Whistle 3 Pet tracker review
I know a lot of our Computer Friends have furry friends and so I thought I would try one of the pet trackers and see how it actually measures up.
First let me say that for this tracker it depends on what you need it for and where your pet will primarily be while wearing it. It is either going to do exactly what you want it to do or it isn’t. I’m not sure if there is an in between on this product due to battery issues.
The Whistle 3 Pet tracker uses your home wireless to connect to and report your pet’s location when your pet is at home. This increases the battery life a lot. It is easier for the tracker to communicate with your home wireless then GPS signals. Therefore when your pet (cat) leaves your property, or really the reach of your wireless signal, the battery life drops significantly. How significantly? My indoor / outdoor cat who actually remains on the property a lot, and within wireless range a lot (because you know I have a strong signal at my house!) ran through the battery life in about 2.5 days. Which to me is pretty fast.
Additionally, I’m not sure where my Jazz goes to hide, nap or whatever, but for a large part of one day of testing the kitty was unable to be located all day. I’m going to guess she had no cell service in a crawl space or under a boat or something. (Kitty was brought in to be a hunter and she is an amazing hunter!)
So overall, for an indoor/outdoor cat I feel the battery life is way too short. However it was interesting to see where she was going in my neighborhood. For example I have a neighbor that is a huge cat person, yep, my Jazz cheated on me for large blocks of time at her house. This explains her trick to beg from the table which frankly is not happening at my house. Jazz and the dogs are only fed from their dishes.
The tracker attaches to the collar which for a cat can be a challenge. Those break away collars are not going to keep this product on the cat more than a day. For me, the cat costs 1/2 the price of the tracker so losing it would smart. I found a velcro stretch collar for Jazz at Aunt Kerry’s Pet stop which worked well for me and a collar I really do like. It’s nice to let your neighbors know your cat is not a stray, you know, so maybe they don’t teach it to beg at the table…
For a dog –
I put the tracker on new rescue Gage to see what information it would give me on him as I took him about town visiting pet stores and going to the park. The tracker says it is waterproof but I had already decided to return and didn’t feel I wanted to fully test that theory with a dip in pond. (or risk losing it)
Since the dog is within wireless range of the Whistle 3 Pet Tracker most of the time, the tracker had longer battery life with the dog. It has an activity monitor feature which can be very helpful if you are working on increasing the activity of your pup for weight loss or you have a high energy breed and want to be sure you are meeting your daily quota of activity. Beyond that, not very helpful.
So would I recommend this product? If you have a pet that you love a lot and you fear it getting out and lost and maybe it has medical issues and you don’t mind paying $170.00 to start and $99 per year after (monitoring service) then go for it.
You get alerts from your Whistle 3 pet tracker when your pet leaves home which can certainly be helpful. The GPS will get you within 50 feet of your pet which is certainly helpful. It is NOT anywhere near exact. It said the cat was in the back yard for a bulk of our testing when she was actually in the front yard. About 50′ from where it said, but in the zone. Also the app puts your location on the map as well (via your phone) and even when the pet was actually with me it sometimes had us many feet apart.
And one more thing, it also sucks battery from your phone as it tries to communicate with the devices all day while also activating your GPS while doing so. So if you know how quickly your battery dies while using navigation, it is similar to that.
So there you have it! You decide if this works for what you need it to do!