Outdoor Master BT01 Ski Helmet Speakers – Test and Review

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Updated April 9th, 2024

Do you want to listen to music while skiing or snowboarding? A set of wireless headphone speakers for your helmet could be the answer your looking for. I have been skiing with the Outdoor Master BT01 Ski Helmet Headphones for a while now. They are easy to use with decent sound quality and 15 hour battery life. Keep reading to find out more about the Outdoor Master BT01 Wireless Ski Helmet Headphones.

Outdoor Master BT01 Ski Helmet Headphones Features

I have a confession to make. For a long time, I thought helmet speakers were a really bad idea. How do you hear what’s going on around you with speakers blasting in your ear? Outdoor Master asked if I wanted to try out their 2 new sets of helmet wireless bluetooth headphones. I thought why not give it a try. Now that I have spent time skiing with them I am a complete convert and love having a bluetooth headset in my ski or snowboard helmet.

The BT01 is self contained with a wire connecting the 2 speakers and a few buttons on the speaker for control. The battery and bluetooth transmitter are built into the headset. Everything is in one compact connected unit.

Price

The Outdoor Master BT01 goes for $69.99 on the Outdoor Master website. It is also available on Amazon. For that price, you get a set of speakers, charge cord, and a small hard case.

Sound quality

The BT01 headphones use 40mm drivers and a CSR chip to produce clean sound. I am not an audiophile or stereo nut and won’t pretend to be. I find the sound quality in these decent and good enough for listening to while skiing. They can turn up loud enough to be satisfying without overdriving the speaker. They had enough bass sound to be balanced and enjoyable. If you are the type who likes shaking the car next to you with your car stereo bass they might not have enough bass for you.

I typically listen to them at 50% volume on an iPhone11 or a touch above. At this volume level, I have no trouble hearing ambient noise and what’s going on around me. I can hear my skis sliding across the snow just fine in the background. I get enough music in my head to get me into a good rhythm carving down a groomer or weaving in and out of trees in a glade.

These do not have any kind of hybrid active noise cancellation or other noise canceling features. I would view noise canceling headphones as a hazard while skiing or snowboarding because you still need to be able to hear what is going on around you.

Battery life and charging

Outdoor Master claims a 15 hour battery life for these. I have used them for an entire day skiing when it was 15F out. They made it through the entire ski day. There is no way to check the battery life so I am not sure how much life is left on them still.

To recharge the battery, you plug a micro USB connector into a small port on one of the speakers. Outdoor Master claims you can charge these without removing them from the helmet. I guess it is technically possible. MicroUSB connectors are directional. You have to remember which way the connector goes in when trying to plug it in blind inside the helmet pocket. It’s much easier to just pull the speaker with the charge port out of your earpad to charge. You can leave the other speaker installed in the earpad.

Battery saver feature

The BT01 wireless headphones have a battery saver feature. The battery saver will power off the headphones if they are idle for more than a couple of minutes. It’s not mentioned in the documentation anywhere. I have contacted Outdoor Master customer service to ask if this can be deactivated. Their response was that it cannot be turned off. The Outdoor Master BT02 does not have this feature and will stay on all day once powered up.

I estimate the time to be about 3 minutes of pause. It is not long enough to make it up most chair lifts. I tend to listen to music while skiing and pause going up the chairlift to talk to people. It powers off on every chairlift ride. This isn’t horrible. Just hold the power button for 3 seconds to power back up. It defeats the purpose of the speakers being able to notify you of phone calls when music isn’t playing.

Controls

The BT01 has a very skiing snowboarding friendly control system. The 2 headphones have buttons that can be pressed with the headphones installed in a helmet. To power up you hold the single button for 3 seconds. Hold it for 3 seconds to power off. To hit play, hit the button once. To pause hit it again once. The up/down buttons on the other headphone can be used to raise or lower volume or advance tracks by holding them down.

You can use the volume up and down buttons to take photos with an iphone as well. Pressing volume up while the camera is active will trigger it to take a photo. Holding down the volume up will cause it to record video until you release it.

I can operate the large button to power off and play/pause wearing my gloves and helmet. It’s easy once you figure out where to push on the side of your earpad. I can’t easily hit the 2 buttons on the other headphone with gloves on. 99% of the time all I am doing is power on and off and play and pause. Not being able to hit the other buttons with gloves on really doesn’t bother me.

To access Siri voice control on an iPhone you double click the single large button. The instructions say to double click twice. That is not correct. Double click only once for voice assistant. There is a microphone in the headphones that will pick up your voice. I had no trouble asking Siri for things with a helmet and gloves on and phone buried in my pocket.

You can answer an incoming phone call by pressing the single large button once and end the call by pressing it again.

Universal Helmet Compatibility

This headphone set will work with ski and snowboard helmets from Giro, Smith, Burton, K2, POC, Anon. It will also work with the Diamond MIPS and Lazurite helmets from OutdoorMaster. It will not work with the popular Kelvin helmet which does not have pockets for speakers in the ear pads. It can also work as a motorcycle helmet Bluetooth headset with helmets designed for ear headphones.

Audio compatible helmets have a pocket in the earpad that a helmet headphone speaker will slide into. They have a cut out in the earpad padding. On some helmets, there are different sized cutouts so you can make a bigger or small hole for a speaker by removing some of the foam pads. If it has 2 sizes you need to remove the inner donut of foam and use the larger hole.

The speaker will slip into the hole in the padding and nest there so it isn’t pressing too hard against your ear. If there is no hole or the hole is too small the speaker will most likely press against your ears.

These headphones are about 7/8 inch or 22 mm thick and 2 inches or 51 mm diameter. All helmets are not created equal for width and earpads thickness. I haven’t found a helmet yet where I don’t notice the thickness of these speakers when they are installed. The Outdoor Master Black Diamond MIPS is the most comfortable helmet I have tried them with. The Outdoor Master Lazurite is the least comfortable helmet I have tried them with. I can wear the Diamond all day with them comfortably. I can only tolerate wearing the Lazurite helmet for about an hour before the ear pressure bothers me. The Anon Echo MIPS helmet was tolerable but I could feel them.

Installation

Installing the headphone speakers is very easy. It took me only a couple minutes to install them into my helmet. For easy installation do the following:

1. Plug it in and charge the batteries to full. This is done with a micro USB cable that attaches to one of the headphone speakers.
2. Pair the headphones with your mobile device. Open the settings menu on your phone. Hold the large single button down on the headphones for 3 seconds. It will power up and say “Power on, ready to pair” Look at your phone and connect to BT01 on the Bluetooth connections page.
3. You can test the speakers holding them up to your ears and playing something on your phone. If it paired correctly you can listen to something now.
4. Open the speaker pocket in your helmet ear pad.
5. Open the liner flap at the rear of your helmet.
6. Slide one speaker in the right ear pad.
7. Slide the other speaker into the left ear pad.
8. Took the wires under the liner flap around the back of the helmet and you are done.

From start to finish it took me about 5 minutes to install these in my helmet. Not counting the time it took to charge the battery.

Outdoor Master Wireless Bluetooth 5.0 Helmet Drop-in Headphones

OutdoorMaster Discount Code

Use the Coupon Code ERO2022 for 10-20% off at OutdoorMaster.com

The Verdict

The Outdoor Master BT01 Wireless Ski Helmet Headphones are a good value for the price if they will work with your helmet. I found it works best on wider helmets with deep ear pads like the OM Diamond MIPS. The sound quality is decent. It is easy to setup and control. It has good battery life.

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