Paws & Ponder: Pet Tech Trends

Hello Pet People! Have you noticed the increase in invisible fences for dogs? Sometimes you’re walking along and suddenly an adorable dog is pacing the yard next to you. There’s no visible barrier and yet they follow an invisible boundary that keeps them contained and you safe. Well, we want to talk about some of the best pet tech products and the other pet monitoring technology released for our furry friends. From collars to smart litter boxes for cats, pet cameras with two-way audio, and treat machines the pet industry has come up with some unique uses for robotics and technology. With so many new options on the market, finding the best pet tech for busy pet owners can be confusing.

So let’s talk pet care technology! Or more specifically, smart pet gadgets and innovative technology for pet health and safety. There are tons of companies producing their own pet health technology and by far the most common tech on the market is GPS pet trackers. From shock collars to trackers and invisible fences there was a bounty of sizes and styles for Top-rated smart collars for dogs and cats. The ones we will focus on today will be the Halo Collar, the Fi Collar, the Tractive Collar, and the SpotOn Collar, the benefits of wearable pet tech devices as well as taking a small peek at the less wearable technology available for other pets.

Collar Comparisons

All four collars we will be looking at have pros and cons to compare. The collar market has a wide range of collar types for different purposes and lifestyles so finding the right one for you isn’t as easy as it seems. Are you using the collar to train your dog or do you need it so you can find them when out on the trail? Is your pup an escape artist or are you just looking for that last bit of reassurance that they are where you think they are?

Well, let’s look at some of the most popular collars and break down how to monitor your pet’s health with the technology best fit for Fido. One thing all the collars prioritize is durability and comfort so that no matter what mess your precious pooch gets into the collar will stay with them. However, the battery life, features, uses, and costs vary drastically from one collar to the next and impact how to choose a pet tracker for your dog. The four collars we are comparing can be broken down into two categories: Fence collars, and Tracking collars.

Common Shortcomings

Something we found in common with all the collars is the reports of GPS inaccuracy, return and refund difficulty, and difficulty repairing and replacing broken units. Considering Halo and SpotOn both shock your pet for crossing the invisible fence and are prone to GPS malfunctions it is no surprise there are also reports of pets being randomly shocked by the devices. Tech support solution to these errors is recommending the user expand the fence… which defeats the purpose of keeping your pet restricted to a specific area. As far as affordable pet tech devices and batteries are concerned the winner in our books is Fi, although Tractive took a close second with its cat tech. However, we encourage all of these companies to continue to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their tech to produce higher quality and safer equipment for our furry friends.

For example, the Better Business Bureau is filled with complaints of incorrect warnings, shocking, and customer service difficulties. One customer states “Specifically, they have begun randomly shocking our dogs, even when they are well within the established boundary. In many instances, this occurs while they are inside our home, causing extreme emotional distress to both our pets and our family.”. Unfortunately, these complaints are often resolved by returning the devices, canceling the subscriptions, and switching to collars like Tractive or Fi that don’t have any shock settings at all. These errors in GPS are often caused by foliage or atmosphere interference, as well as simply because of the program choosing the frequency of position updates. The National Institute of Health did an in-depth comparison of a ton of different GPS collars and compared their time delays. Here is what they had to say about the average Tractive timeframes: “The Tractive TDs, for instance, usually send the pet’s position every 2 to 60 min depending on its physical activity. Moreover, they have a standby mode that sends the position every ten minutes and an emergency mode that sends the position every two to three seconds.” Now obviously if it only updates every 2 to 60 minutes the position is going to be wrong sometimes, but that’s why the programs have emergency modes that reduce the delay and increase the frequency of updates at the expense of battery saving.

Where to go from here?

The future is something we can only speculate about, however, we are hopeful to see some amazing advances in the pet tech industry. Improved safety for the products available and new inventions are sure to arise. Cats and Dogs seem to get all the love when it comes to wearables, although it is no surprise considering you can’t put a collar on your fish or snake. For fish, several companies are making incredible water quality sensors that test continually for oxygen, nitrogen, pH, temperature, and much more. Companies that specialize in collars and accessories are constantly working to improve the quality and accuracy of their trackers and working to expand their uses to other pets and purposes. The Fi collar has already had some success in the conservation industry! The Tahoe Wolf Center uses Fi collars to track the location, activity, and behavior of their wolves to make sure they stay happy, safe, and healthy. There is so much potential for the pet tech industry and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

Alternatives

There are tons of alternatives available on the market, and we recommend plenty of preventative and safety measures. Top on the list is microchipping your pet. The microchip can not fall off or get snagged on something because it is implanted inside your pet, and almost every vet, humane society, pound, or pet place has chip readers that are used upon intake to identify microchipped pets. These microchips have been used for years and can be programmed with everything needed to find a pet’s owner when they are found. A cheaper collar option for Apple users would be to use an Apple AirTag with a specialized case to attach the AirTag to your pet’s collar. AirTags are cheap compared to the collars we reviewed, and have a pretty good tracking system and reliability rating. The AirTag can’t set up boundaries and discipline your dog, however, if your dog runs off it would work just fine to help you find them.

Conclusion

We hope this blog has helped open your minds to the possibilities of pet tech as well as the importance of choosing your tech wisely. From shocking pets unnecessarily to irregular GPS signals there are a lot of kinks yet to be worked out even for some of the largest pet tech brands out there. It will be interesting to see how the companies improve their designs in the future and even more exciting to see what pets get the spotlight next when it comes to tech and animal wellness. We have linked all of our research sources below and highly encourage everyone to do their digging if any of these collars catch your fancy. Please let us know your experiences with pet tech and how it has impacted your pet’s health.

Leave any questions about pet tech in the comments below and let us know what topics you would like to see in the future. We hope you all have a perfect day with your pets and tell them all that the team here at Paula’s says hi! 

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