SportDOG Brand TEK Series 1.0 GPS Tracking and E-Collar System (TEK-V1LT-C)Technological design rough around the edges but in the end, it works.Okay getting this thing working took me longer than I care to admit. It just didn’t seem to work at first. It’s supposed to come “pre-paired” so the handheld and collar know how to talk to one another but in my case, I just couldn’t get it going until I paired it. Of course, I had to sadly go to the instructions because the buttons on the unit aren’t labeled and I had no idea that there are two separate components sandwiched together, they work together but don’t seem to know anything about one another – like a lobotomized brain. Once I figured this out and managed to pair both components back to the handheld it worked fine and using it was straight forward.First, I wanted to test the “stimulation” on myself, so with some trepidation, I put my hand across the two metal prongs sticking out the back of the collar and used the button on the handheld unit in “Training” mode to send a shock. YOW… I had it on level 8 (out of 99…) and I reeled my hand away and jumped in my seat. I wouldn’t describe it as “painful” but, it sucked and I am not going to do it again. If you’ve ever forgotten to turn the breaker off in your house before changing a light fixture and shocked yourself just for an instant – yes, that’s the feeling. I am definitely not going to be trying level 99… There are also just simple beeps and vibration options if shocking isn’t your thing.The GPS system works well, for what it is. I say what it is because, honestly, I think they could have done a lot more with the basic hardware that is already present than what is being done with it. The handheld unit which tracks the collar only gives you very basic information that gives you a general idea of where the collar is, relative to the handheld. Distance away, the speed the collar is traveling (which is interesting) and relative direction. There is absolutely no map integration, not even a rudimentary base map with major land features or even terrain showing elevations. If you actually needed to get from point A to point B to track down a collar you know what direction to head and how far you need to go but you absolutely cannot plan a route. Most of the time I imagine you are not going to be on the edge of the range and this won’t be a big problem however it would have been nice if you knew if there was a large river between you and the collar that you would need to head to a crossing first. Ideally, even city maps would be useful to make things much more versatile. The other regrettable feature that would have been relatively easy to add since there is nothing hardware-wise that would prevent it would be to include a geofence system. In order to get some of these features, you need to upgrade to the TEK 2.0 system, which DOES include topographical maps and a geofence among some other features however it is significantly more expensive.Build quality of both the collar and the handheld are decent but not particularly noteworthy. They don’t leave me with any impression that they’re delicate, but they also don’t give me the impression that they’re especially bomb proof either. Given their use, I think overall the construction is acceptable and I don’t see any areas of concern in terms of weatherproofing. There is a lot of rubber used both the collar and the handheld. The handheld doesn’t seem particularly premium but it does seem appropriately ruggedized. The screen is low resolution and utilitarian but it is good enough for what it needs to do. You have to use very stiff buttons on the handheld to do everything, there is no touch interface. When I say stiff, I mean it, you really have to press the suckers. It’s particularly annoying on the navigation pad. I totally get why they’re stiff, you don’t want to put the thing in your pocket and go on a shocking spree without even knowing it. That being said, do they have to be this stiff? Probably not.The system is advertised for “all breeds” but the collar is quite large and bulky and it’s particularly heavy. I think “all breeds” is a stretch here, smaller dogs will find this cumbersome and annoying.Both the collar and the handheld charge off the same charger (which comes with numerous adapters for use worldwide), they share the same type of charging port and the charger has three leads to charge three parts of the system simultaneously. Bizarrely, you need to plug the collar in twice… one for the “E-Collar” and one for the “GPS Collar”. I get that these are kind of separate things, but really? Very inelegant. The handheld arrived in my kit completely devoid of any charge, which is normally not great for batteries, but it did still come back to life after a charging. The charging ports are hidden underneath rubber port covers which seem to fit snugly enough. The actual charging ports are tiny 2 pin ports and very annoying to actually get connected to the charger it see
Source: SportDOG Brand TEK Series 1.0 GPS Tracking and E-Collar System Review
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