“At first this looked like a very good product. It was reassuring to know where our cat was and what his usual range/territory is.
However, the base station has only ever tracked the collar for a maximum distance of 200 meters. To see where our cat had been beyond that we had to wait until the collar came back into range.
The idea of being able to search for him if he became trapped was particularly reassuring. However, in practice it simply did not work. Our cat lost his collar but fortunately did make his own way home.
Starting with the last gps location we started to walk out cat's entire territory using the search function. It was totally useless and failed to make contact with the lost collar. Very good job our cat made its own way home, had he been trapped/injured we would never have found him.
Doesn't appear this product is all it's cracked up to be.”
“Not particularly happy with pet tracer. The collar is indeed light, but it’s pretty much useless for locating the pet. You know roughly where it was recently, but you can’t actually navigate to your pet. The best it does is tell you whether the signal is getting stronger or weaker. I regret buying a year’s subscription and am currently trying out a different location system.”
Hi Nina,
Thank you for your review.
We are not sure why you would say that petTracer is "useless for locating the pet".
It actually does that locate cats very well as you have pointed out. It will not however, when using the Radio option give you directions or place your cat on the map.
It will tell you however if you are getting closer or further away from the collar. That is the extent of what Radio can do which has helped many customers to find their cat when they were trapped indoors and GPS was not working.
Please note that when your cat is outdoors and there is GPS you will get a location in the map.
“We bought PetTracer because 2 of our cats are too small for other makes of tracker but we're disappointed. For getting a general sense of where they hang out its ok. The battery life is ok. I've been putting off leaving a review because I don't want to be negative but it seems that it doesn't take much for there to be no available signal so there can be very long gaps in knowing where the cats are. The whole rigmarole of making the home station mobile is a massive hassle and doesn't always work in our very ordinary neighbourhood. So now one of my cats is missing and there's no signal, no recent update and we are frustrated and despondent. Small detail - the coloured tape for the collars doesn't stick on well and gets very worn quickly. What should have brought us peace of mind and kept our cat safe has done neither.”
“We've had Pettracer for a good few months now but have taken time to consider our thoughts. I wouldn't get Pettracer today given the choice.
Summary of concerns (which are elaborated on below):
* Safety concerns. I asked about what testing was done on the 'safety catch' and what weight it opened under. The answer I got back from them was brief - they didn't mention testing had been done other than it 'is very safe' and didn't answer what weight the collar opened under. The collar also doesn't open if heavy weight is applied slowly - it needs an immediate jolt. The collars that arrived were coloured with a label to say how one of the collars opens easier than the other colour and that it is the owners responsibility to choose the appropriate collar. You should not be putting this decision into the hands of your consumer especially as you give them no supporting metrics to make that choice; it's either safe, or it's not.
* Riddled with technical issues
* Faulty collars received / badly made
* Difficult to find when the cat looses it (see comments below)
* Overpriced
When our product arrived, I followed the setup instructions and downloaded their software.
The software would not detect the collar at all and it took me a while to realise it required additional drivers to be installed which weren't in the setup instructions. This was on an updated version of Windows 10 - it's 2021, these things really should be plug and play these days.
When we got it installed, we configured the collar and it took half a day to get it connected to our WiFi. It wouldn't seem to connect to our local network as despite accepting the WiFi password, it felt like it had some unknown cap on password length without making it obvious to the consumer. We had to change our WiFi password to get it working. In addition to this, it didn't like the fact our home network doesn't run on 192.168.X.X - not all routers run on this range so it shouldn't be a problem as long as everything is standards compliant. The thing that doesn't seem to adhere to any sort of standards is the Pettracer device so some people will inevitably run into issues. I did flag my comments regarding this with them but never heard back from the technical team.
When everything was finally setup, we took the collar outdoors and it wouldn't get a GPS signal. We contacted them and they acknowledged that the collar was faulty and we had to send it back. At this point, we had waited over a month for the first collar to arrive, experienced technical issues with the product because it isn't particularly well built, and had a hardware fault on the collar itself. Now we had to wait for another one - this was not a good start.
When the new collar arrived, we got it connected and a GPS position was obtained.
We've been using the collar for a few months and here is our feedback having got good use out of it:
Generally, when the collar works, it works well and the position is updated on the map as per the speed settings. We've had one instance where the radio device wouldn't connect to their servers for several hours despite it being connected to our WiFi - we contacted them and they briefly acknowledged their servers were overloaded but detracted from the issue at hand and wrote an entire essay about how the cats collar doesn't update when it goes outside of radio range which was not the issue. Having inspected the traffic that goes from the radio device, it seems to be going to a server provider in Germany (Hetzner) which are often referred to as a budget provider. And generally, that's how this whole product and experience feels like. Made on the cheap, supported by budget infrastructure, and sold at an extortionate price.
Unfortunately, a couple of months into using the product, we lost the collar. Despite attempts to find it, we were unsuccessful. Kind of ironic for a GPS device. The collar was lost in dense woodland and losing it is certainly better than any harm coming to our cat. However, the tools they provide you to find it are poor. You can enable a flashing light remotely which isn't bright, and get a rough signal strength to see if you're close, but I feel these tools aren't enough. Me and my partner both had the app open and we were getting different signal strengths at the same time? The signal strength is based on the distance from the collar to the radio device so shouldn't have got different data back? Yet more technical bugs. What they really need to do is put an audible beeper / similar onto the collar so when you're close, you can activate the sound and save yourself the extortionate cost of £114 for a replacement. Beepers are very small / light weight so I can't see why they haven't done this. It would be helpful if they also exposed the exact GPS coordinates to further assist you finding it.
We wont be renewing our subscription when it expires.”
“We waited a couple of months after paying for the product before it was available. Within a couple of days it was clear that our cat was coming home without the collar quite often. He's got it on the smallest sizing and with the inlay band for smaller cats, but perhaps it's just not suitable for cats of all sizes. After losing it many times but somehow managing to find it, this final time we have been unable to get it back. Having spent nearly £200 I would have hoped for more than 2 weeks of use. Additionally, I would say that even on 'fast mode' which is supposed to send a signal back most frequently, the points plotted were usually 15/30 minutes apart. When you've lost the collar (or cat if still attached to it!) you don't want to know where it was 30 minutes before it was lost.”
Hi,
Thank you for your review and we are sorry to hear your cat was unable to wear our collar.
petTracer is suitable for most cats, as per our FAQ: The collar has a minimum circumference of 21.5cm which can be reduced by around 2.5cm with an inlay band from our shop
Regarding the modes, when trying to find your cat/collar you can select Search Mode to get a position every 15 seconds
The Fast mode will give you a signal every 10 min when the cat is moving and 60min when the cat is not moving. This is part of our technology to preserve battery when your cat is not lost.
“Very poor range. Frequently it took an hour before the ladt position was updatet in the app even though the mode was set on 15 min. In general poor performance considering the pricing.”
“Sehr komplizierte Installation.
Zu kompliziert und zeitaufwendig für normale Personen (sind beide Akademiker mit mehreren Titeln).
E mail mit Anfrage zur Hilfe wurde inadäquat mit einer Begrüssungsmail beantwortet.
Keine richtige Ansprechperson, keine Telefonnummer vorhanden.
Zur Krönung akzeptieren unsere drei Katzen die Halsbänder nicht.
Leider Abo gelöst für zwei Jahre.
Wären sehr glücklich gewesen für Antwort auf Hilfeanfrage.”
“Der petTracer ist bei uns in der Ortung sehr ungenau und unzuverlässig. Ein anderes, billigeres Gerät ist hier deutlich zuverlässiger und genauer. Auch die Installation war in der Handhabung nicht ganz einfach. Wir mussten einen Fachmann zu Rate holen. Letztenendes hat es an einem fehlenden Treiber gelegen. Bei der Erstinstallation war dies nicht erkennbar.”
“Schlechte Signalerfassung, oft erst Aktualisierung wenn Tier in Sichtweite. Ausfall System nach 1 Woche. Halsband weg, Kater weg.
Schaden 900 Euro plus ein Abo das nicht mehr gebraucht wird.”
“Auch wenn es wirklich spannend ist zu sehen, wo sich unser Kater so rumtreibt, so hat er das Halsband in den drei Monaten schon sechs mal verloren. Die Suchfunktion in Kombination mit dem Licht (also immer in der Nacht raus in den Wald) hat in den meisten Fällen geholfen, das Band wieder zu finden. Manchmal waren wir auf die Nachbarn angewiesen, die das Band in der Scheune oder der Garage gefunden haben. Leider hat er es nun an einem Ort verloren, wo das GPS nicht funktioniert und auch der Peilmodus ist, wie so oft, nicht hilfreich. Wir haben uns erhofft, mit petTracer ein Produkt zu haben, das uns hilft den Kater zu finden, haben aber festgestellt, dass wir vor allem damit beschäftigt sind, das Halsband zu suchen.”
“Ich bin nicht zufrieden. Den Zweck meine Katzen in einem kleinen Radius in unserer Wohnung; Haus bzw. Keller zur Orten gestaltet sich leider sehr aufwendig.
Ich würde mich nicht nochmal für den kauf entscheiden.”
“zu ungenaue position (konnten verlorenes band anhand der aufzeichnung nicht finden), zu häufiges nachladen, verkaufsmodel mit jahresbeitrag nicht ideal, eher zu klobig”
“Ich habe das Halsband jetzt seit 1 Jahr, um genau zu sein 3 Halsbänder für einen Maine Coone und zwei Heilige Birma. Wenn man das System erstmal eingerichtet hat, läuft es gut, dies war aber nicht einfach und könnte besser erklärt werden. Die Lokalisation ist genau. Akku Ladung ca. 5 Tage. Problem: das Halsband hat einen Klickverschluss der so locker ist, dass sich alle meine 3 Kater davon befreien. Daher habe ich das Funksuchsystem mit Umstellung der Empfangsstation auf mobiles WLAN vom Handy und Stromversorgung über Powerbank schon mehrfach getestet. Kompliziert und nicht in der Betriebsanleitung erklärt, funktioniert aber. Habe die Halsbänder auf Garagen, in Gärten und auch im Sofa wiedergefunden. Wäre aber nicht nötig gewesen, wenn das Halsband besser halten würde. Bei dem Preis leider enttäuschend, dass ein eigentlich gutes System daran versagt, dass der Verschluss schlecht ist.”
“We use another tracker from a business called Marco Polo (MP) and we are comparing our use of petTracer with that product. In our opinion the customer service is more friendly with MP as they are a family business and you really feel that when you communicate with them. It's almost like they know every one of their clients. I am afraid that PetTracer didn't respond to one of my previous emails and that was very disappointing. If I had an urgent situation with the tracker or a lost pet I would be really upset already without having to cope with no responses. I do admit that I get peace of mind with having a tracker on the pets' collars but I don't get live updates which I can get with MP. It takes a long time to track a pet so I don't bother any more. I only hope that if I did lost the cat that it would find it but I would worry about the length of time the tracker takes to locate them. This would make me very anxious. I don't have the same anxieties with MP. And to learn that in the last few days that the tracker has not been tracked at Head Office over a period of 6 days when I thought it was working here is quite a concern.”
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for your review. Someone has already been in touch and we hope this is resolved soon as some of the points mentioned in your review come down to understanding how to use petTracer fully and we want to ensure you are able to track your cat when you need to.
