7days per battery recharge try 7hours now sadly not even a day goes by when I forget to take it off the charger because honestly it is constantly an issue about expiry of battery if you forget to unplug it doesnt know its full so it harms itself no auto stop on continuong to overdo what it wouldnt need to if any actual true regulation fact checking had been in place to ask
for a better battery life than deceiving customers who should be all writing one stars for reviews as using this requires babysitting the thing in anxious anticipation a replacement yeilded the same one day span thats a 7th of the box estimates for battery expiration ..I contacted the vendor recommended I set the tracker to not be activated needlessly by setting the trackers software conditional alerts to transit alerts only wheny dog escapes they call that a digital fence no exageration no noted lifespan was improved by doing that and i prepaid for a year for a second device to double fact check
before spitting venom like a dishonest yelp troll might falsely declare im not seeing any other reviews only one or two experiencing this low excuse for a week of juice it claimed i would be protected this is nearly a loss of my own teeth to express my disgust for the fragile runner that is still snapped and three weeks later no replacement has been recieved no delivery tracking nor any estimates match the request for another strap ignored so now Im forced to open a paypal dispute they likely have a single employee who deals with all online website orders who is 80 and recovering from
her own misery as a proud owner of the same frustration i am
finally giving up to replace ahead of my subsscription for both double payment thinking im better to charge and reverse only makes it more of a chore than a chance at tracking my dog and i forget tomswap them
every other day the alerts of the fence dont activate if its dead now would it making my investment worthless wouldnt it be more believable if others stated the same
low lifespan and im only seeing one or two bad reviews of all is sickening. An actual metal clip rather than some melted down rubber chinese and weakly snapped in under 6 months still angers me most as if I ordered it a month back and no provided lack of shipping confirmation nor replay for a replacement lost in transit but no one any one accepting im wondering why
have added at least a star more than this poor complaint is affording if not for the crickets on the phone no one answering me and my voicemails wheres my order are ignored still today no replacement order im forced to replace the entire unit since if it falls off while shes wearing it i wouldnt get her back nor the device my money made worthless whatever ill cancel and request a refund this is crap take my word for it and look first for a GPS with a better battery as the most essential component over nice looking or extra app features likely theres some tracker better I admit this was the first one I tried And im wishing it worked as advertized i am shocked hardly anyone gets bothered by reattaching and unattaching daily a piece of runner that as a life protection attachment should withstand the life of the unit as the daily banysitting makes this thing break within under a year and replacing the gummy strap will leave you three weeks confused wheres the order i made no replay on their end yet ive called and email but no
one is answering ill later complain and lodge a dispute but i have to protect my dog first by studying an alternative more long lasting solution im tired of looking at my dog and being reminded I forgot to reattach the thing after leavingit again two nights on the charger (this is not good for the thing doesnt know its already full and kills the battery by constantly requiring nursing the digital
fence doesnt stop it from being daily annoyingly alerting me of low battery its been six months since replacing the thing already to try again to much time
wasted trying to recharge and replace it brakes the strap and no delivery confirmation makes this investment worthless true facts i hate to write trash talk for warning future customers but simply redesign this strap with metal and replace the weak dishonest battery with one that outlasts an old iphone 6plus from a decade ago! Lets check closely the declaration
of recharge time
as my dog is worth the effort in priceless love Id have my marriage canceled if she escaped and this thing was off for my mind is not perfect so i forget to check it daily as if that were acceptable as its only fault the review is rather long winded but im
so frustrated with it today and i give up. Works for a day and dies again making me try another for i prepaid another subscription to fact check this is not a one off trust me its no 7 day battery no phone even my iphone 13 promax doesnt do that and its $1,500 so explain the false week reported makes no sense to claim it is a defective double dud order when neither unit lasts over a day before alert declares the thing empty again no way not my dog im not risking the thing falling apart just to continue to trust a product i can find an alternative solution with better effort in quality control hopefully not another decietful
reported low lifespan or a battery that kills itself by remaining on charge after full like this one does.

I was fairly skeptical at first. I tried the air tag type of tracking devices but living in a rural area they didn't work to our satisfaction. Then I saw the Tractive tracker. After a little research we decided to give it a shot. And believe me we have not been disappointed in Tractive the least bit.

We started with one tracker for our bloodhound Otis. I had no idea he was wandering that far away from the house when I put him on LIVE the first time I used it. Well our Bloodhound family has grown to 5 and I have 4 active trackers. I use 3 trackers on the big hounds. And I use 1 tracke between the 2 smaller hounds.

Regularly they run / rome / wander/ exercise 2-3 miles daily. The fartherest I have seen one run was 9.8 miles in just over 4 hours. The total mileage is available in the history feature in the Tractive app.

We live in an area that has quite a lot of timber and private land. And our dogs have permission to wander while wearing a high visibility vest on about 2000 acres at any given time. During hunting season we wait until nightfall or about 1 1/2 hours before sunrise to let them out. We monitor them closely with the app. The alerts that I have set on my phone will alert me when they get in an area that I have designated unsafe and I will usually call them and most of the time they will respond.

But on the rare occasion when we have to get on the ATV or in my pickup truck to go get them. It gives us peace of mind just to know where they are.

I can tell when they are running or wandering around by the MPH feature. The fastest I've seen was 11 mph. It shows the path that each dog takes by a bright blue line. When you have multiple dogs on the app screen the other paths are a dim blue line.

We use the Wi-Fi feature to save on the battery by turning off the GPS when it detects a designated safe zone Wi-Fi signal. I use the Wi-Fi on our wireless printer as the home location. Because the signal is weaker than our home internet signal. That will trigger the tracker to turn on the GPS when it disconnects from the Wi-Fi. Then that starts triggering the alerts to our phones. When my wife takes a hound to the vet the tracker shows moving at 55-60 mph in the car.

I've been 50 miles away and had to track our dogs that a delivery driver let out of the fence. When we got home about 3 hours later my wife called Otis and in about 15 minutes he come running to her. I knew exactly which direction he was coming from too.

The pricing is very reasonable especially the two year plan. There's a lot more testimonials I could give.

If you will give Tractive a shot- believe me you won't be disappointed.

Let me start with the winner. Tractive.

Also, I think it is a very important fact to know is this: Neither tracker was super accurate to the "zones""¦. As in, my Dog was around a brisk 3 minute walk out of the red line before I was notified from Tractive. My dog was a minimum of 5 minutes out of the red line before I was notified from Fi. Two minutes is huge to me. If you are purchasing either device as a peace of mind for dogs that escape, you need to know this fact.

1. Connectivity: Tractive because when I had one dog in Fi and the other in Tractive, Tractive always updated me first. I take multiple walks with my dogs each day. During those walks, I would leave my phone at home. Then I would look at the times of the notifications when I returned. Tractive won every day in different places.

2. Lost Dog Mode: Tractive was quicker to track in my opinion. Lost Dog Mode went into effect quicker than Fi. The Fi delays a minute at a time when putting it in lost dog mode. This is huge when trying to locate your dog. My dog can cover some ground in a minute. The Tractive stays tracking the whole time. You can literally see your dog take a turn, run backwards..etc. You can also click on AR and it points you in the direction to head with an estimation of feet. Here is how I tested this: I let my husband take both dogs without a phone on him. He tooks some hiking trails while I waited behind. Then, I placed both devices in lost mode. I did these three different days, at different times, in different places.

3. Actually tracking the dog when lost: Tractive. Once Tractive pulls up, it's real time. Fi updates each minute.

4. Alerts: Tractive. I mean, it is cool to know that "Husband just took dog on ride". "Dog is out of zone without an owner" (Fi), but I hate getting tons of communication. I care if my dog has left home- and where he is. Just telling me "Dog has left home" is enough for me (Tractive) I usually know when they are supposed to be going somewhere and if I didn't, I'd want to. I don't need to know where my husband drives around with my dogs.

App- Tractive. The Fi app sucks. I think there is a time and place for social stuff and I LOVE seeing dogs on Insta- but I do not want to join a social dog network. I do not want to be notified of other dogs. It is cool I could disable it, but just seeing the tab bugs me. I like that the Tractive app reminds me of my health app. It tracks sleeping and all kinds of things. Honestly - that functionality isnt important to me- but my Boxer sometimes has days where he seems "down". I could look at the app and see that he got less sleep the night before and it made me worry less. He was just tired.

Extra Zones: Tractive. Fi doesnt have any. I LOVE this. I put extra bad zones around some houses that I would never want my dog near. We went on walks near them and sure enough, I would be notifed that "Dog was near Smiths house". Again, as I started with... it does take a few minutes- but just knowing I would get notified was a huge relief.

Setting up: Tractive. The Fi was annoying. I had to set mine up- then when I sent invites to my family, it acted like they needed to connect to the base and do all of the initial stuff I already did. I had to figure out that I could go back in and press on them in the invite screen. Then they could just log back in and it would work. The tractive required zero questions from each of my teenage kids and husbands. I sent an invite, they added themselves.

Battery: same- The tractive does lose battery pretty quickly when you are in lost mode, yet this makes sense. It is updating more frequently than the Fi. It uses more service than the Fi. The Fi uses your cell phone which most people have on them. The only thing Tractive uses is your home Wifi IF you set that up.

The airtag wasnt and shouldn't be an option for people to use to locate their dog. It has zero cellular service so why Fi uses them as their "biggest competition" on their website makes sense now after owning one.
I think a lot of people really need to understand how Fi works. If my device was with me, Fi was beyond amazing. On paper, it beat Tractive big time"”-but Fi USES my cellular GPS when I have my phone with me. So of course it's better. I won't be by my dog if I lost him! It doesn't use its internal cell service until you are not near your wifi/ cell phone. Also, if you don't have the Tractive placed the right way- it does affect the service. Make sure it's placed to the outside of the collar with the silver button up. I think maybe people put it upside down? I honestly have been SEARCHING for ways that the Fi could be better. It is the better-looking device and seems much tougher. I have a great dane and a boxer and they love to play rough. They haven't managed to affect either device. We also take hikes in snow up to my boxers shoulders- the Tractive was unaffected by that moisture.

I'm going to keep both for now and see if they stay this way for a few months

UPDATE 4/27/23:
Fi just pushed an update that states it tracks faster in the live mode. I tested every scenario above again- and everything is the exact same as I shared above EXCEPT"” on the point of Fi taking 1 min to update in lost dog mode, it has changed to every 15-30 seconds. This is the only thing that was affected by their update.

Hope this helps!

I have used this for several years.

It is not perfect but when I have had to track my collie when he escapes the invisible fence I have always been able to track him. This is the most important feature for me and it does it well.

The battery saving feature was not working great for me as it goes into power saving mode when it detects it is in range of WiFi. My WiFi covers my entire yard. I added a cheap WiFi and put it in my basement and it only covers the house area. I only use this WiFi as the power saving zone so the collar stays in normal operation when my dog is in the yard. This has extended the battery life greatly.

I mounted it to his invisible fence collar so anytime he is out I have the ability to track him if he chases after a turkey or feral barn cat. He can roam a long ways so this has been a lifesaver knowing which direction he headed.

When I say it is not perfect: occasionally he has left the yard and I don't know it. But I enable the live tracking and I quickly locate him. It frequently tells me he has left the yard but he is still home. This is not really a problem but can be annoying. This is probably an issue with the cellular service as much as it could be the collar.

Overall i think this is the best tracking collar on the market when considering features, convenience, battery life, and function.

We purchased Tractive for our young and active dog. We don't have a fenced yard, and although she is well-trained, she's strayed out of bounds a few times. Each time, the Tractive app alerted us and we were able to quickly find her. The ability to give access to our dog sitters, as well as setting up a safe zone at my brother's house where she sometimes stays, is so reassuring for us and them! Our dog is in and around our house and in Wi-Fi range most of the day with the exception of walks, and a charge easily goes nearly two weeks. When we are planning a longer hike we make sure to charge it the night before so it's good to go; no issues on 5-6 hour outings in the wilderness. It IS important to remember to bring the charger if you're traveling (or to add the device to the Wi-Fi wherever you stay). We also love the stats and leaderboard "¦ although we're convinced the local leader isn't real 😂. (We figure it's a working dog.) We take her collar off at night so we don't get accurate sleep readings, but that's our choice. We've only had one issue with the device, with a rubber clasp breaking. I emailed Tractive and within a day I had a link to order more with a code to get them for free. We love Tractive, recommend it to friends, and love meeting other local dogs who we "know" from the leaderboard!