Looking at different options to be able to track our dogs should they ever get out or while camping if they wonder a bit too far. Just had an issue where I left on of our gates open and the dogs were nearly a mile away. Wife and I were a wreck until we were able to find both of them.

I see Fi and Whistle are options for areas where a cell signal is present.

Apple AirTag is an option but likely won't meet our needs due to them not being near other people to use the AirTag feature.

I see Garmin has a dog tracking collar that is more GPS based.

Are there any other out there I should be considering? We have two dogs and my top limit for tracking I would prefer to not spend over $1000 combined unless there is an absolute clear winner why.

We studied this in depth last month. AirTags are essentially useless for dog tracking.

The two best for rural areas in my opinion were Whistle and Fi. Went with whistle and it works amazingly well.

I use Garmin TT15 collars and a Garmin Pro 550+ handheld on my bird dogs. The new TT15 mini collars can be turned on and off from the newer Garmin handhelds to save battery life.

I guess you could leave the collars on your dogs and turn them on from your handheld and track them when you need to.

Have a Fi
Battery life is pretty bad. It depletes to 50% in under a week and that is if it is always connected to your phone Bluetooth (app must always be on in background) or the base station (I have 2 to get coverage on a typical Houston house/backyard.

Once below 50% I wouldn't feel comfortable having enough battery if the dog got out.

I would guess if you had a full charge and went to the ranch for the weekend it would be below 50% within a day.

New version just came out that says improved battery life. Just a heads up.

aggiedent said:

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We studied this in depth last month. AirTags are essentially useless for dog tracking.

The two best for rural areas in my opinion were Whistle and Fi. Went with whistle and it works amazingly well.

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What about in non rural areas? Not tried it for my dog yet...but i have my kids take the airtag on walks and it seems to do ok tracking them thru the hood and trail system. Assume it would work for a dog that occasionally escapes in a suburban setting?

I use the Garmin Alpha 100 with TT15 collars. We are on a ranch so when the dogs leave the yard, it is ok for them to run a bit, but we want to be able to find them. I charge the collars every night, but you could probably go several days if you changed the refresh rate. I don't remember what the range is, but it is miles. You do need rough line of sight. If the dogs go to the other side of the mountain, you will loose them until you get to that side.

Only cautionary note, any collar with prongs for correction will eventually rub a sore on the dogs neck. If it gets infected, it is a serious health threat. So remove the collars nightly or remove the prongs and the correction feature.

The whistle can track the dog to within a foot pretty much anywhere. City, suburbs, or our rural property. Constant and instantaneous tracking. You know exactly where it is second to second.

I tried an AirTag on our dog and it was useless. Once we were more than 30 feet away, it lost direct contact. In lost mode the dog has to get within 30 ft of someone with an iPhone to register. That's virtually useless. Plus there is a pronounced delay in notification, and as the dog wanders, you lose tracking again. I'm clueless how it works for you at all.

How bulky of a box is it on the collar? We were worried about the dogs chewing on each other's collars and they looked like plastic so we were worried about it based on the pictures.

I use Whistle on my Aussie. We live in a rural area and she is allowed to run around the area. When set a home area on Whistle and if she stays in that area, the tracker is on battery save mode. Usually I charge it every few weeks. The app will text me when the battery is low. If she leaves the home area, I get a text and can use the app to actively track her. I tracked her to a guys backyard once. It is very accurate. We have two Aussies and only one wears the tracker because she runs away from home sometimes when the neighbor, who reloads, is testing loads. Never had a problem with the other dog chewing on it. However, the two dogs don't like each other and usually if they were that close, it would be because they are fighting.

We liked the experience with the tracker so well, I bought one to try on one of my livestock guardian dogs. We have ten LGDs we use with our livestock and they are mostly Pyrenees/Anatolian mix or Akbash. They are big and active dogs. The tracker lasted about a week before one of them chewed it off the collar of the dog wearing it. I found it still working, but damaged and wouldn't have been water proof. Whistle gave me a deal on a replacement and within a week it went missing and I couldn't locate it. I assume it was damaged due to being chewed.

I didn't go for a third tracker, but I considered trying to place one in a tube made of pvc if I did it a third time. I haven't done that because we don't have a problem with losing the dogs or them roaming right now.

I don't know if that helps but that is my experience. 100% satisfied with one dog and total failure with the other dog. I guess it depends on the situation and breed.

Half pay attention to commercial, but there is one with a weird name on amazon. tracks kids, dogs, etc and has area notifications you can get. searched for it the other day but cant find it. keep watching for the commercial again. the name seems to be just a random bunch of letters.

I have a Fi second generation. It's OK, the battery life is a little over 2 weeks. I charge it each time I give the dog a bath.

I do have a Fi 3rd generation on order. The battery life is supposed to be 3 months and be quicker and more accurate.

The one thing I do not like about the current Fi is that it only updates once per minute. If you're going through the brush, a dog can travel a long distance in 60 seconds. The 3rd gen should update more frequently, but I have not seen it. My new one should arrive in the next week, so I'll update after I try it out.

In my mind, the best solution for this from a tech standpoint would be:

A combo of:
- Geofencing
- WiFi / Zwave/Bluetooth LE
- 3G/4G GPS


The Bluetooth LE sensor would be the only active power draw as long as the sensor was within range of a base station / geofenced area. Once it loses communication/goes out of range then the long range GPS would kick on for tracking. This should provide much better battery life.
Kudos if you can make this into the form of a thickened/flexible collar where the main body of the collar is battery pack and the sensor body is modular so you can hot swap out to an additional collar thats charged up.

And I'll need that in a small form factor with streamlined cross platform front end GUI for $199 + subscription.


Ok good luck haha.

ThreatLevel: Midnight said:

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In my mind, the best solution for this from a tech standpoint would be:

A combo of:
- Geofencing
- WiFi / Zwave/Bluetooth LE
- 3G/4G GPS


The Bluetooth LE sensor would be the only active power draw as long as the sensor was within range of a base station / geofenced area. Once it loses communication/goes out of range then the long range GPS would kick on for tracking. This should provide much better battery life.
Kudos if you can make this into the form of a thickened/flexible collar where the main body of the collar is battery pack and the sensor body is modular so you can hot swap out to an additional collar thats charged up.

And I'll need that in a small form factor with streamlined cross platform front end GUI for $199 + subscription.


Ok good luck haha.

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You just described Whistle except it is removable and self contained. Maybe I don't get your humor.

https://www.whistle.com/

Seems like a Garmin with the sample rate turned down would be a good solution. Will last days on a charge.

Can't you just give the dog the covid vaccine and then figure out what frequency the tracking is on?

dp

ThreatLevel: Midnight said:

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In my mind, the best solution for this from a tech standpoint would be:

A combo of:
- Geofencing
- WiFi / Zwave/Bluetooth LE
- 3G/4G GPS


The Bluetooth LE sensor would be the only active power draw as long as the sensor was within range of a base station / geofenced area. Once it loses communication/goes out of range then the long range GPS would kick on for tracking. This should provide much better battery life.
Kudos if you can make this into the form of a thickened/flexible collar where the main body of the collar is battery pack and the sensor body is modular so you can hot swap out to an additional collar thats charged up.

And I'll need that in a small form factor with streamlined cross platform front end GUI for $199 + subscription.


Ok good luck haha.

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That's basically Halo. You can track the dog on an app on your phone. It's pretty informative but it lags too much to give timely feedback. And the shock is way too weak.

I didn't know it existed.

Jokes on me.

See above.


Oops

aggiedent said:

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The whistle can track the dog to within a foot pretty much anywhere. City, suburbs, or our rural property. Constant and instantaneous tracking. You know exactly where it is second to second.

I tried an AirTag on our dog and it was useless. Once we were more than 30 feet away, it lost direct contact. In lost mode the dog has to get within 30 ft of someone with an iPhone to register. That's virtually useless. Plus there is a pronounced delay in notification, and as the dog wanders, you lose tracking again. I'm clueless how it works for you at all.

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I keep seeing reviews how you wont know the dogs location until 8-15 minutes after the fact. We have coverage for AT&T LTE-M in our area so this might work. Just curious how accurate and timely the location signal is.

Saw the commercial again and payed a bit more attention. Jiobit is the tracker, says it is real time

ForeverAg said:

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aggiedent said:

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The whistle can track the dog to within a foot pretty much anywhere. City, suburbs, or our rural property. Constant and instantaneous tracking. You know exactly where it is second to second.

I tried an AirTag on our dog and it was useless. Once we were more than 30 feet away, it lost direct contact. In lost mode the dog has to get within 30 ft of someone with an iPhone to register. That's virtually useless. Plus there is a pronounced delay in notification, and as the dog wanders, you lose tracking again. I'm clueless how it works for you at all.

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I keep seeing reviews how you wont know the dogs location until 8-15 minutes after the fact. We have coverage for AT&T LTE-M in our area so this might work. Just curious how accurate and timely the location signal is.

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In tracking mode the Whistle updates every 15 seconds. That is what you use when you are searching. I find my dog easily with the tracker. It creates a line on a map between pings that helps you visualize on the map the direction the dog is headed.