Over the last 5 years, I’ve covered various “smart bike helmets” and wanted to summarize the main things I look for and my current favorite smart bike helmets. I’ll keep this article updated as the industry evolves, so add your questions and thoughts in the comments!
Top Smart Helmets in the Market
If I were buying a smart bike helmet in 2025, these are the ones I recommend:
Discount code: BSGIRL
This Class 3 eBike helmet rating is NTA 8776, and it is a sleek fit with great ventilation and integrated safety features like lights. This is my top pick eBike helmet for 2024.
- Lights
- Turn Signal with Remote
- Brake Detection with Remote
- Crash Detection with App
Use BIKESHOPGIRL discount code on Lumos
- Lights
- Turn Signal with App or Remote
- Brake Detection with Remote
- Pairing with Firefly Lights
Use "BIKESHOPGIRL" on Lumos for discount.
- Lights
- Turn Signal with App or Remote
- Brake Detection with Remote
- Pairing with Firefly Lights
Strap this to your current helmet to add handsfree communication.
Smart Bike Helmet Features
Safety
- Crash Detection & SOS Alerts – Crash detection that connects to your phone and notifies emergency contacts.
- Integrated Lights & Turn Signals – Built-in LED lights for visibility, including turn signals activated via a handlebar remote.
- Brake Lights – Some models detect deceleration and illuminate a brake light for added safety. This can be built into the helmet or using a separate remote.
Communication & Connectivity
- Bluetooth & Built-in Speakers – Speakers and microphones for hands-free calls, voice navigation, and listening to music.
- Walkie-Talkie Mode – Certain brands, like Sena and Livall, offer intercom communication for group rides.
- Voice Assistant Compatibility – Some helmets integrate with Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa for voice control.
How Smart of a Helmet Do You Need?
Amazon has a ton of helmets listing cool features, but before looking at smart features, start with basic bike helmet certification and fit.
- Look for safety certifications and standards.
- The helmet needs to fit. It sounds silly, but make sure they have a good return policy if you can’t try it in a store
Do You Need an eBike Helmet?
Speaking of certification, there are eBike-specific helmets with NTA-8776 testing. This means the helmet is designed and tested for impact at higher speeds and something I am covering more and more.
What is it? The NTA-8776 standard was introduced in 2016 by the Netherlands to address the growing use of high-speed eBikes traveling up to 28 mph (45 km/h), called pedelecs, in Europe. Standard bike helmets aren’t designed for impact at those speeds! Until this standard was created, a scooter or motorcycle helmet was the only legal helmet to use in Europe on higher assistant eBikes.
Key Facts About NTA-8776:
- Developed by the Royal Dutch Standardization Institute (NEN).
- Offers more protection than traditional bicycle helmets, especially for higher-speed impacts.
- Features a larger coverage area at the temples and back of the head.
- Uses stricter impact absorption criteria than standard bicycle helmet regulations (CPSC or EN 1078).
- Required in some European countries for speed pedelec riders (Class 3.)
Smart Helmet App and Light Ecosystems
When looking at a smart bike helmet, there’s the actual hardware of the helmet, how it fits, and the features it has, but there are also two other layers of elements to be thinking about.
- Does it use an app or remote? What is the experience using them?
- Does it have other add-on lights to create a light ecosystem?
The Lumos app, for example, is my favorite app for these helmets. Lumos has been in the smart bike helmet game for a while and has refined their app. They also have very cool Firefly lights that can be used in parallel to your smart bike helmet, creating an integrated lighting system with turn lights and brake lights, all turned off with one switch.
Maintenance and Care
There are 3 main things I am thinking about for maintaining and caring for my expensive smart bike helmet.
- Battery life – most of these don’t have replaceable batteries (yet) so I try to keep my smart bike helmets indoors so they don’t see extreme hot or cold besides when I’m wearing them as that will impact battery life and charge
- Charging – I try to charge when the battery is at 20%
- If your helmet has an app, I try to only update after a bike ride, not before just incase!
Conclusion
This guide will evolve as more people ask questions and I test more products. It is really impressive to see how many new products are coming out in this space, and I’m excited to cover some of the new tech I have seen behind closed doors that is coming later this year!
Let us know what you end up with in the comments below!
