Tractive - GPS dog tracker review

A thorough result after months of using:

A YES if you want to find your dog, a no if you just want a health tracker.

If you do want to try the Tractive tracker out, then you can get 30% off with out referral link.

As we had a vacation planned, we wanted to make sure that our Husky doesn’t magically disappear from our friends’ and families’ back yards.

Millions of dogs end up in shelters every year, and a lot of them are dogs that have escaped and not found their way back.

Huskies especially are masterful escape artists and no real fence can stop them, if they feel like escaping.

That is exactly why we decided to get a GPS collar for our own money, so that even if something would happen, we would know where to look for our dog.

The price

We bought the Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs € 49.99 and took the € 9.99 package for one month, to cover our vacation time.

(Later we upgraded to the 5 year Premium plan to share the location across family).

+ What's great about Tractive, is that the device itself doesn't cost hundreds of bucks. Both the tracker and the monthly plans are really affordable. And if you do plan to use it every month, then € 3.75 - € 5.00 per month isn't that bad either.

- One thing which we don't like however is companies trying to be tricky to get more money. And when choosing your subscription package, Tractive wants you to choose the longer, more expensive premium packages.

It ruins the feeling a little bit, when a company is trying to be sneaky, tssk tssk.
Tractive, if you're reading this: just show all of your packages as they are during registration.

The device

+ The best thing about Tractive, without a doubt, is their device.

• It's small.
• It's lightweight.
• It's easy to put on collars.
• It's easy to clean.
• it has Wifi, GPS, Network, a light, a sound device in it.
• 2 - 5 days of battery depending on what settings you use.

It's amazing how much tech they have managed to put inside such a small device.

~ One double-edged sword is the charger. On the good side, it connects to the device easily, just as a classic MacBook charger would - with a magnet. Having the charger connect not by plugging in also means that no dirt can get into the device.

On the other hand, because this is a special charging wire, if it were to get lost, or break, then you'd have to buy a new one immediately for €9.99, as you can't use a regular charger, which you would for your phone.

But nothing has happened to ours yet, so all we have had to do is pay the monthly subscription.

The site and the app

Once you have a subscription, you can enter your tracker's code into the website/app, and then you'll immediately start seeing where the tracker is.

+ The app and the website are pretty easy to use.
You can get started fast, and things like Profile and fences are there for you to explore, but not really required for you to get started.

+ The Tractive android app has 4.5⭐️ and the Apple app has 4.6⭐️ out of 5. Meaning most of it's users are happy with it.

+ All things are doable within the app and the website, meaning you don't have to download any apps if you don't want to.

The app and site itself are also fast and never did any weird tricks with us.

The features

+ The most important feature is definitely there, you can see where your dog is on the map clearly. GPS is a bit of a difficult thing to do perfectly, so we don't blame it for being inaccurate from time to time.

+ When your dog is on the move, the LIVE button kicks the device into overdrive and you'll be able to see a live feed of your dog's movement. This will drain the battery, but it will tell you exactly where your dog is.

+ You can see where your dog has been by at the History view.

+ There are some power saving mode features which look at your Wifi to see if your dog is home. This is great for making the battery last longer, as the device does not have to send as much data when it sees your home-WiFi.

~ The device can emit a small sound, but it's not very loud. It would maybe help you find it in a drawer.

~ It has an LED light, which you can turn on, but since it is only one directional and not that big, then you only really use it for understanding if the device is charging or not.

- You can set up virtual fences, so that you can be notified "immediately". But there are two problems with it, as many people bring out in their reviews.
Firstly, the device might "sleep" for a bit, if it doesn't move much. This happens to save battery and network usage.
Meaning once you start walking out of your home, it might do nothing for 10 minutes and then jump from your home to 800 meters away.
And secondly, because GPS isn't always super accurate, even if you stay at home, the GPS might place you 20 meters outside, and then think that you have left.

- One feature which also seems nice, but doesn't really work, is the activity tracker.

Here’s an example of a walk with every-day power saving options:

Because of the same reasons as the virtual fences, the activity tracking is quite inaccurate.

The GPS passively only triggers ever 5/10 minutes and draws the points together in a straight line. (Blue line).
While in reality, your actual route is longer and more complex (Red line).

Some owners even say that they walked two dogs on the same route, and their activity differed by a lot.

That’s why we don’t worry or use the activity tracking part of it.

The GPS tracking, when turned to the maximum, is a hundred times more useful than knowing how many minutes your dog walked or slept.

…so is Tractive GPS worth to try out?

Our opinion: Yes.

Apart from it’s few shortcomings, the Tractive GPS tracker works pretty well!

If you’re going on a vacation, or just want an extra level of security in your daily life, then we definitely recommend trying it out.

Compared to other trackers, this the best priced dog tracker we found.

And even if you have a cat, it’s a great idea - they have a smaller version for felines as well.

The device itself is amazingly small and the battery life is good. We’d say it’s even pretty excellent with the power saving features turned on.

And if your dog is on the move and you want a livestream of your dog’s location, then the LIVE button will give you exactly that.

Our vacation was much more comfortable, because we could be sure our dog would be found and we feel extra secure in our daily life as well.

If you follow our videos then you might see this device on our dog - and that’s because we’ll actually keep using it.

Let us know what you use and what else should we review!

If you do want to try the Tractive tracker out, then you can get a really nice discount with out referral link.