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Feb 26, 2025

The 4 Best GPS Dog Collars and Pet Trackers of 2025 | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Mel Plaut Mel Plaut is a writer covering pets. They have tested hundreds of products for our best animal friends, including dog beds and pet fountains. My dog, Dave, is an escape artist. So I’m

By Mel Plaut

Mel Plaut is a writer covering pets. They have tested hundreds of products for our best animal friends, including dog beds and pet fountains.

My dog, Dave, is an escape artist. So I’m painfully familiar with the desperation that sets in when you can’t find your pet.

I have to imagine this is why GPS pet trackers were invented.

If your dog or cat ever goes AWOL like Dave, a GPS pet tracker can make finding them much easier than shaking a bag of treats and making kissy noises all over the neighborhood.

A great pet tracker should connect quickly to the GPS signal and give you fast, accurate location updates. Its battery should also stay charged long enough for you to reunite with your furry runaway.

But while these devices continue to improve, none of them are perfect—their technology depends on satellites, cell signals, smartphones, app algorithms, and even the clouds in the sky. It’s a wonder they work as well as they do. And as long as you’re okay with ceding a little privacy, they’re a useful tool that can turbocharge your search.

After several months of testing, we think the Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs and the Tractive GPS Tracker for Cats are the most accurate and reliable devices for when your dog or cat stages a breakout.

This tracker provides excellent accuracy, connectivity, and battery life, as well as flexible subscription options.

This device offers great location accuracy in a small package, but there are a few sacrifices.

This tracker can show you and where your cat is going—as well as where they’ve been.

This homing device can be used indoors to find cats in their most elusive hiding spots. But it’s not a GPS tracker, so its range is relatively short.

This tracker provides excellent accuracy, connectivity, and battery life, as well as flexible subscription options.

The Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs reliably connects to the GPS signal faster than any other model we tested, so you won’t be left standing on the corner wondering which way to turn when every second counts. The tracker uses signals from three different major cell networks (and more small ones), so you’ll end up in fewer dead zones than with the models that use just one cell network. The location during live tracking is among the most accurate, but the tracker is bulky and some of the app’s less important features can be glitchy at times.

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This device offers great location accuracy in a small package, but there are a few sacrifices.

If you prefer a tracker with a smaller physical profile than the Tractive but with similarly sharp location accuracy, the Fi Series 3 Smart Dog Collar is a good runner-up model. Due to its streamlined construction, it’s less bulky around your dog’s neck, and the accompanying plug-in base helps preserve battery life. But it doesn’t connect to the GPS signal as fast as the Tractive for live tracking. It’s also more expensive, and you can’t use it on just any collar.

This tracker can show you and where your cat is going—as well as where they’ve been.

The Tractive GPS Tracker for Cats has the same fast connection speeds and precise location reporting as the dog version. But this one has a (slightly) smaller physical profile, to make it easier for a cat to wear, but it’s still bulky. And it has a shorter battery life than its dog-tracker counterpart.

This homing device can be used indoors to find cats in their most elusive hiding spots. But it’s not a GPS tracker, so its range is relatively short.

The TabCat V2 Cat & Kitten Tracker combines a small homing tag with a handset that points you in the direction of your cat, lighting up and beeping faster the closer you get. It’s not a GPS tracker; instead it uses a radio frequency to pinpoint your cat’s location. No subscription is required, but the device has a range of only about 500 feet. It’s well suited for indoor use, where GPS trackers may be less precise.

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I’ve had a dog escape and misplaced a cat or two inside my home too many times over the past few decades. As Wirecutter’s pets writer, I’ve covered dozens of products that are intended to make our pets’ lives better and our lives easier. These items include automatic pet feeders, pet fountains, dog beds, and litter boxes.

For this guide:

Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

Roughly 10 million cats and dogs go missing each year in the US, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, and too many of them are never found. Losing a pet this way can lead us humans to experience something called “ambiguous loss,” which is different from what we feel when a pet dies.

“It’s like a missing person,” said Dr. Megan Auster-Rosen, a clinical psychologist and co-host of a podcast about grief. When a pet is lost forever, we usually don’t find out what happened to them. This lack of closure can cause us to “get stuck in different stages of the grieving process,” Auster-Rosen explained. Personally, I’ll do anything I can to avoid this experience.

When a pet is on the run, there are some tools that can help you reunite with them. ID tags and microchips are your first line of defense: These will help your pet get identified once they’re found. (And microchips in particular have been shown to increase your chances of being reunited with your pets.)

But a GPS tracker is a powerful tool that can actually help you bring your pet home a lot sooner. Using satellites and cellular data signals, these devices send an alert when your pet escapes, and they give you the ability to track their location in something akin to real time. So you stand a better chance of tracking down your pet and bringing them home.

Many of these devices also let you see where a free-roaming pet likes to hang when they go out on their own, and some can also offer insights into their sleep and activity levels.

But despite their technological prowess, all of the GPS trackers we tested had flaws, bugs, and glitches that can interfere with their functioning. Their success is also dependent on the cell service used by each product, as well as on the strength of the GPS signal. So even the best tracker might not work for you if you’re in a dead zone.

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We considered 20 GPS pet trackers and tested 10. We looked at GPS-based models as well as Bluetooth trackers, such as Apple’s AirTag and Life360’s Tile devices (which can be used on both iPhones and Androids).

But even though general-purpose Bluetooth trackers are convenient and relatively inexpensive, and they come in handy when you’ve misplaced your keys, they can be more frustrating than useful when you’re trying to find an animal on the run. We dismissed these.

We also dismissed, without testing, GPS-enabled collars that rely on physical stimulation, like a static signal or a mild shock, to train a dog to either remain within an “invisible fence” or to return to your location. These are banned in several countries, and research suggests electrical stimulation can have an adverse effect on some dogs.

We also looked into the device manufacturers’ various privacy policies and approaches to data security. Some are better than others. But if you’re using this kind of product to keep tabs on your pet, for the device to work properly, you’ll have to be okay with ceding some privacy and data, especially when it comes to your location and information about your home. “Remember that your dog is probably near you most of the time. Using just the dog’s data, some inferences could potentially be made about the person’s life and habits,” said Max Eddy, Wirecutter’s privacy and security expert.

The most important thing a tracker does is help you find a lost pet. So we prioritized location accuracy and connection speed over all other features.

Many of the devices we tested also offer health, sleep, and activity tracking. And though these are nice to have and can be fun to use, we considered them to be bonus features, so we didn’t do extensive comparative testing on them.

I tested the trackers, both the cat and dog versions, on more than 30 different outings with my dog, Dave, over the course of an autumn month in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I took several walks with Dave myself, usually for about 30 to 45 minutes per walk. But more often I tracked his location when my wife and a professional Rover walker took him out, with various devices attached to his collar and harness each time. I also took the trackers for a spin at a large dog park.

The weather can be temperamental in Nebraska, which, if nothing else, provides great testing opportunities. The devices were all used on cold and unseasonably warm days, as well as during several rainstorms. We also tested them under gloomy, overcast skies, when clouds might interfere with satellite signals, and all of the trackers endured the pummeling Great Plains winds.

We had extra help from Six, my next-door neighbor’s 9-pound indoor/outdoor cat, who agreed to wear one of the cat trackers for a couple of weeks while he was out doing his cat rounds.

Here’s how we tested each tracker:

Location accuracy during live tracking: Each device has a live-tracking feature that you turn on when you start the frantic search for a lost pet. When enabled, the tracker should update the animal’s location frequently, so you can follow them in real time (or close to it). We tested each tracker’s ability to track a pet’s movements by comparing Dave’s location on the devices’ respective apps and asking his walker where he actually was. On several occasions, I gave Dave and his walker a five-minute head start and then tried to find them using each app. Depending on how much Dave stopped and sniffed, they often got more than a quarter-mile away before I started my search. At the dog park, I let Dave run loose within my eye line, getting up to 400 feet away, so I could compare his actual location to what the apps displayed. Finally, we watched the cat Six’s comings and goings, and we used the app several times to find him.

Speed of connecting to GPS: When you realize your pet is gone, there’s no time to waste. We timed how long it took each tracker to activate the live-tracking feature and connect to the GPS signal.

Escape alerts: We measured how long it took each tracker to push an escape alert once the animal had left the “safe zone”—a geofenced area we set up in each app. Unfortunately, none of the escape alerts were immediate—with the fastest ones arriving about a minute after crossing the boundary. Our advice is to do your best to keep tabs on your animal, since these devices are not very fast at letting you know when a pet is gone.

Battery life: A dead tracker is just a miniature brick on your pet’s collar. We compared each device’s battery life after a dozen outings under similar conditions, often using the battery-intensive live-tracking feature. We should note that most of the trackers we tested allow you to create a “power-saving zone,” where the collar can connect to a designated Wi-Fi or Bluetooth network. When the trackers are in this zone, they don’t spend energy searching for a GPS signal, thus saving significant battery life. We also compared the charging apparatuses each tracker required.

Ease of use: We compared how easy it was to set up each app and tracker, including adding a pet and creating a geofenced “safe zone.” We also considered how user-friendly the app’s interface was, and we looked at the different maps and their zoom/centering options that might make locating an animal easier (or harder, as the case may be).

Physical features: If the devices had lights or played sounds, we tested those to see how helpful they might be in finding an animal. We also evaluated the size, weight, and appearance of each model, and we looked at how easy they were to attach to a collar.

Bonus features: If an app had the ability to share your loose pet’s location with friends or family, or to form a search party for a lost animal, we tested those and evaluated their usability. As mentioned above, we did not compare health- or activity-tracking features, nor did we compare each app’s other extras, such as leaderboards and external app-integration capabilities. Mostly we found these distracting, but we realize they can add value and a little bit of joy to an expensive item.

Subscription plans: Most of the models we tested must be used with a corresponding subscription plan, similar to a cell-phone service. We considered the various subscription prices and time frames (such as monthly and yearly), and we compared what each plan offered. But a quick word of advice: No matter which model you buy, we suggest getting the shortest possible subscription plan initially, to make sure the device works for you and in your area. Most companies offer an initial return period (usually 30 days), so you’ll have a little time to test it out. But if you’ve committed to a longer subscription and discover later that the tracker no longer works for you, or if, say, you move to a new area with less cell coverage, the company might not prorate a refund if you cancel with time left on your plan.

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This tracker provides excellent accuracy, connectivity, and battery life, as well as flexible subscription options.

The Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs is the sixth generation dog tracker from Tractive and is an update to our previous top pick, which the company started phasing out in early 2025. Like its predecessor, the new version had the most reliable location accuracy and escape alerts of all the models we tested. It also had the longest battery life. It easily attaches to a dog’s collar, and the app has an intuitive map interface that makes it simple to follow your dog’s path, even when you’re panicking. It offers multiple subscription options, costing as little as $5 a month.

It’s great at tracking your animal’s location. Of all the devices we tested, the Tractive provided the most consistently accurate location updates during live tracking. Tractive is the only company we’re aware of that uses multiple cell-service providers, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, among others, connecting to whichever one has the strongest available signal. During live tracking, the device “updates every 2-3 seconds under good conditions,” according to Andrew Bleiman, executive vice president at Tractive, but it can sometimes take longer than that, depending on the environment. In our testing, the dog’s location wasn’t always pinpointed perfectly, but it was usually off by only a few yards.

The Tractive connects to the device quickly for live tracking. When switching to live tracking, the Tractive consistently connected to the collar and updated the dog’s location after roughly six seconds, on average. No other tracker we tested came close. The Fi took an average of 38 seconds to activate live tracking, and the times were inconsistent. The Whistle usually took close to a minute, if not longer.

The battery life blows the competition away. After a dozen walks and outings of at least 30 minutes each in a variety of temperatures, and with live tracking enabled for most of them, the Tractive still had an incredible 76% left on its battery, by far the best of all the trackers we tested, and a major improvement over its predecessor, which had 50% battery remaining over the same period. The Fi came in second, with 45% battery life, and the Whistle had 39%.

Great lights, convenient charging port. The updated Tractive features two bright LED light strips along the top and bottom of the device that are easy to spot in both bright and dark environments. It also can play a tinny jingle to help you find an animal that might be hiding, but it still might be too quiet to hear on a busy street or a windy day. While it’s bulkier than the Fi, the Tractive attaches easily and securely to most collars via rubber webbing. Tractive also replaced its old clip-on charger with a USB-C charging port that is integrated into the device’s body, making recharging simple and convenient.

The map interface helps you find your way to your pet. When you’re looking for a pet, the Tractive’s map indicates your own location with a familiar blue dot. The dot has an arrow extending from it, showing which direction your phone is facing; this was helpful in orienting us to our own position on the map, so we could point ourselves toward the dog’s location. The Fi and the Whistle both have a transparent blue fan instead of an arrow, similar to what Google Maps and Apple Maps display. But this fan was harder to see, especially when looking at the satellite view.

It’s still pretty clunky. While Tractive made many improvements to the early 2025 version of their dog tracker, the device didn’t get any smaller. If you and your dog don’t like the bulkiness, the Fi has a much sleeker profile.

Some of the app’s features are not very helpful. On the bottom of the live-tracking screen, the Tractive displays a directional arrow that’s ostensibly intended to point toward the tracker and tell you how far away it is. But we found this became less useful the closer we got, and sometimes it pointed in the wrong direction altogether. It also has an altitude feature that tells you how high or low the tracker is, but if you don’t know your own current elevation in relation to that, it’s hard to know whether to look up or down. And the radar feature, which uses your phone’s Bluetooth signal when you’re near the animal, was hit or miss.

The app can be glitchy at times. Occasionally we noticed the dog’s blue path line advancing ahead of his icon on the map, which seemed to be stuck. We figured out that the path line was the thing to follow. So we just consulted that when looking for the dog, and it worked out fine. The lag never lasted longer than 10 seconds, but it was still a less-than-perfect experience.

Tractive collects a lot of data. Like the other GPS trackers we tested, Tractive collects data about you, your dog, your device, and, of course, your location. It offers a helpful “plain English” translation within its privacy policy to make it more understandable. But despite that, “it’s difficult to tell from the document what data is collected and whether it is sold,” Max Eddy said when he reviewed it. Bleiman told us that “at no time does Tractive sell or license this data.” He also said, “As a European company, we operate under the strict guidelines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which typically are considered more strict than data privacy guidelines in the US.”

Available subscriptions:

Return policy: 30 days

This device offers great location accuracy in a small package, but there are a few sacrifices.

If you prefer a tracker with a smaller physical profile and great location accuracy, or if the Tractive isn’t available, the Fi Series 3 Smart Dog Collar is a good runner-up model. This device shares many features with the Tractive, but in a slimmer, sleeker package. However, its size comes with a few trade-offs, and it’s more expensive than our top pick. It’s easy to set up, and it comes with a base that helps preserve battery life.

For such a small device, it does a lot. The stainless steel–encased Fi device weighs 0.95 ounces without the collar, roughly 40% lighter than the Tractive’s 1.6 ounces (by our scale). Compared with the Tractive, this device measures almost an inch less in length and nearly a quarter-inch less in depth. The sizer on Fi’s website goes as low as 5 pounds (and 9.5 inches for the collar diameter), compared with Tractive’s 9-pound minimum for dogs. But even with the Fi’s small size, the company discourages using it on a cat—it’s not designed for use on anyone but a dog, according to the company’s support literature. Also, the Fi can’t be attached to just any collar—you either have to use the one it comes with or buy one of the many available third-party options (one of which might better suit your style).

Fi takes a creative approach to preserving battery life. Unlike any other tracker we tested, the Fi comes with a separate base that helps maximize battery life. “When your dog is inside your home, it’s going to connect to the base via Bluetooth Low Energy. And that connection is super cheap from an energy perspective,” said Jonathan Bensamoun, Fi’s CEO and founder. As Bensamoun explained it, when the collar moves too far from the base (roughly a radius of up to 200 feet, depending on the environment), it will jump onto your home’s Wi-Fi instead, which is slightly less power-efficient. Similarly, if the Fi app is running, the collar can connect to your phone via Bluetooth. But once the dog disconnects from all of those “safe” signals, the algorithm considers it an escape and starts looking for the more-battery-intensive GPS signal. The base also serves as a wireless charger, using magnetic induction.

It delivers mostly accurate location updates. The Fi’s location accuracy was close to the Tractive’s most of the time during live tracking, which Fi calls Lost Dog Mode. But the pathway it displayed wasn’t always as precise. The Fi’s path trace often appeared as a series of zig-zags that occasionally cut through buildings or showed part of a trail that never happened. The Fi relies on only one cellular network, AT&T, versus Tractive’s minimum of three, so the signal might be weaker or absent in more places. But in general, when I was looking for the dog in Lost Dog Mode, the Fi stayed up-to-date and pointed me in the right direction. And while the Fi map’s location pointer is a transparent fan, which we found harder to use than the Tractive’s arrow, the Fi’s satellite view was much brighter and easier to see.

It’s waterproof. With an IP68 waterproof rating, the Fi can be submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes; this is slightly better than the Tractive’s IPX7 rating. So if your dog loves to swim and dive in the deep end, the Fi might be the better option.

It’s slower to activate live tracking. The biggest problem we had with the Fi was how long it sometimes took to activate live tracking. As we were writing this guide, the company pushed out a firmware update that drastically improved this timing, but it was still slower than the Tractive and not as consistent. It took the Fi between roughly 14 seconds, at its fastest, and 80 seconds, at its slowest, to activate Lost Dog Mode. In a situation where every second matters, that higher end can feel like a very long time, especially compared with the steady six-second average it took the Tractive to start live tracking.

It’s intended to work with the app always running in the background. I regularly quit out of all the apps on my phone, partly to preserve my battery and partly to preserve some semblance of privacy. But whenever I closed the Fi app, it pushed a message saying I should leave the app open in the background “for better tracking.” According to Bensamoun, if you’re walking your dog with the app closed, the collar won’t know that you’re actually with your dog, and it will think they’re escaping. It will then power up the GPS connection and start sending you alerts, all of which will drain the battery faster. Bensamoun assured us that you don’t have to leave the app open in order for the tracker to function, but it works better if you do.

There are still quite a few glitches to be worked out. While Fi can certainly help you find a pup who’s gone rogue, several of its features can be buggy. Its Search Party feature lets you invite others to help find your dog, and they can message you with info. But when my wife and another friend tried to send me messages through it, I never got them. The tracker’s physical light is also slower to turn on than the others we tested, and it sometimes goes dormant for several seconds between flashes. Bensamoun told us the company is dedicated to tackling the bugs. “This year we deployed a firmware release to the collars about every two months. The app is updated about every two weeks,” he said.

Fi can sell your data to advertisers. Fi gathers “an enormous amount of information, particularly device information and metadata,” Max told us when he reviewed the company’s privacy policy. “All this data, including the geolocation data of you and your dog, would be available to law enforcement,” he said. Fi also reserves the right to sell an extensive amount of data to advertising partners, far more than the other companies we reviewed. When asked about this, Bensamoun said, “We don’t sell and have no intention of selling any user data to anyone—it’s just not our business model.” He added that the policy was written by Fi’s attorneys, saying, “I would expect lawyers to keep things open just out of safety.” But according to Max, “the ideal situation is for companies to gather and retain as little information as possible.”

Available subscriptions:

Return policy: 30 days, customer pays return shipping

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This tracker can show you and where your cat is going—as well as where they’ve been.

The Tractive GPS Tracker for Cats is a bit smaller than the company’s dog tracker, almost resembling a miniature Snickers bar, but it uses the same technology and the same app. This version comes with two different attachment accessories and a collar. And despite its smaller size, it’s still pretty clunky, so it might be a challenge for your cat to grow accustomed to it.

It has the same great location accuracy as the dog version. The cat version of the Tractive is smaller than the dog device, and “some of the features are optimized for cats in terms of how we’re measuring activity or sleep,” Tractive’s Andrew Bleiman told us. In our testing, it had the same quick connection speeds and the same accuracy during live tracking as the dog version.

The light and sound are helpful—to a degree. The cat version of the Tractive has a smaller light than the dog version and the sound the device plays is mediocre.But the light did help us pinpoint our cat tester Six’s location after dark, including one time when the map said we were standing in Six’s location but we still didn’t see him. When we turned on the light, we were able to spot him right above us, in a large oak tree.

It has decent battery life for the size. This device has a smaller battery than the dog version, so it won’t last as long as the larger tracker, but it held its own in our testing. We let Six loose overnight with the collar, and by morning the battery still had 69% of its juice left, even after we live-tracked his location several times throughout the night and morning. After 48 hours of Six wearing the collar nonstop, the battery still had 36% of its charge left. The Tractive’s “power saving zone” (where the collar connected to the home Wi-Fi, instead of to the more-battery-intensive GPS signal) also helped to preserve battery life, since Six often returned to this area to make sure everything was in order on the home front.

The history feature lets you know where your cat’s been. If you have a cat who spends time outdoors, and you’ve ever wondered where they go, the Tractive has answers. In the app’s history menu, you can select a time frame to review an animal’s general comings and goings. The history has a heat-map overlay, which also displays where your cat lingered, snoozed, or hid out from the world. Just be warned: This feature might cause alarm when you realize your cat regularly crosses the busy four-lane street two blocks over.

The Tractive GPS Tracker for Cats has a shorter battery life, and it still might be too clunky for your cat. Tractive sacrificed battery life to make this tracker small enough for most cats to wear, but it’s still pretty bulky, especially in proportion to a cat’s neck and body. That doesn’t mean your cat won’t get used to it, but it may be challenging. To charge it, you clip the device into an included base that plugs into a USB-A outlet (a wall adapter is not included). We found it charged quickly, usually in about an hour or two.

Available subscriptions:

Return policy: 30 days

This homing device can be used indoors to find cats in their most elusive hiding spots. But it’s not a GPS tracker, so its range is relatively short.

If you’ve ever lost your cat within the confines of your home, the TabCat V2 Cat & Kitten Tracker might be able to help you avoid future mishaps. It’s not a GPS tracker. Instead, this comparatively low-tech homing device is almost like playing the childhood game of “hot and cold,” using radio frequency–based technology to lead you to your cat’s most random hiding spot.

The lights and sounds tell you when you’re getting warmer. The TabCat works like a proximity detector. There’s no app to display your cat’s exact location. But once the handset is paired with a homing tag on your cat’s collar, it can point you in the right direction by lighting up and beeping faster the closer you get. It’s especially useful indoors where most GPS trackers fail at pinpointing an animal’s location (partly because the GPS signal might be bounced or blocked by the walls and roof). But with a maximum range of 500 feet, it won’t work for a cat who strays far from home.

It’s the smallest tracker we’ve found. Weighing less than half an ounce and measuring just over an inch long, the TabCat is far more compact than any other tracker we tested. This may be more comfortable for a cat to wear than the bulkier options. The tag itself will emit a quiet beep when the handset is turned on, so you can locate it more easily, but this sound might annoy or spook your animal.

No subscription necessary. Unlike GPS trackers, the TabCat doesn’t have membership or subscription fees. The handset comes with two tags and two silicone “splash-proof” collar attachments. And it can be paired with up to four tags at a time, so you can buy more if you have a larger cat family.

It doesn’t tell you how much battery life is left. The TabCat requires two batteries—one for the handset and one for the collar tag. The manufacturer claims these batteries can last up to a year, depending on how often they’re used. We’re still on the first set of batteries, and we will update this with notes during long-term testing. Also, there’s no indicator that tells you when the battery is running low.

It’s not as helpful if your cat is above or below you. My wife hid the tag from me in our (relatively small) house a few times, and it was much harder for me to track it down when it was on a different floor than I was. I had to really be precise when I pointed the handset, and I had to experiment with several directions before I was able to figure out that I needed to refocus my search upstairs.

Return policy: 30 days

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We’re keeping an eye out for software and firmware updates from our picks and the competition. We also plan to test other models including the Averia Collar, which has a removable battery, and the FitBark.

The pre-2025 version of the Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs is a former pick. This model is being phased out, but you may still find it at some retailers. The company will continue to support the device even after it becomes unavailable. This tracker has the same excellent location accuracy and fast connection speed as our current top pick, but the light on this one is extremely small, so it’s not useful when you're trying to find an animal in the dark. It also requires an extra clip-on piece to charge, which is easy to misplace.

The Whistle Go Explore 2.0 is the updated version of our former pick. This tracker had excellent location accuracy, and it had one of the most user-friendly app interfaces of all the trackers we tested. But its battery life didn’t stack up to that of our picks. It also consistently pushed escape alerts later than the Tractive and the Fi devices did.

The Petcube Dog GPS Tracker & Activity Monitor delivered spotty locations, with the pet’s icon bouncing around to different random (and incorrect) spots, especially when we got into a park where the signal wasn’t as strong. It also had a collar attachment that was difficult to put on a one-inch dog collar with buckles, and the battery life wasn’t as good as that of our picks.

The Apple AirTag updated the dog’s location far less frequently than any of the GPS trackers we tested. It showed us a new location only when the dog was within Bluetooth range of our phone or someone else’s iPhone. But even then, sometimes it just didn’t update at all.

We tested both the Tile for Cats—which is the Tile Sticker (2024) plus a collar attachment—and the Tile Mate (2024). These performed similarly to the Apple AirTag, but there was a shorter lag between updates for both Tiles than there was for the AirTag. Still, these lags were far longer than for any GPS device we tested, even the ones we dismissed. Tile offers a $30 per year Premium plan, which will push alerts whenever you’re separated from the tracker, and it will show you the device’s 30-day location history. But these trackers were still less useful in finding a lost pet than the dedicated GPS pet trackers we tested.

This article was edited by Harry Sawyers.

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Jonathan Bensamoun, CEO and founder, Fi, video interview, November 7, 2024

Andrew Bleiman, executive vice president, Tractive, phone interview, November 13, 2024

Megan Auster-Rosen, PsyD in private practice, co-host of The Art of Grief, phone, November 14, 2024

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