TMG Alpha-15 Laser Jammers: First Look & Initial Impressions

There’s a new set of laser jammers coming out soon called the TMG Alpha-15. (Though they may wind up being renamed once they’re officially released.) What’s special about them is that they’re showing tremendous potential so far in development including being able to jam the latest DragonEye guns while costing a fair amount less than the AntiLaser Priority.

Initial Impressions

I just received these earlier today. The complete unboxing video is available to my Patreon supporters.

CPU

The CPU is smaller than I was expecting after seeing it in photos. It’s a little bigger than a deck of playing cards. It’s also lighter than I was anticipating. There’s LED’s for arrows on the CPU (but you may or may not be able to see them depending on how you mount the CPU), volume up and down buttons on one side, and a power cable port and USB port on the other. The CPU has ports for up to 4 heads, but they’re working on splitters for the ports so you can do 2 heads per port for a grand total of up to 8 heads. Wow.

There’s no remote control pad like the ALP so you’ll either need to install the CPU in your cabin within reach or install your own kill switch that cuts power to the system altogether and hide the CPU somewhere in your vehicle. (I like that the ALP includes a remote control pad to disable the jammers while still be notified of when you continue to be shot and when the officer stops targeting you.)

Inside the CPU is the speaker as well as a bluetooth module to pair with your phone. There’s currently an Android app available that lets you control the jammer, update the jammer, and hear the alerts. An iOS app will be available too.

Here’s the rear of the CPU:

You’ll see ports for power (labeled PWR), 4 laser jammer heads (TP1-TP4), and a radar detector (RDT). The DIP switches allow you to have the laser jammers plugged into ports 3 and 4 be set up as either front or rear laser jammer heads. The system has ports for up to 4 heads and TMG is working on splitters for each port to allow for two heads plugged in per port for a maximum of 8 heads total. Wow.

Laser Jammer Heads

The heads are very similar in size to your ALP/Escort/Blinder heads. The heads are lighter than I was expecting. There’s just one transmitter diode in the heads, but they have the covers for the dual diode heads that were used in development. It might be a little hard to see, but to the right of the circular transmitter diode covers, there’s a little sticker you can remove to get in to the lens cover and pop off the cover if you want to replace it if it gets scratched or damaged in some way.

Demo Videos

So here’s a couple quick demo videos, just messing around with the unit on my desk. I’d like to do an overview type video later once I play around with the system and learn more about it. 

Here’s a demo of it alerting to the DragonEye Compact and the 4 second AutoJTK kicking in.

A few things I’m noticing… the initial alert is not very attention grabbing. I think it needs a loud alarm to get your attention when shot before announcing the laser gun ID. I like that it audibly confirms when the system disarms.

There’s also alert arrow LED’s that light up to denote direction. The way I have it oriented now, it looks like the rear arrow is lighting up when it detects a front shot. However, if you mount it with the power button facing up, that arrow will be pointing up to denote a front shot. The text on the CPU will be upside down though.

I like that the LED stops blinking shortly after the jammer stops detecting laser. This way we can tell when we stop getting shot. It’s not exactly the same as Pro Mode on the ALP, but close.

Here’s a similar alert demo with the Laser Atlanta in Stealth Mode. (I was trying to record a DragonEye demo vid and selected the wrong gun in my tester, heh.)

So according to the manual, the RCV button on top of the CPU is for “receive only.” Good to have easy access to a detection only mode if you’d like to have the system let you know when you get shot without actually jamming the police officer.

The SLP / RPT is “Auto sleep / Report.” Auto sleep is the 4 sec AutoJTK (the time is configurable in the app) instead of unlimited jamming. Report allow you to manually report alerts to the cloud. The app will automatically report laser shots for you when shot.

The UDT button starts the firmware update process which you can do from your phone.

Here’s a video pressing those main buttons on top of the CPU.

and here’s a video trying out the volume buttons on the left side of the CPU. It goes up to 15 (they went past 11! haha) and it’s pretty loud.

Pricing & Availability

Updated Nov, 2018, now that the TMG’s are now available.

This is where it gets interesting. This setup will retail for $629 for a dual head system. A set of quads will retail for $899. Each additional head will cost $170 plus $25 for the cable, so effectively $175.

The ALP starts at $749.
Add HiFi and Bluetooth to it like the TMG has and you’re at $949. That’s almost double the price.

ALP Quads are $1449. ALP Quads with HiFi & BT are $1649. TMG Quads are $899.

The TMG is doing pretty well jamming the DragonEye with just two heads so far, but you’ll generally want to opt for three heads in that situation which’d put you at $824. The ALP recommends two standard heads and one Tx sensor against the DragonEye. That will run you $1,359 for a set of triples which is nearly double the price of the TMG.

See why it’s so interesting?

Price isn’t everything though of course. Jammers are something that need to stay regularly up to date against the latest threats and customer service is a big deal too in case something goes wrong. So far they’ve been doing an excellent job with very active development prior to launch. TMG has been available for many years overseas, but they’re new to the US and so they haven’t yet had the opportunity to prove themselves over the long term. To help address this concern, they’ve chosen to go with high quality components and they’re going to be offering their jammer with a two year warranty which is great. I’m looking forward to seeing how they fare over time.

You can now purchase the TMG Alpha-15 laser jammers here.