Features:

  • Nationwide location tracking: pinpoint your pet’s location with this top-rated SMART GPS activity tracker for your pet anywhere AT&T 3G cellular service is available.
  • Proactive alerts: get text, app or email notifications when your pet leaves home.
  • Track your pet's adventures: follow your pet’s location over 24-hour periods to see where they went, when they went there – and with whom.
  • Get health insights: monitor your pet’s daily activities and know how your pet measures up for their age, weight and breed.
  • Long battery life: lasts up to 7 days! Battery life may vary depending on your pet’s activity, Wi-Fi signal strength and pet’s time spent out of Wi-Fi.
  • Durable & waterproof: Built to survive every swim with your pet! Waterproof for up to 3 feet for 30 minutes. Recommended for pets 8 lbs+ and attaches to any collar or harness up to 1'' Wide. Note: the notches on the top and Bottom of the back of the device are part of manufacturing process.
  • Subscription required: Whistle is both a device and service. The subscription plan covers our connection to AT&T to track and monitor your pet - no new phone contract required. Plans start as low as $6. 95/MO. Subscription plan is selected during set-up.
Do You Know Where Your Dog Is?

I purchased my Whistle 3 from Amazon about 3 weeks ago to keep track of my escape artist, and wide roaming, Siberian Husky. I live on a ranch in the mountains of very rural western Colorado where finding a fast traveling dog is virtually impossible without a GPS tracker like the Whistler 3. A lot of thought went into designing this product. First, there's the physical unit that is small (approximately 1.6"x1.3"x .6") and weighs less than an ounce. It attaches easily and securely to collars up to 1" wide. It uses GPS to determine location when your dog, cat or T-Rex is away from "home" and then sends the location to your smart phone via 3G cellular service (no SIM card purchase required). GPS and 3G is important. There are a lot of pet trackers that use Bluetooth, which has a very limited range (100 feet max), or if they use GPS, connect to the cellular network via 2G, which unlike 3G, doesn't have complete US coverage. On several occasions, I've tested Whistle’s location accuracy and in general it's within about 10 to 15 feet. The app shows a shaded circle around the pet’s estimated location that gives a sense of the accuracy of the estimate. Whistle requires that you have Wi-Fi at home or where you want to designate a “safe place,” of which you can have several. When your pet is within the range of designated Wi-Fi locations, Whistle switches from GPS to Wi-Fi to save power and battery time. And then when your pet goes (escapes) outside of Wi-Fi range, it automatically switches back to GPS. If your pet stays in home Wi-Fi range, you can assume about 5 or 6 days on a battery charge, but if continuously outside of its home Wi-Fi range assume 1 or 2 days on a charge. I try to keep my battery well charged just in case my escape-artist husky decides to go in an adventure. I don’t want it to run down while I’m in hot pursuit. Oh, and for those with hunting dogs, or other water loving creatures, the unit is waterproof. All too often the electronics of gadgets like Whistle are designed by brilliant engineers, but the apps that drive them appear to have been developed by crazed aliens from planet Blx!#}. Not so with Whistle. The app is really quite good. Setting it up takes about 10 minutes and is pretty easy. While at home or other designated Wi-Fi location, the app’s screen shows your pet within a shaded circle indicating the approximate range of the Wi-Fi router. You can set up the app to send you an alert, test or email when your pet goes in or out of Wi-Fi range. If you open the app while your pet is beyond Wi-Fi range, the screen will show your pet’s most recent location on a map, satellite or terrain view. You can also look at the track of any trips he or she has taken during the latest 24 hours. Location in tracking mode updates about every minute. In addition to showing your pet’s location in either Location or Tracking mode, your location (cell phone location) is also shown on the screen, giving you an idea of how far away your pet is, and what direction to go to find him/her. There is also an Activity mode to give you a sense of how many minutes of exercise your pet is getting each day. Finally, the app shows you the percentage of battery charge remaining and sends an alert if the battery charge is low. If the unit is on the charger, the app will also send an alert when it’s fully charged. Though I haven’t had a reason to call Whistle’s customer support, I did email them with a question that wasn’t answered in their website’s FAQ’s and received a very understandable response within a few hours and an offer to take care of the issue. When I didn’t respond over the weekend, I received a second email reminding me that they would fix things if I wanted them to. That’s pretty good customer service in my book. Though it’s difficult to tell from a couple of brief interactions, I have the sense that the folks at Whistle not only care about their customers, but their customers’ pets, too. There is a subscription charge of about $8 a month, if purchased annually, to cover the cost of cellular service to communicate between the tracking unit and your cell phone. For me, $8 is a small price for peace of mind when my four-pawed friend goes wandering. Particularly, if I can catch him. Note, the cellular service Whistle uses has nothing to do with the cellular provider you use for your mobile phone, so it works regardless of which company supplies you with cell service. One $8 subscription allows multiple pets and multiple “owners”—other family members or friends. All in all, this is one heck of a product. I heartily recommend it, and give it a 5-star rating.

Do's and Don'ts from a cat owner

I purchased this device 7 months ago for my outdoor cat. I don't really like that he goes outside, so I got this for peace of mind. My cat recently was gone for a few nights and I would only say I wish the device also had a "beeping" command that I could turn on so I could have another way to locate him. Cats have unquestionable hiding capabilities. Here's what I have learned: Do: Make sure you get the cat inside every night to charge the battery. Every night. It can be a chore and sometimes you might be tempted to let Whiskers figure his own way home, but trust me it's not fun when the battery is dead. Do: Provide a treat when you pick him up or something else 'fun' so that he is not so upset about leaving. Do: Use in conjunction with a cat door if possible so he can get back inside. Don't: Click on "track" just out of curiosity if you're not getting him at that time. I am changing my habits so that he knows when it starts to flash the green light, he gets a can of food at home.

Especially compared to the competition, I love the Whistle!

First I tried a competing product, and it did not work well and I could tell it was going to fall off my dog. Sure enough, it was soon lost in the leaves of the backyard. We looked and could not find it. I was so frustrated that there was not a good product out there. Then I noticed my neighbor's dog had a little tiny box on his collar. He said it was a Whistle and would even send him text messages to his phone. He has a beautiful big dog and one day it got out, and it worked. So I ordered the Whistle. I am not very techie, but it was easy to set it up, and synch it to my iphone. One of the problems with the competing product was the battery did not last long. On the Whistle, the battery lasts a long time! My neighbor said a week, but after a week, I could tell by looking at the app on my phone that the battery was at 45%. Wow! Also, I have confidence it is not going to fall off. It is simple, but ingenious. Now I feel a lot better about my 'escapee' who has run away in the past. She is usually not too far away in the neighborhood, but really hard to find. And all the while, you fear she will get hit by a car. The other day, my wife took her for a ride in the car. I quickly got a text that told me she had left our house, and also gave me the closest address to where she was. That is in addition to the GPS mapping on my phone.

Here's how this thing ACTUALLY WORKS

My mother has alzheimer's and I've been looking for a device I can attach to her that she can't remove, but will alert me when she leaves her assisted living facility 30 miles away from my home. Therefore, it had to be waterproof for showers, and because I don't want to drive there every day to charge it, must have long battery life. This product seemed to fit the bill and was reasonably priced. However, she doesn't have internet service where she lives, and I really didn't want to have to buy service just for this device to be able to stay in "sleep mode". I contacted support to ask them if internet was required and three times they told me "yes"... I didn't understand why (and didn't believe them), so I decided to risk it and bought it anyway. Here's what I've learned about how it actually works: Set up: This device contains (at least) a battery, a GPS receiver, a bluetooth antenna, a wifi antenna, and a 3G antenna. When you open the box the are instructions that direct you to go to the app store to download the "Whistle 3" app. You cannot set up this device without a SMART PHONE (Android or iOS). Once you download the app and create an account, it prompts you to connect via BLUETOOTH to the device. There is no getting around this part. I imagine you could theoretically set up the device with a friend's smartphone, add a phone number or email address for SMS/email notifications to a different device, and then delete the app. Once connected via bluetooth, the app will prompt you to choose a WIFI network for the device to connect to and enter the password. At this point, it's important that your wifi router is actually connected to the INTERNET because the device will attempt a firmware update (This part is interesting, so I'll expand: You'll know the device wants to update firmware by way of a pop-up in the app. You can dismiss the pop-up, and the device will still work, but every time you open the app you'll be reminded that 'it's working on updating firmware'. I let it sit for several hours and it never updated, however, once I removed the device from wifi range and brought it back into range, the firmware updated within minutes... not sure why). "Sleep zone" vs "Locations": The "Sleep Zone" is defined purely by wifi range. As noted above, as long as the device is within range of its wifi network (not sure if there can be more than one - I haven't tested - comments welcome), the device stays in battery-saving "sleep mode". If the device leaves wifi range, it "wakes up" (uses more battery), but will not send alerts unless it leaves or enters a "Location" as described below. Separately, in the app, you can define one or more *circular* areas on Google maps (right in the app) as "Locations". If the device leaves or enters one of these areas, you will receive a push notification. You can't 'draw' a polygonal Location, so no squares or other funny shapes. Just circles. These circles can be resized to quite a large area though, so I haven't found it to be problematic. This of course means you can make your Location significantly larger than the wifi range. Crucially, merely leaving the wifi range won't trigger an alert unless the device ALSO leaves the Location. ASIDE: I've only lightly tested this, but it seems that if the wifi range is _not inside_ any defined Location(s), the device will still stay in sleep mode until it leaves wifi, so to be very precise, it seems you won't get notified unless the device is outside of wifi and AND outside a Location. Requirements for sleep mode: Awesomely, it turns out the only requirement for the device to stay in "sleep mode" is to be connected to a selected wifi network. So, contrary to what the 2 different support reps told me in spite of my repeated attempts to clarify, the wifi router does NOT need to be connected to the internet for "sleep mode" to work. Arguably, the device will need another firmware update in the future, at which time it would be helpful to connect to the internet - but I'll cross that bridge when it comes. How it communicates: So, amazingly, other than firmware updates, the device seems to do all of its communication via 3G cellular network. The implications of this are either really good or really bad, depending on your situation. For me, it's great, because I can set up a "dummy" wifi router in my mom's apartment that will keep the device in 'sleep mode' (saving battery), BUT, I can still communicate with it - which means I can see the location and, so, so amazingly, I can see the battery level too! This one aspect makes it worth every penny to me. On the flipside, if you live in an area with poor cellular coverage, expect to be frustrated. I would expect that even with strong wifi, you won't be able to "see" the device very well (I haven't tested, so comments appreciated here). Obviously, the fact that the device uses 3G means that you MUST purchase a subscription from them. I signed up for the 1 year plan for $7.95 per month and paid with a credit card - painless. There is also a 2-year plan for $6.95 per month, or you can do "monthly payments" for $9.95. Keep in mind, though, that "monthly payments" is a bit of a bait-and-switch, because you're still committed for a year. In all cases, you can cancel with 90 days if you're not happy. Getting notifications: As noted above, another really cool feature is that you don't necessarily need the app installed on your phone to receive notifications. You can add a phone number for SMS messages (which needs to be verified with a code sent to a newly added phone), but that phone does not need to have the app installed. Email notifications are also available. Also, the app can be installed on multiple smart phones (you do have to share email and password though, so consider that), so my sister who lives out of state can also keep tabs on mom. Sweet! Summary: Overall, fantastic product. After 24 hours of testing, 5 solid stars because it's perfect for my specific application. Support, while perhaps ignorant of how the product actually works, is very responsive and friendly. I've set a calendar notification and will update this review in 6 months with battery performance and other learnings. UPDATE (Jan 2019... 18 months later - oops!) Welp, unfortunately this update isn't going to be based on a lot of experience because, it turns out, mom didn't like wearing the thing and would regularly take it off and hide it. I actually spent several weeks looking online, going to jewelers, and even machine shops trying to find way to 'lock' it on to her ankle without it being ugly or uncomfortable - but also easy for me to remove for charging. Legalities aside, this was the only way to keep her from removing it. Unfortunately, before I could come up with a permanent solution she was picked up several times by the police for wandering and trying to enter random homes. So, yeah, that brought her life in assisted living, and the need to track her, to an abrupt end. She's now in a locked memory unit. That being said, we DID get to use it ("them" actually - I bought another so I could 'swap out' instead of sitting and waiting for it to charge) for a little while, and what I found is that even with wifi connected I could only get about 3 days out of each one. I was hoping for 6 or 7, but it was still the best thing going. Note: Keep in mind this was a year and a half ago, so I'm guessing/hoping the service has improved since then. For the times she did keep it on, it seemed to work pretty well, although I did sometimes get false alarms. The first time I got an alert I panicked and called the facility, but I soon learned to wait for a second or even third 'fix' to confirm she was really out of the zone. The one time it came in very handy was when the facility called ME to ask where she was, and I was able to tell them the general location. It turned out she had wandered into the neighboring wing - so she was still in her geofence, but outside of her living area. We never got the chance to 'road test' it in that she never wandered off while wearing it. I'm sure it would have worked, though, as any time I was transporting the swapped out unit back home I'd get an alert. Using a second device: I wish I had written this down while my memory was fresh, but as you can imagine, having a second device seems like a great idea for this type of application. Unfortunately it meant ANOTHER subscription plan to pay for, but it also came with some weird quirks/requirements. For example, you can't 'assign' both devices to the same 'pet' (mom was a pet in the app) and rotate devices like I wanted to do. Instead, I had to create a new 'pet' and assign the second device to it. Also, as I recall it wasn't trivial to disable alerts for the device I was taking home to charge. So, each time I'd leave the facility I'd have to send my sister a text to let her know I was leaving with it. None of these things were deal-breakers - just annoyances. Overall, this is what I would love to see Whistle (or anyone) do: 1. Let us purchase a second device and put them both on the same subscription, and give us a 'toggle' in the app to change which device should be active. I can't be the only person who wants to be able to 'hot swap' devices. 2. Create a way for the device to be 'locked' to the wearer. A fashionable, comfortable chain with a small lock would be great. I understand this potentially creates legal issues, but as legal guardians that's our risk to take. Anyway, if it came to that I'd feel just fine explaining to a jury why I put it on her. After all if such a device had existed, I'm confident mom would have been able to stay a locked memory unit for at least another 6 months and save taxpayers thousands at the same time.

A Solution for Small Dogs

Whistle is indeed too bulky to attach to the collar of a small dog. However, I found a solution that works great for my 7 lb. toy poodle. I sewed the base of Whistle’s collar strap onto the mesh fabric of my dog’s harness, RC Pet Products Step in Cirque Soft Walking Dog Harness, XX-Small, Red. The Whistle collar attachment attaches securely to the collar strap base, and the Whistle tracker device plugs into that. It’s a solid fit. The tracker device is very lightweight and sits on my dog’s back, so he doesn’t even notice it’s there. If you use more than one harness, you can order an additional collar strap base and collar attachment for a modest price directly from Whistle.

LOVE this Dog Tracker!

We LOVE this product. After our skittish rescue dog got loose for 3 long and scary weeks (see first photo), we researched dog trackers. He has had the Whistle 3 for a month now and it works great. It is easy to set up and use, holds its charge for at least one week, and has a great interface. We never want to go through what we went through again, and are happy we found the Whistle 3. Peace of mind! Highly recommend it.

I'd like to add that when there are a lot of ...

I initially gave this product a very negative review. I was testing it out in my condo and it often times couldn't find the device or took a very long time. I turns out that my bottom floor brick condo is very close to being a dead zone when it comes to data and cellular reception. I get a signal on my phone but it is very weak. When using the device in more typical situations it performed exceptionally. I'd like to add that when there are a lot of competing products one of the things that separates one from the others is the customer service. The customer support I received from Whistle was far and beyond what I'm used to.

The rascal that has been forever gentle tamed- Yea Whistle!

I am writing a review for this tracker. I am a customer that has look high and low for a good tracker for my Main Coon rescues. I have one particular sweetie that is a rascal. She got lost on Mother's day and then I purchased the Whistle 3 GPS. It does require monthly charges but after thinking that I had lost my most beloved cat- I bite the bullet. After a month of this tracker- I can say without reservation that it is the best product I have bought thus far for locating your beloved furry friend! It is accurate and reliable with notification- that the rascal -is out of home area via text. More importantly, their customer service is outstanding, knowledgable and reliable! Worth every penny if you are an animal lover of either a dog or a cat... actually just bought another for another rascal of mine.....wish they'd bundle their service but that's maybe in the future. I am a fan !

Awesome improvements on Whistle 3 - Great for cats now too!

Whistle has done AMAZING work with the release of the Whistle 3. I am an original Whistle that I've used for a year with my dogs. I was on the lookout for one my cat. I had narrowed it down, based on weight, to the paw tracker or the Pod GPS pet tracker ( 33 grams and 28 grams respectively) when I decided to check on Whistle and see what improvements they have made with "3". First off, it's only 28 grams! Totally light enough for my cat to safely wear it. The shape is way better then the Pod GPS pet tracker so decided to give it a shot. It's AWESOME. In addition to the size improvement, they've improved the charging base, the iphone app, the locator is MUCH faster then the older model (super important when trying to track down a fast running German Shepherd or cat on the prowl), and my absolute favorite - the "trips" feature. I can see everywhere IT (my cat) has ventured to during the day (and if he visits the nice vs. not-so-nice neighbors OR gets too close to the road). And this part is going to sound weird, but I actually even use the activity tracker for my cat. I know that if he gets less then a few hours of time outside, he's going to bug me alllll night long to go out. I try and keep him in as much as possible, and ESPECIALLY after dark. So if he's lounging inside all day, I can tell from the app and encourage a little play time better the sun sets. Thank you Whistle!

Spying On Our Cat!

We live on a 52 acre farm and have had issues with 1 of our cats wandering and disappearing for days at a time. Recently Peter went missing for 23 days and we thought we wouldn't see him ever again and he finally returned and we were so happy. We tried keeping him in the house but he got destructive so we let him back outside (our cats were all rescued feral cats so they do not like being inside). We started giving him unlimited canned food which is usually something we only offer as a treat since our cats eat primarily dry food. Nothing kept him around and he kept leaving at night so we decided we needed to spy on him to see where he is going. We found out about the Whistle 3 and were very skeptical because of all the battery complaints we read about. We worried that if the battery only died after 8 or 12 hours then we wouldn't be able to accurately see where Peter was going and disappearing to for days at a time but we decided to give it a shot anyway. After receiving the device we were able to charge it in about 20 minutes. Activation was easy through the app, and registering the credit card and $9.99 per month was straightforward. We thought the device would be much larger but as you can see from the photos of Peter, its not that big at all and it really doesn't bother him. Attaching to his collar took 2 minutes and they made it easy by including a removable rubber clasp that you remove to slip the collar through. We connected the collar to the wireless router on our farm nearest to the building where Peter hangs out the most so that when he leaves it will trigger the GPS monitoring and we can track him. That evening his took off and we were able to watch him travel to a neighbors farm and stay for a few hours, and then he moved on to a junkyard about 1/4 mile from our farm. He spent the entire night near a condemned house at the junkyard, traveling up and down the rows of cars, and then staying at the house for a few hours. In the morning we walked to the edge of our property down by the river where we could see the condemned house and we started calling toward the direction of where the Whistle said he was and sure enough he came barreling toward us. Peter jumped up to a downed tree and ran across to our side of the river and follows us home like he traveled this path 1000 times before. We have watched him every night for 5 nights since we installed the Whistle on him and he does the same thing every night. We are pretty confident that he was either stuck inside the condemned house or in a building somewhere but we are glad to have him home and to have the reliability of this amazing collar. Regarding the battery life, we have not had it go below 85% charge during any of the periods we charge it. We throw it on the charger every morning for about 20 minutes before putting it back on him. I am confident that if Peter were gone for a day or two the battery would still be functional but we like that we have the option of adjusting the gps tracking time through the app. We have it set to track every 10 minutes right but can easily adjust that up and down to save on battery life. This morning when we woke up we saw that no alert was received saying Peter had come home during the night and he had been out of range for 12 hours so we did a quick track and started walked toward where it said he was. We found him peacefully sleeping inside our strawberry beds, right where the collar said he would be. So very impressed with the Whistle 3 and worth every penny for peace of mind.

Full Reviews