Tractive GPS Cat Tracker (2021) with Custom Cat Collar, Follow them Everywhere, 24/7 Location and 365-day History

I've been looking for a GPS cat tracker for a while and bought this model on recommendation from a colleague.It arrived very quickly and was very simple to set up and register. Buyers should be aware, however, that the advertised subscription price, whilst accurate, must be purchased in block periods of 1, 2 or 5 years with payment up front. We went for 1 year of the premium rate as we didnt want to commit too heavily and then find our cat didn't like wearing it.The tracker unit itself is small but not tiny, it still looks quite large on a cat and I can see why Tractive only recommend it for cats over 4kg - Our 5.5kg male doesn't seem bothered by it but I certainly wouldn't put it on my smaller female cat. Despite the size, the unit is fairly light and easy to charge with the supplied USB lead (we're finding that we get 4-5 days of use per charge). Our cat DID manage to detach the tracker from the collar clip twice in the first three days but, one quick email to Tractive's customer support dept later and they despatched us a replacement collar with integrated clip, plus a spare clip to use on any collar, completely free of charge. Very impressive.Tracking is achieved via a mobile app (you can also access it via a web page, but the app offers more functionality) which is best described as 'Garmin Connect for cats'! You can see a GPS trace of where your cat has been (or, indeed, is right now) and also heat maps of commonly visited areas, this is fully customisable by whichever time period you choose. You can also input your cat's measurements and weight to see a daily calorie burn count and even a local leaderboard of active minutes/distance covered, with the option to befriend owners of fellow Tractive-equipped cats!Additonally, you can upload photos of your cat, together with their chip ID, whether they've been spayed/nueutered or not, plus your contact details.All in all, this seems to be a good quality product with excellent support. It isn't the cheapest but I guess the adage of 'you get what you pay for' applies here. If I could improve one thing, it would be a reduction in size of the tracker unit by at least half. I imagine this will come over time and will be interested in upgrading when it does.

I bought two of these (2 cats) . My cats are constantly roaming and I wanted to know where they were. Initially the tracker works well. The app is easy to use, however they are not fit for purpose as the tracker attaches to a collar (both included in purchase). The collar stayed on, no issues with that. However the tracker that clips onto the collar fell off twice within one week. My cats are active climbers, squeeze through tiny gaps. I can only assume this is why the tracker was lost twice. Because of it falling off, I have sadly returned both to Amazon for a refund. Alas it is not so easy to obtain a refund from Tractive for a mandatory subscription. I wouldn't buy a product from them again, not because of the tracker because it could be a good product but the Customer Service. What use is a subscription that they won't refund if I have returned the trackers. They supposedly have a 14 day cancellation policy on the subscription. Unfortunately due to work commitments etc I didn't cancel in time. My own fault for not reading the small print. UPDATE on 22 Jan 2021. I paid for the subscription via a PAYPAL. I used their resolution centre to create a dispute. I then received a full refund for the subscription from Tractive.

Our cat Harry - normally quite reliable in his routine - has recently started staying away from home for some unknown reason. We had, on a couple of occasions, reported him as missing and even put him on social media. Luckily for us, he had been staying in the area, and a neighbour had spotted him so we brought him home, however he has since done his disappearing act a couple more times, each time being found in the same area.We didn't want to keep him in as he is very much an outdoor cat, so we decided to get him a tracker. After a bit of research we decided on the Tractive GPS tracker.After reading some reviews of the included collar being a bit weak we bought another collar to put the tracker on and so far, so good.Tracker is easy to set up through the app, and offers a lot of features - with an annual subscription. We opted for the Premium cover, at a cost of £86 a year.The tracker itself is fairly compact and doesn't seem to impede Harry's movements, but even so, when he is home we take it off him to give him some relief from it. The app is good with a lot of features such as live tracking, activity monitor and history, which provides a view of his movements in the form of lines and a heat map. There's even a leaderboard so you can see how well your cat is doing in comparison to other cats in the local area. There's also an option to switch on light and an alarm on the tracker through the app, in case your pet loses their collar (this has happened to us on a couple of occasions and on both times we located it easily which is testament to its accuracy). However there is a downside - if cat is indoors or in a built up area, the GPS signal can be bit weak or non-existent. The map on the app is also not as up to date as it could be, but it does the job well enough. The map on the Tractive website is certainly more up to date, but it's not possible to use the live tracking and virtual fence at the same time like it is on the app. Speaking of virtual fence - this allows you to set a "boundary", so that if your pet roams outside of this, the app will alert when they have the area, and again when they return.For battery life, I have only given 3 stars here, mainly because Tractive states up to 5 days battery, when in reality this is around 2-3 days depending on how much you use the live tracking feature (live tracking increases battery life). I would have like a spare battery so that I didn't run the risk of it running out of juice if Harry stays out for a bit longer than normal but after having been in touch with Tractive themselves, they no longer supply spare batteries, which I find really short sighted, so I drop a star for that. To help preserve battery life we tend to turn the tracker off when Harry is home (there is a power button on the tracker - hold it down for 3 seconds or so to turn on or off) and charge it every couple of days.Minor niggles aside, I really recommend this product. The app has a load of features that are both genuinely useful and entertaining at the same time. Being able to see where Harry is when he's outside is really fun, and gives us peace of mind. It's also good to know that if/when he loses his collar, we can locate the tracker relatively easily. It allows us to let him out of the house secure in the knowledge that we can always locate him.