TecTecTec Team8 E Review: Do You Need “Golf Headphones?”

I play a fair amount of solo golf.

Sure, I love the social part of the game, and I’m always up for good company and conversation. But one of the perks of being self-employed is that I get to play a lot of rounds when other people are at work and the course isn’t as busy.

When I do, I often like to enjoy some music or a podcast, or even knock out a couple of phone calls during a casual solo round.

And I think I may have found the perfect piece of technology for these exact scenarios.

The brand new TEAM8 E by TecTecTec is the world’s first pair of golf GPS earbuds. With a Bluetooth connection to your phone, you can not only listen to whatever you want, but by simply tapping on the earbuds, you can get yardages to the greens and hazards.

Pretty cool, right? Like I said, this is the first product of its kind.

Are the TEAM8 Es perfect?

No, I can’t quite say that. I’ll share a couple of annoyances that I’ve discovered.

But are they worth owning?

Well, let’s see… They cost just over 100 bucks and they allow you to get your yardages in a totally innovative way. So I ask you: What self-respecting golf tech nerd wouldn’t want to own a pair of these?!

That is… If they work well.

That’s what we’re going to cover in this TecTecTec Team8 E review. Read on as I share my firsthand experience with the TEAM8 E earbuds. As always, I’ll shoot you straight on what I think you might like and what things aren’t quite ideal.

If you ever play golf by yourself, even occasionally, I think this post is worth your attention.

A Bit About TecTecTec: Are Their Products Legit?

TecTecTec hit the scene about a decade ago, making some noise with a very competitively priced rangefinder that sold like crazy on Amazon.

But here’s the thing: The brand kind of became associated with the old adage of “you get what you pay for.” Yes, their products were inexpensive, but they also felt a bit “cheap,” and performance wasn’t anywhere close to the standards of the bigger-name rangefinder manufacturers.

That was my first impression of the brand. The first rangefinder of theirs that I tried worked decently but had enough issues that it really wasn’t anything I’d ever recommend.

Then they came out with their KLYR rangefinder, and my opinion about TecTecTec started to change.

Yeah, the KLYR, at $199.99, is still inexpensive for all that it does. But gone is the feeling of “cheap.” In its place is what I consider to be great value. It’s not as robust of build quality as something like a Bushnell, but the KLYR is actually fairly stout while being really compact. It’s got a built-in magnet and includes slope-adjusted yardage. For just $200, I absolutely recommend it.

And their first foray into Bluetooth speakers, the original Team8 S, is a pretty solid performer for what it is as well.

I bring this up to say that my opinion of this brand has evolved. Sure, their products aren’t what you’d consider luxurious. And, no, they don’t have the same brand-name trust as their bigger company competitors. And if I were recommending the best overall piece of equipment regardless of price, TecTecTec wouldn’t make my list with any of their products.

But for golfers who may be looking for less expensive alternatives to the most highly acclaimed options, I actually think TecTecTec fills a pretty important void in the golf tech space.

Which brings us to their newest product, the TEAM8 E earbuds which have just been released.

Because these are the first golf-specific earbuds, we can’t compare the TEAM8 Es to any direct competitors the way we could their other rangefinder and GPS products. Instead, TecTecTec is setting the pace this time around.

But just because this is the only product of its kind (for now), doesn’t mean it’s worth owning. After all, the exhibit hall at the recently completed 2024 PGA Show was littered with unique ideas that, for most golfers, are totally useless.

Are these earbuds just another in a long line of golf products that are more interesting in theory than actuality?

Read on to find out if the new TEAM8 Es are garbage or gold.

TEAM8 E Golf GPS Earbuds: First Impressions and Setup Experience

For a company with a motto of, “only what you need,” the packaging and presentation of these little earbuds is surprisingly nice.

Clean, classy, and functional is how I would describe the first impression vibes upon unboxing.

There’s nothing remarkable. Nothing over-the-top. Nothing totally awe-inspiring. And nothing unnecessary.

But I’ve seen products that retail for a similarly inexpensive price that look and feel a lot cheaper than this.

These earbuds, available in yellow or gray, work just like a pair of Apple AirPods. There’s a charging case where you’ll store and charge the earbuds when you’re not using them. And then the charging case itself can be charged either on a wireless pad or via a USB-C port.

TecTecTec lists the battery life for the earbuds as:

• 9 hours at one-third volume
• 7 hours at half volume
• 5 hours at max volume

So far, I’ve played one 18-hole round and one 9-hole round with these earbuds. I’ve returned them to their case after each round, mostly because that’s just the most convenient and obvious place to store them. As for battery life, I’ve had zero issues, and I’d say I’ve been listening at about half volume.

The charging case is supposed to be able to charge the earbuds up to three times before the case needs a recharge. My findings are inexact in this portion of the testing. I just proactively re-charged the case after a couple of days because, well, why not? I wanted to make sure they were juiced up for my round the following day.

The bottom line is that, while my testing is far from scientific, I think the battery life for these things is completely sufficient and in line with what you’d expect with other earbuds.

Alright, let’s talk about setup.

Getting started is as simple as you’d hope and expect for a product like this in the year 2024. In other words, it’s stupidly simple.

• Download the app
• Sign up for an account or proceed as a guest
• Pair your phone’s Bluetooth connection with the earbuds
• Pick your source of audio (i.e. Spotify, Apple Music, etc.)
• Start jamming

The experience is identical to whatever other earbuds you’d use with your phone.

But of course, these earbuds do something no others can: they give you yardages on the golf course!

Let’s get to the good stuff and see how these TecTecTec TEAM8 E earbuds perform during a round.

On-Course Review of the First Golf GPS Earbuds

When you’re ready to play golf, you open the TecTecTec app and select “Quick Play.” You’ll get a menu of nearby golf courses from which to choose.

After you’ve selected your course and the tee box you’re playing, the app will default to hole number one. If you’re not starting there, you can easily scroll through to choose the hole you’re playing.

On the app screen, you’ll see front, middle and back yardages for the hole at hand plus a second row of information that includes distances to any hazards on that hole.

In your ears, you have options for what you want to hear. You can make adjustments in the earbud settings inside the app.

For example, you can set it up so that you always get front, middle and back yardages. Or you can choose to only hear the distance to the middle of the green.

With the earbuds in your ears, you tap once on the right earbud at any time and you’ll hear a robotic, not-exactly-soothing, female voice telling you your yardages to the green. Then, if you tap twice, you’ll hear the distance to the nearest hazard, including what type of hazard it is and whether it’s right, left or center. And, in the case of water, you also get a carry distance and layup distance, which is incredibly useful.

I will say that I wish the in-ear hazard distances weren’t limited to just the nearest hazard. Very often, that’s the least useful information. If I’m standing right next to a bunker, I don’t need to hear how far I am from it. But I would like to know how far I’ve got to the water that’s up ahead.

You can get distances to all of the hazards on any hole at any time by opening the app, but it would be nice if you could get audible distances for more than one hazard at a time.

So to review, you tap once for yardages to the green and tap twice for the yardage to the nearest hazard.

Then, if you press and hold on the right earbud, you’ll hear “Begin measurement. Please walk to your ball.” Once you arrive at your ball, you tap once on the right earbud and you’ll hear the distance of your last shot. That’s a pretty cool feature.

If you’re playing music, or a podcast or whatever and you tap for your distances, the volume of the music or other audio will automatically lower and that robotic voice will speak the yardages above the lowered volume of whatever it is that you’re listening to.

I think that some people may find it distracting to still have audio in the background, albeit at a lower volume, while they hear their yardages. They may prefer that the background audio cease all together, but I have not found an option to set it up that way. And, for me, it wasn’t a big deal to hear two things at once. The yardage readouts were louder enough than the background audio that it was easy for me to hear the information I was requesting.

Also, you can pause the background audio at any time by tapping once on the left earbud.

If you want to receive a phone call while you’re playing and wearing your TEAM8 E earbuds, you just tap twice on the left earbud to answer. I think it would be cool if you could get your yardages while you were on a call, but no such luck. You can’t access any of the right earbud tap features while you’re on the phone.

To end a call, you just tap twice again on the left earbud.

You can’t initiate a phone call using just the earbuds, but you can make a call on your phone and then listen and talk with your TEAM8 Es just as you would with other Bluetooth-connected earbuds.

Also, if you want to reject a phone call, you tap and hold on the left earbud.

But I would be careful using that feature. While I did find the tap system with both earbuds to be mostly reliable, occasionally I had some misreads. For example, if I tapped twice on the right earbud for hazard distance, I may instead hear the distance to the green. It wasn’t an all-the-time thing, but sometimes the taps don’t register perfectly.

As for sound quality, I’d rate it as fair. I’m not going to claim that this is an audiophile product. Nor do I think you’d find any pair of $100 earbuds that would blow your mind with audio quality. But TEAM8 Es work just fine. In fact, I think they sound every bit as good as the Apple AirPods I use regularly.

Ergonomically, for my ears I found the fit to be slightly fatiguing. After three-plus hours of an 18-hole round, my ears were a bit sore. Nothing major and probably not too different than what you’d experience with any other in-ear headphones that you wore for an extended period. The TEAM8 Es do come with multiple foam ear tips so that you can choose the size that best fits your ear.

As for how accurate the yardages were, I have to say I was impressed. The GPS mapping is clearly spot on. I confirmed multiple measurements using a rangefinder, and I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt the distances you get with the TEAM8 Es.

I also was impressed with how thorough the hazard mapping was. At my home course, we’ve got a couple of tiny bunkers, and I wondered if they would even register on the app as a hazard. Sure enough, everything was accounted for.

Now, for all that’s great about these earbuds, I don’t want to give the wrong impression. At the end of the day, their functionality is relatively basic. The information that you’re getting isn’t nearly as sophisticated as what you’d find with a top-of-the-line GPS golf watch, for example. There’s no visual hole mapping, no slope, no wind-adjusted yardage, no club recommendations, no shot data storage, nothing quite that fancy.

But for reliable yardages on demand, I’ve got to say that these earbuds work pretty damn well.

Should You Buy the TecTecTec TEAM8 E Golf GPS Earbuds?

Like I said at the start, if you love golf tech, you’ve got to be intrigued by these.

And if you like playing solo golf, doesn’t something like this make a lot of sense?

I like how simple these earbuds are to set up and operate. And I like how reliably accurate the yardages are. I also think the shot-distance calculation feature is a nice little bonus.

I’m not crazy about the limited functionality of the hazard yardages. And I do wish the tapping controls on the earbuds were a little more rock-solid-reliable.

Another thing that I think is a bit of a limitation for this product’s potential is that many of us play most of our solo rounds on our home courses. And it’s on our home courses where we least need to get regular yardage readouts. In other words, I could see some people not finding too much use for these on a regular basis.

Then again, when I’m playing by myself and I want to listen to music, a lot of times I don’t want to use an external speaker. I’m always conscious of the other golfers on the course. And I hate having to turn the volume up or down as I come in and out of earshot of other players. Having earbuds that double as functional from a golf perspective is, for me, a great benefit.

If the price were much higher, I might hold back on my recommendation. But for $129, if you like listening to music or podcasts or making phone calls on the course and you sometimes play by yourself, I could see definite value in picking up a pair of these.

I’m already planning to use them for my next solo round later this week.