Review: Sena S1 Smart Cycling Helmet

One of the most important senses we have as bike riders is our hearing. Whether you're in a group ride, where other riders are calling out road and traffic hazards, or alone, to keep ears out for vehicles or other rides coming from our rear, our ears are nearly as essential as our eyes.

Bone-conduction headphones—which sit outside the ears and deliver sound through vibration—have been around for some time. But Irvine, California-based Sena has consistently raised the bar on bicycling helmets with integrated speakers. Their newest offering, the S1, blends Sena’s audio technology with the aerodynamic advantages craved by so many road cyclists.

Wind Resistance

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

With a smooth outer shell, the Sena S1 looks, fits, and feels every bit the aero road helmet that has boomed in popularity over the last decade. It’s sleek, with a quintet of front-facing vents and a pair out the back to keep your head cool during hot rides. Its mixture of flat and gloss finishes gives the helmet a modern contrasting style that would look at home in the Tour de France peloton.

It’s light, weighing just 360 grams, and at $229, it’s priced like a higher-end aero helmet, despite the fact that it’s equipped with a pair of over-ear speakers and a microphone, Bluetooth connectivity, a built-in taillight, and Sena’s proprietary Mesh Intercom system, which allows you to communicate with other riders wearing any variety of Sena helmets.

I tested the Sena S1 on one of the stupidest rides I’ve done in a long time: that is, when I set out to ride a hundred miles around a quarter-mile asphalt track near my home. (I’m not totally insane. I swear I was doing it for another story.) For a ride as boring and monotonous as the ¼-mile century I was set to undertake, I needed a bit of distraction. Luckily, I had a Sena S1 sitting in my office.

I’ve never really messed with any sort of headphones while on my bike for a few reasons. First and foremost, safety. I like to hear what’s happening around me, especially when riding on the road. Second, as far as I’m concerned, hearing the wind in my ears, the birds chirp above my head, my tires cruising smoothly over the pavement or crunching the dirt beneath my wheels, is as much a part of the bike-riding experience as turning my pedals. Third, we live in an age in which we’re all subject to a constant onslaught of content. The bike is my sanctuary from all that, a place where no Instagram Reel or hot take on a podcast can find me.

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

That said, with the doldrums of 400 laps around one track staring me in the face, I decided to set up the S1 to enjoy a bit of music and conversation to pass the time.

Getting my new S1 up and running proved to be no issue. After charging it in full, which took two and a half hours (giving a reported maximum 12 hours of use time), the helmet immediately found and paired with my phone. Once paired, I was able to listen to music and podcasts during my seemingly infinite loop, and take calls from my wife, who reached out every half hour or so for status updates on my silly ride.

If I was doing anything other than turning left some 1,600 times, the Sena S1 could have delivered turn-by-turn directions straight into my ears. Basically, anything your phone or bike computer (ahem … structured workouts) can do via audio, an S1 can relay.

Despite the fact that I was rolling anywhere between 17 and 20 mph and fighting a vicious headwind on the track’s backstretch, my wife’s calls were shockingly clear, with the little microphone embedded into the helmet’s crown picking up everything I was saying to her. Additionally, even as I listened to music, I was able to hear everything that was happening in the world beyond my helmet, which is essential.

Together Forever

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

A few days before my ride, I put out word to my local cycling community, asking friends to come join me for a dozen laps or a hundred, to keep me company, to keep me sane. One friend, a local racer, volunteered not only to ride with me, but to try a second S1, that we might test out the brand’s mesh intercom.

We stayed on opposite sides of the track, talking about our families, news around town, about why the hell I was riding a hundred miles in quarter-mile increments. Just like on the calls with my wife, the sound quality was good, the microphones’ noise-canceling technology taking most of the ambient wind out of our back-and-forth.

Now, if you’re an audiophile looking for high-end sound quality on your rides, it's best to skip the S1, as the sonics coming out of the speakers is nothing to write home about. Then again, it’s ridiculous to expect amazing sound to come from a pair of speakers mounted in a bike helmet that connect to your phone wirelessly. These are amazing times we live in. Enjoy them.

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

I had only one minor problem with the S1. The helmet only has four buttons—a volume up and down button, a multifunction button, and a light button—which means several different functions are assigned to each. For example, the helmet’s volume buttons double as cue buttons, allowing you to scan between music tracks on your phone. The problem is, to change the functions of each button, you have to hold them down for a quick second or two. It’s an easy workaround to keep the helmet’s buttons limited to four. However, it took me a good bit of usage for the order of operations to become second nature.

But all in all, the S1 is an amazing piece of technology. If you, unlike me, are someone who likes a bit of distraction during your rides, it’s more than worth the spend. Unless you're also planning on riding a century, one quarter-mile loop at a time, in which case, it's probably essential.