Giro Omen Wireless Audio Helmet

This helmet IS the best helmet out there no questions asked!!! The comfort, ease of use, design and integration is flawless. Giro got it 100% right with this helmet. Yes it is a little bit pricey but how often do you buy a new helmet. I am 27 and just finally bought a new helmet since I was 15. Spend the money and be happy!

Very much enjoying the Omen - was going to get the Fuse when I saw this one with Bluetooth. It also brings you to the next level up in terms of quality of headphones (the Motorola S805), which are supposedly themselves a decent pair of bluetooth headphones (they come out of the helmet and attach to the included headphone unit to wear without the helmet). I don't even know where the mic is on these things - just that it works well, I'm very impressed with how well people can hear me, even in fairly windy situations on the slopes. The helmet is supposedly heavier than other Giro models, but compared to the last, years-old helmet I had, I'm happy, so I may not be the best authority on that. It's important to have all the head freedom you can out there, as your body follows where your head leads of course. Sizing: I had to return mine to get a medium - I'm sized by most fit charts to a large, and that's what I wore in the past, but even the medium is slightly large for me (except when I wear a thin hat inside, like now in January). It helps that you can tighten the fit with the dial on the back of the neck. I wish that the earphones' volume level could go higher - I max out my iPod (with which I use the Bluna iPod bluetooth adapter, by the way, which is the product that transmits in A2DP/v2.0 stereo - the only one at this time to do so, I believe) volume, as well as the volume on the headphones, and it's generally still not as loud as I'd like it. Bummer. FYI, the Bluna iPod adapter will drain the hell out of your iPod... my Nano's battery life is great without it, and it's claimed that it will take up to half the battery life away. I WISH it only took that much!! I'd say that it takes at LEAST that much power away from your day, and whereas I could use my iPod for a couple of days without the Bluna, with it I'm lucky to get a half day at max volume, which might have something to do with it, but which I feel I need to hear well, as mentioned above. (I don't have the shitiest hearing or anything, either.) The big circles on the side of your head might seem odd - they certainly catch people's eyes - and I was a bit embarassed at first, but lemme tell you: It is SO, SO worth it to own the convenience of this technology... BOTTOM LINE: there's NOTHING like the ease of being able to use the big buttons and dials of those circles on the sides of the helmet (the earphones/dial controls) to INSTANTLY pause music, or adjust the track back and forth while riding, or the volume, whereas before when my friends said one word to me, I had to STOP, take off every damn piece of clothing to get to my iPod, pause it (or whatever), and finally say "HUH?" while the fun comes to a grinding halt... this same bullshit scenario day in and day out, and even when you ride alone, there arises the instances of quick communications/exchanges with lifties, people on the lift, someone who needs something or is asking/telling you something, etc. etc. etc.. So that's major, and it's a level higher than the mid-wire button on Skullcandy that simply lets you pause your music - those are of course great too, and light-years ahead of stopping and digging for your shit, but you probably still have to reach inside your shell for that wire, since you don't want to ride through the trees with it out. Now, part TWO of why these controls/system are AWESOME is that when you get a phone call (I do massage therapy on-call, and actually have the pleasure of booking appts. for the afternoon while I'm on the hill), it automatically PAUSES your music (if your iPod is also connected by bluetooth and not by the also-included [but unfortunately proprietary] wired music connection) to ring you. And when you end the call? Yup, it resumes your music. F'n SWEET. This convenience, for me, is something I've been waiting for for YEARS. Now, a word of warning - the control buttons on the sides of helmet (one side phone/one side music) sometimes don't respond, or respond a few seconds late (when it comes to pausing/unpausing music, mainly). Don't know if that's just my S805s or if that's a common problem. But I'm so freakin happy with the basic ability of these things that I'm content with that few-times-a-day mishap. Enjoy if you get this.