This is the first of what I hope to be a series, about homemade gadgets, gizmos, and dohickeys, made in true Angus MacGyver style (i.e. making it up as I go along, with whatever happens to be on hand).
First of all, I want to talk about the iPhone. When I first heard about it, I thought it was God's (or at least Steve Jobs') gift to motorcyclists. I can listen to my music AND answer my phone while riding. If I'm lost, I can pull over and use Google Maps to find my way and I can use the internet to find road suggestions/restaurants/campsites/repair shops/almost anything else.
Anyway, since January when I got an iPhone all my own, I've been thoroughly enjoying all the aforementioned things. However, like all things, it's not perfect. The 3/4'' jack for the headset means that most cell phone headsets won't work. You can use bluetooth headsets, but it lacks the protocol for stereo via bluetooth, making listening to music mediocre at best. It does come with a decent set of white earbuds with a built in microphone, and I've been getting by with that so far. The earbuds don't fit my ears particularly well though, and they tend to come loose on the road. The microphone has a built in button to answer/reject calls, pause and play your music, and skip tracks. The mic and the button both work fairly well, but it dangles down almost at your throat, making talking into it while riding less than effective.
So, now that the problems are clear, how do we remedy them, preferably without spending any cash? The first step was to replace the earbuds with something that won't come loose and move around on me.
I found this video, explaining a simple way to replace the earbuds without losing the functionality of the mic. The earbuds don't come apart quite as easily as they do in the video. It required a small screwdriver to pry them apart, but other than that it went fairly smoothly.
The next step was to find some replacement speakers. I had a set of larger over-the-ear headphones sitting in the back of a drawer. If I remember right they cost about $20 when I bought them, several years ago. I attached them to the ends of my iPhone headset and checked to make sure they worked. Success! I also adhered some velcro to the backs of the speakers to attach them to the inside of the helmet. The velcro turned out to not really be necessary, but it doesn't hurt.
Now that I had the new speakers ready to go, all I had to do was attach them to my helmet. As it turns out, the speakers fit perfectly into the ear space in the cheek pads on my HJC SyMax. I'm not sure what the little straps are intended for, but they do a great job of holding the speakers in place. The velcro helps to add just a little more security to them, but I really don't think they'd go anywhere without it.
After I snapped the cheek pads back in place, with the new speakers inside them, I attached a small piece of the hook side of the velcro to the back of the mic. The velcro holds it onto the liner inside the helmet. Keeping it up inside the helmet eliminated a lot of the wind noise, but it's still easy to access the button by reaching up inside from the bottom of the helmet with my left hand.
The final step was to use an awl to make a small hole in the padding running along the bottom of the helmet, in the back. I tucked the wire up inside the padding, and ran it out through the hole. It's not quite long enough to reach into my pants pocket, but as long as I keep my phone in the inner pocket on my jacket, it's long enough. Once it was all together, I took a ride around the block and had someone call my phone to test it all out. The only part that's not perfect is the volume. I can hear it okay, but I'd like it to be just slightly louder. (Edit: After fiddling with the speakers a bit and moving them slightly farther forward, the volume issue is at least somewhat better. Just play with them a bit to fit your head.) The larger speakers are probably a little underpowered compared to the little earbuds they replaced, but they get the job done, and for the price (essentially nothing since I just used things from the junk drawer) they really can't be beat.
p.s The iPhone also allows me to take simple pictures like these without having to mess with my real camera gear, so expect to see a lot more photos for non ride report entries.
Update: See my review of a less homemade iPhone headset here.
