Rennie Scaysbrook | July 20, 2021
If you’re like me and love having music while you ride, chances are you’ve probably got a Bluetooth speaker system bolted to your helmet. The problem with these systems is for you to hear them clearly and without wind distortion wrecking the sound, you need to wear foam earplugs. These can often be uncomfortable and get pretty gross after a few rides.
The Snugs Moto Bluetooth Earplugs are custom-made to fit your ears perfectly. They act as both an ear plug and speaker.
When you wear foam earplugs you’re essentially “stacking” noise on noise—you block out the wind noise but then need to crank the volume up to hear your tunes. A better system is just to have the earplugs be the sound system themselves. That’s where these Snugs Moto custom earplugs and speaker setup comes in.
Snugs is a UK-based company that specializes in all forms of custom earplug sound solutions (swimming, working, sleeping, airline etc), and they have a dedicated motorsport line in Snugs Moto.
It works by you visiting an audiologist to get an impression taken of your ears, which cost me $100 for both ears. They do this by squirting a molding goo into your ear canal to find the exact shape of your inner ear. This impression is then sent to a lab that Snugs uses here in the U.S., where the mold is then 3D scanned, and your custom earplugs are created.
The sound comes from two 12mm long, 5mm diameter micro speakers that fit deep within your ear canal. Connection is from a 5.0 Bluetooth unit, which pairs to your smartphone almost instantly and gives you around six hours of playback time with 220 hours of standby. You can change the volume via the three-button controller with a microphone mounted to the superflex foldable neckband, which is pretty easy to use with summer gloves, although winter gloves can be a bit of a hassle.
Charging is done via the micro USB plug on the left side of the unit.
Tunes are piped into your ear via two 12mm long, 5mm diameter micro speakers that fit deep within your ear canal.
Snugs Moto Bluetooth Earplugs Lowdown
Standout Feature: A Bluetooth speaker system that’s about as close to a perfect fit for my ear as I can get.
List Price: $342.80 (plus the cost of getting your ears scanned, usually about $100 for both)
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Perfect fit that ensures you don’t need to play your music overly loud |
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Easy to use and pair with your smartphone |
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Choose your color: I went for white glitter, cuz I’m fancy |
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Sound quality needs to be improved if you’re really into your tunes |
Snugs Moto Bluetooth Earplugs Rider Analysis
I’ve had earplugs in my ears for literally decades, so I’m used to the feeling. This has come from years of racing and putting those orange squeezy foam bits into my ear is as routine as putting the helmet on itself.
I was alerted to Snugs Moto from my colleague Morgan Gales at Cycle World who swore he would never run a Bluetooth helmet system again after getting his pair. Needless to say, I had to give it a go.
Once the ear impressions were made and sent off, it was about two weeks later the Snugs arrived in the mail. The fit is absolutely perfect and even without music playing it blocks out about 80-90 percent of the wind noise I’m used to.
When you combine that with music, it’s almost too quiet. But they are certainly comfortable, as the fitted molds never go in too far, which can happen with throwaway foam units.
The Snugs are far more comfortable than traditional earplugs and are excellent if you wear multiple helmets.
There’s a microphone attached but it’s useless for riding as it’s out in the open and susceptible to wind noise. Where the Snugs are not as good as my Cardo or Sena units is in the actual sound quality. It’s not bad, but after a year of running the 45mm JBL speakers in my Cardo, the Snugs can’t match it for bass or mid-level tones. The Snugs can be a bit treble-ly, although the tradeoff is you don’t have to run them overly loud like you do the Cardo with earplugs to drown out the wind noise.
Over a long ride, the Snugs are far more comfortable than traditional earplugs. It’s an easy-to-use system that pairs quickly, and if they can give me a bit more bass, I’d be sold for life.
If you’ve got multiple helmets (like me), the Snugs make a lot more sense than constantly swapping your Bluetooth speaker systems out and messing around with the helmet’s cheekpads.CN
For more information, visit snugs.com
