Cheap Innotek Ultrasmart Contain and Train

One must take the time to sift through reviews of marginal relevance. If someone purchases a product, installs it, uses it for an hour, a day, or a week, can that person deliver a valuable review of said product? I do not purchase items with the expectation of them lasting a short period of time. What follows is a long term commentary on Innotek's Contain N' Train inground pet fencing system.

We purchased this exact model in 2008. The reviews describing unacceptable battery life are correct. Additionally, this company's technology is unreliable. At first the collar and remote operated as advertised. After about 2 weeks we noticed the collar would not operate once removed from the charger - the red light would stay on. The manual states this is a self test failure - just need to place back on charger and then remove to reset. This became very frequent, sometimes would not be corrected by placing back on the charger, and was not acceptable. I called the company Innotek, and they admitted it was faulty and sent a new one - I had to send the faulty one back. Everything was fine until another 5-6 months had passed. The new collar started to do the same thing but was much more sporadic - would not work once every few days and would correct itself if placed back on the charger. I thought great, this product is malfunctioning AGAIN. Also, the collar was requiring charging more frequently than when brand new, so I knew the battery was developing a problem. Originally, it required charging every few weeks as I recall, but now was requiring it once per week. The fencing itself seemed to functioning as intended. I would periodically check it to ensure it was working. The dog only went through the fence a couple times and was shocked as he ran through it. He learned to respect the boundary. Most problems encountered by this time were with the collar itself.

We then had a baby. Well, the dog (cavapoo) was given to a relative because it started peeing and pooping on all of the baby's items. We tried showering it with attention, then discipline, etc but still was occurring after several months. The relative took the collar and remote. The remote's red button had poor durability. After about one year from the original purchase, the plastic covering over the button had broken; the button still worked but the housing was cracked and looked poor. Also, I noticed that the range of the remote was significantly less than when it was new. This was even though NEW batteries were placed in the remote and several different brands were tried in an attempt to improve range. The battery in the collar itself was lasting only about one day before indicating a recharge necessary. I had followed the instructions regarding recharging explicitly in an effort to avoid developing "battery memory". I only charged it when the light glowed red indicating a charge was necessary (never charged when the light was amber which indicates 60-20% charge remaining). The relative was instructed on this as well. Long story short, the collar and remote were completely kaputt in less than 18 months. Completely unacceptable for a product costing north of $325. This company is not ready for Prime Time; I will not be purchasing another Innotek product.Get more detail about Innotek Ultrasmart Contain and Train.