Puck, our elderly german shepherd, went missing. Some local kid reached though the gate, unlocked it and let our dogs out for his or her own amusement. After a morning spent searching, one question kept returning to me over and over again: “Why do GPS dog collars cost six hundred dollars?”
Times have changed, and Zoombak now offers a GPS-based dog locator for a much cheaper $200 – definitely worth it, as you will discover if a beloved pup ever goes off for a dangerous jaunt around the block. The flip side is that you need a subscription, costing $15 a month, with cancellation fees if you want out.
This is perhaps because it uses assisted GPS, which adds a cellular transceiver to improve performance, and because the service includes a web-based tracker you can access whenever you want, notification via SMS if the wearer leaves designated “safe” zones, and 24/7 emergency support.
From pics, it looks about the size of an MP3 player or pager; it’s likely just marketing that has it as an animal tracker, and I see no reason it couldn’t be used to track youngsters, cars, or anything else you might slip it into. Its battery life is OK: about 5 days on standby, with alerts sent to cellphone or email when it needs juice. A full week would have been nice, but it would then probably weigh too much for small dogs; as it is, Zoombak already recommends it for animals 15 lbs or larger.
By the way, Puck was found safe and well, having managed to travel more than three miles in just a few hours. A kindly person saw her wandering, braved a look at her tags, and gave us a call. Even now, though, I’d love to know how she got from one side of the city to the other.
I’ve been waiting for a product like this (affordable) to lo-jac my mountain bike. My question is, can you buy the receiver… then start the subscription once the item goes missing?
Keep tabs on lassie, now we know what really happened at the well.
T
Wouldn’t almost any GPS tracker need a subscription service? ’cause it’s gotta communicate the location somehow and there’s no ubiquitous free wireless data networks around, right? I’d love it if there were, something like this would be awesome to use for good or evil.
“Even now, though, I’d love to know how she got from one side of the city to the other.”
Not trying to be a smart ass here, but isn’t ambulation the simple answer? Am I missing something?
Murray,
That would stand to reason where it not for the speed she got there — she was an old pup, remember. We figure she must have gotten a lift…
“The flip side is that you need a subscription, costing $15 a month, with cancellation fees if you want out. This is perhaps because it uses assisted GPS, which adds a cellular transceiver to improve performance.” Not exactly…
The GPS satellite transmissions are one-way from the satellite to the receiver. The zoomback has a GPS receiver which determines its location from several satellite signals and then sends SMS messages back to a central location which records the location data in a database. The web user in turn queries that database.
You should see what police departments spend on commercial versions of exactly the same thing for “active” GPS tracking sex offenders and other offenders like drug dealers on probation released into your community! Typical costs are $175,000 to $200,000 a year for tracking 50 ex-cons.
Another thing you might not know is that OnStar in GM Cars is not much more complicated. It’s basically the same idea, but the cell transceiver (Verizon) can interpret an unlock command to unlock the car doors, it talks to your car computer and sends back vital information to your dealer and can also act like a wireless cell phone. Onstar will set you back $300 a year.