Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs – Waterproof, GPS Location & Smart Pet Activity Tracker, Unlimited Range, Works with Any Collar (Midnight Blue)

Let me start with the winner. Tractive.

Also, I think it is a very important fact to know is this: Neither tracker was super accurate to the “zones”…. As in, my Dog was around a brisk 3 minute walk out of the red line before I was notified from Tractive. My dog was a minimum of 5 minutes out of the red line before I was notified from Fi. Two minutes is huge to me. If you are purchasing either device as a peace of mind for dogs that escape, you need to know this fact.

1. Connectivity: Tractive because when I had one dog in Fi and the other in Tractive, Tractive always updated me first. I take multiple walks with my dogs each day. During those walks, I would leave my phone at home. Then I would look at the times of the notifications when I returned. Tractive won every day in different places.

2. Lost Dog Mode: Tractive was quicker to track in my opinion. Lost Dog Mode went into effect quicker than Fi. The Fi delays a minute at a time when putting it in lost dog mode. This is huge when trying to locate your dog. My dog can cover some ground in a minute. The Tractive stays tracking the whole time. You can literally see your dog take a turn, run backwards..etc. You can also click on AR and it points you in the direction to head with an estimation of feet. Here is how I tested this: I let my husband take both dogs without a phone on him. He tooks some hiking trails while I waited behind. Then, I placed both devices in lost mode. I did these three different days, at different times, in different places.

3. Actually tracking the dog when lost: Tractive. Once Tractive pulls up, it’s real time. Fi updates each minute.

4. Alerts: Tractive. I mean, it is cool to know that “Husband just took dog on ride”. “Dog is out of zone without an owner” (Fi), but I hate getting tons of communication. I care if my dog has left home- and where he is. Just telling me “Dog has left home” is enough for me (Tractive) I usually know when they are supposed to be going somewhere and if I didn’t, I’d want to. I don’t need to know where my husband drives around with my dogs.

App- Tractive. The Fi app sucks. I think there is a time and place for social stuff and I LOVE seeing dogs on Insta- but I do not want to join a social dog network. I do not want to be notified of other dogs. It is cool I could disable it, but just seeing the tab bugs me. I like that the Tractive app reminds me of my health app. It tracks sleeping and all kinds of things. Honestly – that functionality isnt important to me- but my Boxer sometimes has days where he seems “down”. I could look at the app and see that he got less sleep the night before and it made me worry less. He was just tired.

Extra Zones: Tractive. Fi doesnt have any. I LOVE this. I put extra bad zones around some houses that I would never want my dog near. We went on walks near them and sure enough, I would be notifed that “Dog was near Smiths house”. Again, as I started with… it does take a few minutes- but just knowing I would get notified was a huge relief.

Setting up: Tractive. The Fi was annoying. I had to set mine up- then when I sent invites to my family, it acted like they needed to connect to the base and do all of the initial stuff I already did. I had to figure out that I could go back in and press on them in the invite screen. Then they could just log back in and it would work. The tractive required zero questions from each of my teenage kids and husbands. I sent an invite, they added themselves.

Battery: same- The tractive does lose battery pretty quickly when you are in lost mode, yet this makes sense. It is updating more frequently than the Fi. It uses more service than the Fi. The Fi uses your cell phone which most people have on them. The only thing Tractive uses is your home Wifi IF you set that up.

The airtag wasnt and shouldn’t be an option for people to use to locate their dog. It has zero cellular service so why Fi uses them as their “biggest competition” on their website makes sense now after owning one.
I think a lot of people really need to understand how Fi works. If my device was with me, Fi was beyond amazing. On paper, it beat Tractive big time—-but Fi USES my cellular GPS when I have my phone with me. So of course it’s better. I won’t be by my dog if I lost him! It doesn’t use its internal cell service until you are not near your wifi/ cell phone. Also, if you don’t have the Tractive placed the right way- it does affect the service. Make sure it’s placed to the outside of the collar with the silver button up. I think maybe people put it upside down? I honestly have been SEARCHING for ways that the Fi could be better. It is the better-looking device and seems much tougher. I have a great dane and a boxer and they love to play rough. They haven’t managed to affect either device. We also take hikes in snow up to my boxers shoulders- the Tractive was unaffected by that moisture.

I’m going to keep both for now and see if they stay this way for a few months

UPDATE 4/27/23:
Fi just pushed an update that states it tracks faster in the live mode. I tested every scenario above again- and everything is the exact same as I shared above EXCEPT— on the point of Fi taking 1 min to update in lost dog mode, it has changed to every 15-30 seconds. This is the only thing that was affected by their update.

Hope this helps!

Warning! You will pay much more for this tracker than the price shown on Amazon because you can’t use the app – and you can’t use the tracker without the app – unless you pay the subscription, and there is no monthly payment option offered. So I’ve essentially paid £116 for this item – £32 to buy it and £84 for a 1 year subscription (minimum available).

Also I was very disappointed to find that I cannot use the virtual fence option to be alerted if my dog escapes from my garden, because the minimum virtual fence is 100m radius, apparently due to GPS limitations. Also when you’re within your wifi zone the app doesn’t track, it assumes your pet is safe “at home”. I live right next to a very busy road, this means my dog can actually be on the other side of the road and the app still tells me she is in the safe zone.

Combine that with the fact that the app is slow to realise your pet has exited the safe zone, and it means the at-home safety features are no use unless you have a large property.

Perhaps the wellness features add value for some purchasers (and lol there’s a leader board! Presumably designed for the more competitive amongst us) but I’m not interested in tracking how much my dog sleeps or is active – I have a lunatic springer spaniel who is walked well every day.

I just want to know where my dog is – where she really is right now, not an educated guess – and that she is safe. If I want real-time tracking when out walking across fields I have to use the LIVE option which uses a lot of tracker battery charge.

Finally the clips that hold the tracker onto the dog collar are not as sturdy as I’d hoped, I’m worried that one day my springer will emerge from a hedge trackerless. We will see!

Update 1 month later: the live tracking has worked very well when my springer goes awol, walks are much less stressful these days. Also I’m happy to report that the clips have held well. Generally I’m happy with it.

I bought this tracker a month ago after my dog started to decide that his walks were not over and it was not time to go home. He’s still young and we’ve just moved to a new town.

After the third time when I was left wandering around in the dark trying to decide whether to look for him or stay where I was, I decided to investigate trackers. After a lot of research, this one seemed to be the most used and the reviews looked pretty good.

I have to admit though, I kinda hate this tracker and I have a lot of ill-feeling towards the company and its underhand pricing tactics and business model.

This is my experience with the tracker since I’ve had it.

PROS:

– I can *kind of* see which direction my dog is going and his rough location… when I have a signal and he hasn’t moved in the meantime, that is.

– It’s pretty light and stays on my dog’s collar. I moved it to his wider LED night collar so I didn’t have to keep sliding it on and off his thinner day-to-day one. So he has 2 collars on when we go out.

CONS:

– There is about a 10-second delay. So sometimes it says my dog is 300 feet away but he’s right in front of me. Sometimes it will say he’s 15 feet away but actually, he’s nowhere to be seen.

This delay means that on occasion, I’ve gone to his location and he’s already gone. I can roughly work out where he is but the delay means it’s not that accurate.
If it shows that he’s 300 feet away and running in my direction, I know I will usually see him before the tracker shows him close by.

– I don’t always have solid phone reception in woodland… which is where I need the tracker. So often it’s completely useless and feels more like a dog necklace.

– Sometimes, I turn it on and the app just shows a map of the world. I try to turn on the Live feature and nothing happens. I have to close the app and try again a few times. This means I always turn the Live feature on as soon as I get to the woods so I don’t have to stand there wasting (what could be a precious) time while it tries to locate us both.

– The charging cable is awkward and you have to do a kind of balancing act with the tracker and cable in order for it to stay attached and charging.

– To get a cheaper price you have to pay quite a lot upfront. I ended up paying for 2-years worth in order to get a reasonable price. It felt like I’d been mugged. This was the key issue for me. This pricing model feels underhand and as if I’ve been tricked.

The tracker has a few other – mostly pointless – features.

– I can see the history of where my dog has been. I know where he’s been because I was with him.
– I can see how many hours my dog has been active. Again, I know this because I was there at the time.
– I can see how many hours of sleep he’s had. I know how much sleep he has because I can see him. Also, I take his tracker off when we get home. He doesn’t need a bulky tracker around his neck 24/7.
– I can see how his exercise compares with other dogs of the same breed. I’m not sure why I would care about this.
– There is a local leaderboard. I turned this feature off immediately as I don’t care how long other people in my area walk their dogs. It’s also creepy and probably a breach of data protection.

Overall, I’m glad that I can “kind of” see where my dog is and how fast he’s going – if I have a phone signal and take into consideration the 10-second time delay. But I don’t think it’s an outstanding product and the way the company charge feels as if I’ve been tricked.

I use this tracker reluctantly and I feel negatively towards the company.

** UPDATE **

After being contacted by the company to see if they could help fix the issues I had been reporting – and so I would change my review – there have been a few changes.

1. They sent me a large, clip-on charging cable free of charge – because the one that came with it wasn’t really very good. This would normally be £5.99 but actually stays on the tracker when charging – which is useful!
2. The tracker actually started playing up even more. When I tried to turn it on or off, it was showing a blue light instead of going green or red and then wouldn’t turn off at all.
3. Because of these issues – and because I’d paid for faulty product replacement – the company sent me a new tracker. The lights are now working properly and the lag isn’t so bad. The tracker seems a bit more accurate than before and instead of 10 seconds, it’s around 5 which is much better.

Saying that, despite Tractive’s excellent customer service, I’d have preferred a better product that didn’t warrant their service team getting involved.

For the tracker and 2 years upfront (I paid a bit extra for another user and for a replacement should it break or get lost (which was lucky seeing as it stopped working properly after a month), I paid around £150ish. For that money, I would have expected a better product and I won’t be changing the number of stars I have given.

** SECOND UPDATE **

Two weeks after receiving the new tracker, the same problems are occurring. I’ve had enough and have contacted Tractive for a refund. I just can’t bear it. I only bought it in January and it’s been nothing but trouble.

This little box is absolutely fantastic. I first bought it about 6 months ago roughly. I was looking for a gps and fitness tracker for my dog as I was considering hiring a dog walker a few times a week so she could have some dog friends, and I wanted to see how far she went and also to have the little extra security of being able to find her if she got away from the dog walker.

This was an inexpensive purchase in comparison to a lot of the others I found online. There is a subscription service you must pay to enable tracking, but do keep in mind all gps trackers will require this and at ~€70 per year I found it more than reasonable.

The tracking is very accurate. The device can play a high pitch whistley kind of sound you can activate with the app so you can hear where your dog is, and has a small light you can turn on with the app so if they got out at night you at least have a bit of light on them in case of cars etc. The device itself is waterproof, mine have been soaked in rain and mud countless times and zero issues. The charging is very quick and holds charge for a good while. My less active dog has hers recharged weekly while the pup needs every 3 days or so. Super easy to charge with a magnet cable so you don’t have to take it on and off the collar. Super quick and easy.

The activity tracking is pretty good too and is counted in minutes per day of activity and provides you average minutes your dog should do for their breed and age. Very interesting to see as my older dog averages 100-150 minutes per day and my pup averages 400-500 per day of running around the place!

The only thing I find a bit iffy with it is the elastic blue attachment piece on the back. I don’t trust it. For my older dog it’s perfectly fine and has never come off, but the pup has knocked a corner loose every now and again and I don’t want it falling off in case she eats it so I have put two zip ties around the whole thing and her collar so it won’t fall off. Zero issues since then. If the back does break or fall off and get lost they do sell replacements on their website though so don’t worry!

I made a review video online and Tractive actually reached out afterwards offering me a free device for when I get a second dog, but I had actually already purchased a second one for my new pup by the time I saw it so too late but I did appreciate the offer anyway!

One time I accidentally upgraded or changed my plan in the app and within two minutes of messaging support it was undone and fixed.

In a nutshell I am more than happy with this product and will continue to use them every day for the peace of mind I get knowing where my dogs are at all times. 10/10 would recommend!