I've tried all the major pet trackers. Most of them are too big for cats. Many of them are just Bluetooth which doesn't help at all when your cat gets far away. The better ones have Bluetooth, wifi, LTE, and GPS.
The ones with more than Bluetooth try to be clever to preserve power and only enable the other radios in certain situations. I haven't found one that does this well yet. I would prefer they use more power and track better. For something moving like a cat, you really need better tracking.
There are a few uses cases I want to work well:
1) I want to know when my cat leaves home and then be able to find him with realtime GPS.
2) I want to find my cat when he's home. He can easily decide to nap under a bush in my yard and then he's impossible to find.
The most common one I see people using is Tractive. I personally found it literally useless. When you're close to home, it only enables Bluetooth and your phone app is basically looking for the signal strength of the tracker's Bluetooth. I found that my phone (Samsung Ultra S22) didn't sense my cat unless I was 15-20ft away, which isn't very helpful as I already have to know where he is.
The one I decided to use is JioBit. When you're close to home (based on it sensing your home wifi) it only has Bluetooth enabled but it makes a connection to your phone. I found this to work over about 50ft. When connected, you can ring a bell on the tracker and find your cat. Pretty useful. When your cat is away from home, it only updates the GPS location every 5-15 minutes over LTE which I find too infrequent. Another annoyance is that it only does GPS tracking when your cat is too far from your home wifi. My cat can get way beyond Bluetooth range but still close enough to detect my wifi and then I have no tracking at all.
What I would really like is something like the JioBit but with better connectivity. I want:
1) It to check in with a server every few minutes. Using wifi when home or LTE when not home. I want this because I want to be able to enable realtime gps tracking when I'm looking for my cat.
2) When realtime tracking is enabled, actually be realtime. Give me updates every 15 seconds at least.
3) Give me the ability to ring the device over wifi or LTE.
The JioBit can last a few weeks in its current mode. I'm willing to cut that down significantly. And I really don't mind it burning power when I'm actively trying to find my cat.
The ones with more than Bluetooth try to be clever to preserve power and only enable the other radios in certain situations. I haven't found one that does this well yet. I would prefer they use more power and track better. For something moving like a cat, you really need better tracking.
There are a few uses cases I want to work well:
1) I want to know when my cat leaves home and then be able to find him with realtime GPS.
2) I want to find my cat when he's home. He can easily decide to nap under a bush in my yard and then he's impossible to find.
The most common one I see people using is Tractive. I personally found it literally useless. When you're close to home, it only enables Bluetooth and your phone app is basically looking for the signal strength of the tracker's Bluetooth. I found that my phone (Samsung Ultra S22) didn't sense my cat unless I was 15-20ft away, which isn't very helpful as I already have to know where he is.
The one I decided to use is JioBit. When you're close to home (based on it sensing your home wifi) it only has Bluetooth enabled but it makes a connection to your phone. I found this to work over about 50ft. When connected, you can ring a bell on the tracker and find your cat. Pretty useful. When your cat is away from home, it only updates the GPS location every 5-15 minutes over LTE which I find too infrequent. Another annoyance is that it only does GPS tracking when your cat is too far from your home wifi. My cat can get way beyond Bluetooth range but still close enough to detect my wifi and then I have no tracking at all.
What I would really like is something like the JioBit but with better connectivity. I want:
1) It to check in with a server every few minutes. Using wifi when home or LTE when not home. I want this because I want to be able to enable realtime gps tracking when I'm looking for my cat.
2) When realtime tracking is enabled, actually be realtime. Give me updates every 15 seconds at least.
3) Give me the ability to ring the device over wifi or LTE.
The JioBit can last a few weeks in its current mode. I'm willing to cut that down significantly. And I really don't mind it burning power when I'm actively trying to find my cat.