A simple battery powered, wired rider to pillion intercom system with MP3/aux inputs for GPS, music or phone

Intercommunicating

Initial Thoughts

Without being the latest or newest line of intercom systems on the market the Vox Box settles quite nicely into the simple budget range, with its wired earpiece and boom microphone and battery powered amplifier it is designed to get you setup with minimal fuss. The Vox Box is a tiny little black box not really that much bigger than a matchbox and it has 2 communication lines for rider and pillion and an additional 3.5mm stereo jack for auxillary input

Construction

Depending on your helmet the Vox Box may not be suitable, I say this with great regret as I had hoped the little budget unit would be ideal for those not needing the expense of a larger, more complicated system but the simple fact is that the ear piece and boom microphone ensemble protrudes too much in most of my helmets making it so uncomfortable that is was not used as an intercom, with a little bit of R&D though the manufacturer could have given us a flat earpiece and all would have been good. For reference though the microphone seemed to work quite nicely while it was in use and the volume and clarity were quite impressive for such a little unit

After fitting the intercom on exiting the Eurotunnel I soon realised that this would be no good in its current configuration, the pressure it was putting on my right ear was awful and my pillion asked if I could pull over so they could remove it too. Because I needed to have an earpiece in for the Sat-Nav I had to soldier on and bought a set of standard in ear headphones at the first opportunity and we didnt get to fully test the intercom side of things.

In its new guise as an amplifier/mixer for my Sat-Nav and MP3 the Vox Box became mildly irritating for another reason, interferance... With all data settings turned off on both my own and my pillions phones the Vox Box was picking up occasional bits of interferance it could and relaying this at high volume to my poor right ear, when I removed the Vox Box from the equation and connected directly to the sat-nav device there was no such problem but as the sat-nav was too quiet without the Vox Box I kept it in play .

Testing the unit out back at home and there was a small reprieve in that some Helmet manufacturers create a small recess around the ear for earphones and the like, the headphone unit did not press on the ear as badly in a helmet with this recess.

• Intercom and Music Player
• Simple fitting and connection
• Hands free operation
• Volume control
• Comfort fit in-the-ear earphones
• Flexi-boom microphone
• Mini size module with belt buckle
• Battery operated
• (2 x AAA batteries not supplied)