Cruising Solutions My Team Talks Bluetooth Headsets

$179.95; www.cruisingsolutions.com

Apparently, the folks at Cruising Solutions have not forgotten that I once characterized their useful and still popular Mariner 500 intercom headset as “making a boater look unfashionably similar to a Soviet tank driver,” and hence asked me to test their latest solution to the problem of verbal communications when captain and crew are in different areas of a boat. They are called “My Team Talks” Bluetooth headsets and they’re much more than modern-looking intercoms. “Bring state-of-the-art multiplex communication technology to your boat” is not an overstatement. The technology that Cruising Solutions has selected for boat use (and presumably intends to support for a long time) was developed by headset specialists Sena, whose main market is motorcyclists. The capabilities are phenomenal. You could conceivably have a phone and another audio source (such as a VHF) wirelessly connected to a headset and still be able to intercom with up to three other headsets. I tried a lot of the features and found the performance to be excellent. The “My Team Talks” headsets also seemed easier to set up and use than the huge feature list might suggest. A really nice helper is the audible prompting. A pleasant voice confirms that the headset is turned on and then connected with the phone, plus it can inform you of low battery status or lead you through complex settings when needed. Thus, it was easy to turn off the intercom voice activation that confused me when I first tried a single headset with phone and audio in my shop. I’ve tried a lot of wireless headsets, including several with intercom abilities, and I agree with Cruising Solutions that these hit a sweet spot of features, performance, ease of use, and value.