Pro's: you can connect your own bluetooth headphones with a built in mic. So this immediately would help to reduce ambient noise. If you had some in-ear headphones this thing could actually be pretty great.
Cons:
Cost $169
The major weakness is that it uses wifi. Anyone you has tried to use a gopro wifi remote will have an idea of the limitations. You also have all the limitations of wifi. In that video they show one person on the slopes and one person on the gondola. Unless you were directly overhead the person below that simply is not going to work in the real world.
That strap they show for surfing is going to come off in 5 minutes.
For mtb riders you can already achieve the same result with tried and tested apps such as "Zello Walkie Talkie" using your phone.
I'm not sure all your cons are correct.
I was using a friend's drone the other day which is controlled through WiFi ona similiar band (2.4ghz) to what this claims, and it was able to operate at 2000+ meters. Obviously voice won't transmit as well as electronic instructions to a drone, but they've only claimed 'up to 600m' and that shouldn't be that hard to achieve in relatively open terrain, especially if each unit does actually act as a repeater.
And I think the idea here is that this will work where your phone and internet doesn't, so (assumption) while Zello needs reception to work, this creates its own radio network.
I don't think it's something I'd use for mountain biking, but I think it could be a useful tool from an instructor POV for a lot of outdoor training activities
www.kickstarter.com
