Over several long journeys on different motorcycles, weight has never been a consideration.
Whereas the label on the helmet claims a weight of 1780 grams +/- 50gs, being the doubting Thomas we are, we put the helmet on the highly scientific kitchen scales, which registered 1887 grams without the optional ear pads.
Close enough, especially when you consider we are using domestic kitchen scales and balancing the Impulse on them inverted.
Noise
It would be somewhat ironic if a modular helmet with a built-in intercom were noisy. In designing the helmet, Sena has gone out of its way to ensure the airflow remains smooth and, therefore, quiet.
It will be different for each motorcycle, rider, and the screen they use, but Sena has ensured that they are not adding to the problem. If you are riding a Tracer 9GT with the standard Yamaha screen, it will be the screen that is the problem, not the Sena Impulse. Try an MRA Vario screen.
In our real-world – head stuck out in a 70mph wind, with traffic all around – test, Carle scores the Sena Impulse very close to the Schuberth C4 for quietness and definitely better than the Arai X4.
If the optional ear pads were installed, the Sena Impulse might have just beaten the Schuberth as the quietest helmet we have ridden with.
A welcome by-product of the smooth design is that the helmet has no tendency to try and twist when riding with crosswinds or at speed. Sadly, the same wasn’t true for a certain Shoei I once bought. Eventually, I got over that purchase, and I no longer mention it.
Venting
The chin vent is superb and keeps the fresh air flowing without impacting the microphone performance. The top vent is more subtle. Even when fully open, the airflow doesn’t appear to increase significantly. Yet, despite not feeling a gale blowing through the top of the Sena Impulse, the helmet has always been cool, even in the middle of summer.
The breath guard is effective but does add to the feeling of being closed in. Carle prefers to leave the breath guard out and crack the visor, even though this slightly increases the noise level.
Optics
The viewport is large, and there is no optical distortion through the visor, which has also been resistant to scratching, despite the number of dead flies we have removed.
The drop-down sun visor offers equal scratch resistance, but we would prefer the sun visor to be a few shades darker than it is.
Operation
The vents, visor and sun visor are all easy to operate wearing winter or summer gloves.
The lock on the chin bar closes with a solid and reassuring click. Once closed, the face shield is very secure. It can be mildly frustrating to operate the release mechanism when wearing winter gloves due to the design of the release button. After a week of wearing thicker gloves, muscle memory will kick in, and it isn’t going to be a problem.
Significantly though, the recessed release switch adds to the assurance that the face shield remains closed should you endure an unscheduled dismount.
The chin strap is the now common ratchet style, rather than the Editor’s preferred Double D ring, and when the ratchet is tight, there is an excess of chin strap that can flap about if it gets caught in the breeze.
Sena Impulse – Intercom
It is perhaps the intercom that is the Impulse’s most important feature. Any number of excellent helmets can have a Sena Intercom installed, but one where a full-featured, Mesh-enabled intercom is built in at the factory is something entirely different.
After three months of vigorous testing, including mile-munching days, short blasts for a mug of tea, and everything in between, I asked Carle to sum up the Sena Impulse in one sentence. He used three:
“It is the clearest intercom I have used, bar none. The sound quality is excellent for music [Spotify streamed through a phone]. Intercom conversations and phone calls are clear and loud enough that with the extra padding installed and through earplugs, I could still hear what was being said without any effort.”
We completed an extensive test of the Sena 50S in June 2020, and the Sena Impulse is a natural evolution of that technology. All the same excellent features are present. Yes, you can connect to two Bluetooth devices while also being part of a Group Mesh. Then there is Private Mesh, FM radio, etc. All the regular Sena features are there and work well.
Well, apart from Voice Commands, which were inconsistent. And that is a good segway into firmware upgrades.
Firmware Upgrades
There is a firmware upgrade to address the issues with voice commands, but we can’t upgrade the firmware.
On the same network with the same computers, we can update our Sena 50S intercoms, but for the Sena Impulse, we have been in a loop with Sena support for the last couple of months, trying to get the upgrade issue resolved.
Each call starts in the same place. We go through the same actions with them. Sena leaves the ticket open, and after a week or so, we call for an update and go through the same loop again.
The firmware upgrade issue has also prevented us from testing the emergency stop light that is built into the rear of the helmet.
It is an irritation, and please remember that this is an evaluation unit, and while compliant with all safety standards, the firmware may not have been the final production version.
Battery Life
A few people complained about the battery life on the Sena 50S. It usually turned out that rather than charging their Sena via a standard USB port – as the instructions say – they had been using higher-powered USB charging hubs and had fried the battery.
We know this because we did it. Thankfully replacing the battery isn’t a big deal if you can operate a soldering iron. It does, of course, invalidate your warranty. As someone once said, RTFM.
On the Sena Impulse, the battery life is good, even when using Group Mesh and Bluetooth all day. Eventually, the battery will need recharging, yet for the average day, you will be OK.
Group Mesh uses the most power. Running just Bluetooth, our battery lasted well over twelve hours. Enable the Mesh intercom, and the battery life was reduced to between six and eight hours.
On long days, a simple low-power USB battery pack made recharging easy while we drank tea.
One other subtle improvement the Impulse has over the 50S is the magnetic charging port. No more small USB ports to worry about or rubber bungs to keep the weather out. It is a great finishing touch to a very impressive helmet.
Where Can You Get One?
The obvious answer is SportsBikeShop. I mention them because – as I write this – they have an excellent deal available.
The Sena Impulse in white is at SportsBikeShop’s normal keen price. In fact, you won’t buy it cheaper anywhere else in the UK.
However, if you would like an Impulse in black, then there is a significant saving to be made. Click here for the details.
