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need some gadget help (GPS/comms)

JasonJ

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i want to take some trips with my better half. i have a list of "needs/wants" but not sure what gadget/s it would take to fullfil them, so hopefully someone out there can come up with something.

i would like:

GPS - with turn by turn directions
voice comms between me and passenger
xm radio - for me and passenger (same channel)

needs to be waterproof
needs to be powered by the bike but also have internal battery so i can play with it off the bike
need to be able to build routes on a computer and upload to GPS. ability to make tracks while riding would be good.
would prefer not to have eleventy billion cables between me/bike/wife, not sure what wireless options are available though (does bluetooth do stereo?)

is there any one, self contained, box of magic out there that could do this? if not, what am i looking at/for ? recommendations?
 
Starcom will tie together all your needs. You can tie in a GPS, iPod, and intercom all through the Starcomm box. A Zumo 550 seems to be the GPS of choice although there are cheaper ones.

http://www.starcom1.com/

I'm not aware of any one device that does it all.
 
I like my Starcom. It rolls the GPS, music, and communication into one and the only thing coming off the bike and connecting to my helmet is one cable for everything. The rest gets wired into/onto the bike and you forget about it. I recently got a chance to use the rider-to-passenger feature and it's full duplex (like talking on a phone, both can talk at once without cancelling each other out like the bike-to-bike).

You can add a phone to it, but I don't like having to worry about who's calling when I'm riding. Heck, even when I'm not riding I often don't pick up my phone... :shrug:
 
I've got the original Starcom1 and have been very happy with it.
I plug my iPod into it and am quite happy with the quality coming through the speakers.

My ONE complaint is the wire to the helmet, but thats a trade-off for the (IMO) low run time of the wireless helmet setups.

On the GPS side, sounds like you want a Zumo 550. They can run XM audio and traffic as well as hooking a BT phone to them and playing MP3 files from the SD card.
They ain't cheap, but thats the one I'm looking for.
 
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