Innotek SD 2100 – Great In Ground Pet Fencing System
September 2nd, 2010Innotek, a child company of Radio Fence which also makes the gear for Invisible Fence and PetSafe, has the Innotek SD 2100 as it’s middle offering. We used this system for our own customers until the Innotek IUC-5100 and IUC-4100 became available. It is reliable, great value for money and rechargeable.
The Innotek 2100 is the cheapest dog fence system available with a rechargeable battery. We think this is really a must have feature since it is much more economical, convenient and environmentally friendly than disposable batteries. The battery on this unit is an older NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride), that takes about eight hours to recharge and requires charging about once a month. The collar is recharged by resting it on a cradle located on top of the receiver unit. We do like that there is no separate recharger that can get lost. One annoyance is that during recharging the receiver makes a quiet humming noise like a florescent light with bad ballast. This should not be too big a deal if your receiver sits in your garage but could be annoying if located in a living area.
The collar band is decent. It is made of blue cloth. The band has a reflective strip for night time visibility, surprisingly useful if you have a dark dog or play outside at night.
The collar beeps softly when the dog nears the boundary zone. The manufacturer tells us that the beep is high pitched so that it is easier for the dog to hear, what we know is that it is definitely hard to hear for us humans. The beep is audible to the dog, but can be hard for an owner to hear, especially when it is windy. A much louder beep would helpful for owners during the training period.
Also feature on our wishlist but not present in the Innotek Smart Dog SD 2100 is compatibility with the Innotek wireless indoor pods. To get compatibility with the indoor pods, you need to trade up to the Innotek IUC-4100.
Innotek offers a lifetime warranty on all it’s products, but that is can be a little misleading. This really means that they will replace the unit for free in the first year and offer you a discounted repair in subsequent years. We have installed many of these systems and find them to be very reliable.
Overall, the SD-2100 is a solid system representing great value for money. Rechargeable and reliable, it has nearly everything you want. The only things holding back the SD-2100 are the collar and the incompatibility with the indoor and outdoor pods.