I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this tape measure this is the T1 Tomahawk it's actually been marketed as the world's first professional grade tape measure which means every other tape measure that you've ever had in your hands was for amateurs booya in this video we're going to find out if the Recon T1 is worth the $200 price tag that I paid for it and if it's something that you should invest in for your tool bag so let's quickly talk about what makes this thing special it actually comes with a lithium ion battery and it's fully rechargeable it's constantly reading these dots under the bottom so that the system inside knows exactly where it's at at all times I've seen on the Recon social media that they'll just take that thing and toss it across the room you will not see me demoing it like that but they stand by their product and say it's very very durable if you happen to break the tape measure blade they offer Replacements so this guy doesn't become null and void as soon as it takes any damage if you're worried about relying on it digitally and maybe you think it'll be susceptible to error it's got dual sensors that check for errors inside of the machine so it takes into account environmental conditions variances in the tape Printing and scratches on either side of the tape the T1 contains a top mounted OLED display that outputs the measurement of the extended tape its digital display shows measurements in standard and Metric format with the click of a button you can switch from inches to feet to the 32nd to feet to the 16th to just a standard foot measurement centimet millimet met and inches to the 32nd and inches to the 16th it's got this side mount eaper display which is basically the same thing you'd get on an Amazon Kindle and its sole purpose is storing measurements for you for dummies like me you can go and measure the length of something really quickly store that in your tape measure measure the width of something really quickly store that in your tape measure measure the height of something really quickly store that in your tape measure and then head back to the mters saw or table saw and make all of the cuts that you need that is really really useful especially because I never keep a pencil and paper on me and I'm usually pretty forgetful there's actually a space for a pencil and pin to mount to the the side of the T1 makes it so that you can actually Mark with your tape measure instead of coming in with a pencil while holding the tape measure the T1 has a green line projected laser that extends the front measuring surface it's perfect for if you're trying to measure right up on the edge of something or if you just want a visual representation of exactly where your Line's going to end up and that green light is not just an easy way to accurately align things with the tape measure it helps to make marks too it actually makes it so you've got about 6 in on either side to Mark the measurement that you're W to work with it's pretty well known that some tape measures have an exact width to their body so if you put it in between the cavity of two studs and then you extend your tape measure whatever the measurement reads on the tape measure plus probably about 2 in is what your full measurement is with the tomahawk it automatically calculates the length of the tape measure and digitally adds it into the measurement it says toggle measure back or measure front click select and then it'll immediately add 6 and 1/2 in to your measurement because that is the full length of your tape measure one of my favorite things that this tape measure offers is Center finding say taking a measurement and you need to Mark exactly center of an island or something like that go into your display head on down go to show Center select you take your tape run it around the entire top surface of what you're measuring and it'll instantly calculate half of whatever you've measured the targeting mode is actually really pretty cool too by selecting a measurement on the eaper display the laser can be used as a visual indication to tool along with arrows on the screen to help rapidly locate a specific measurement one thing that I haven't even gotten into yet is the rock job site app it creates an ecosystem with your M1 and your T1 so that all of your measurements can be condensed into that you can record and sync measurements across your toolbox and digital workspace you can share measurements with other people through the app so if somebody's on the ground cutting wood for you you can measure and input all the cuts you need without ever even having to communicate with people on the ground one of the things that has really lured me in is that I saw today on their social media that they're going to update the program through the rock app and they're going to add it so that you can make tabs for your measurements so say if you're working on two or three different projects at one time and you have a set group of measurements for one thing like a mud bench you can just go back and forth from each Tab and have stored memory of all of the measurements that you possibly could use and the fact that the tape measure is open for updates like that is really really cool this guy won't do that why don't you update your [Music] software how does it function as just a tape measure and not a digital machine well it is a little bit heavier than your normal tape measure it's about a pound it's got a very substantial hook for your belt that makes it so that it is not going anywhere it's nice and loose fitting so you can take it out and put it in very very easily it actually comes with this belt hook you can attach that directly to your pants and this little latch will lock and tighten it up so it doesn't fall out it won't jiggle and fall it's got a magnet at the tip which is nice and even though it is a digital tape measure I've caught myself using it as a standard tape measure several times now not even thinking about the OLED display on top this tape measure is just faster than than anything that you're ever going to experience with a standard tape that's not digital if I wanted to measure the exact length of this board we're going to be at 5460 in that's great you can get that from a standard tape measure pretty quickly as well but here's where your time saving comes in finding center boom 2728 in okay say you don't use decimals you need to go and cut this at the MIT saw so you need fractions boom 2T 3 in and 930 seconds maybe you don't need 30 seconds you need 16 2T 3 in and 1/4 you're not going to find anybody using a standard tape me they can get measurements faster than what I just did as soon as I heard about this tape measure I was extremely excited because I have the Recon M1 which is a measuring device made for your miter saw if you're interested in that I've got a video covering it I really liked it it's pretty cool so I went over to the kickstarter paid 200 bucks for this guy and I was one of 11,200 backers who raised $2,500,000 to make this tape measure happen I think a lot of simple folks who don't want to spend $200 on this tape measure will go to the comment section and say that is insane but because I had a little a little bit of extra spare cash to spend on it and having it for a little bit of time I think it is a really good option they do Market it as the first professional tape measure and I think that if you look at it that way and say to yourself This is a professional grade tool that's going to sit right next to my $200 circular saw and my $150 drill and you treat it with that respect you'll realize the price tag really is worth it I think now that the kickstarter's over I think you can get it for about $ 260 bucks I feel like me and my subscribers are pretty levelheaded when it comes to tools and we don't go out of our way to buy the snappiest tool so I definitely want to hear what you guys have to say about this guy in the comment section below it's $200 too much and if it is what is the price tag that would get you to buy this specific tape measure if you watched this video and thought to yourself man that was so good how can I give this guy money to repay him then you're in luck I have a lot of stuff listed on my Etsy store that you can buy to support the channel so head on over to Reformation woodshop.com to grab something