Tractive Smart Cat GPS Tracker | Real-Time Location & Wellness Monitoring for Cats 6.5 lbs+ | Territory & Location History | Up to 5-Day Battery | Breakaway Collar Included (Dark Blue)

I have had other trackers like the Bluetooth style ones you may attach to your keys, luggage, etc. that do not require a subscription to work. They work as designed, but they don't work well enough at the times you need it to the most. What they did do was send me on an emotional rollercoaster thinking the worst about my cat's whereabouts because I needed to pinpoint to the second where she was on a map. Instead of waiting and waiting for the tag locator to update, and there is no set interval for it to do that, you think the worst, and you may never know exactly if they don't return. And to me that is the worst part about losing a pet/member of family, is never knowing. Yet the burden of if there was something you could had done about it. I believe that cats are not to spend their lives indoors and they have instinctual urges they can't control to make them want to be free be it an indoor cat that escapes or one you take the risk of letting them outside during the day only. Its my belief to allow this and only hope my cat is savvy enough from life experience along with instincts to know there are predators present that given the opportunity to sustain their survival, may include ending hers . And my pet at almost 3 years old and living in a somewhat forested part of North Seattle with the occasional transient coyote, I take that risk and prepared for possibilities of letting my cat be a cat. So far, so good, but with much heartache at times. I was aware of the Tractive Cat Mini locator during all those times when using the other trackers and figured it probably worked in a similar fashion and probably just had some fancier app to download or something. But the main problem I had with giving the Tractive Cat Mini a chance was the requirement of a subscription for it to work. The upfront cost of the tracker was reasonable, but the yearly or monthly subscription was not. At least for my penny-pinching budget. Just another bill to pay. But I was so wrong. Being fed up with another emotional breakdown which luckily aways turned out for the best, I purchased the Tractive Cat Mini from Amazon while it was on sale for a promotion which made the price for me to be even more reasonable to offset the subscription price. I got it the next day and chose my subscription for a year. By the end of the 1st day of using it, I was kicking myself that I didn't do it sooner and how much heartache I could have avoided because this tracker did what I thought was not possible. It showed very clear detailed maps of where my cat was when I needed to know and to the second without delay. The app was very user friendly with not a bunch of settings to get lost in but straight forward and actually fun to use when friending with other cat owners in your local area. Or worldwide. But most importantly, the reliability of the device and the app combined which I have not had one problem with either after close to one year of using both. I now know what you get for the cost of the subscription and it could be 10x higher than what I paid for what you actually get from it. After 1 year using this device daily, I am extremely happy with this product, which I find to be rare these days. And if battery life is your concern like it was for me, it all depends on your cat. For myself, my cat is 50/50 indoor outdoor cat with a 10-block territory which because of the tracker I now know, the battery lasts 5 days or more and really has to do with the weather. That being said, it depends on if she is in the power saving zone or not. The battery can last even longer than 5 days in some cases and that's with full functionality with no compromising of its capabilities. To make sure it is charged is just a important part of my routine when getting a notification on my phone of battery getting low. And to me the best part of the Tractive app is being able to draw a perimeter over the satellite map of spots you do not want your pet to enter and getting a notification on your phone immediately if they cross into it and also a notification when the exit. My cat is also probably considered petite in body size at 11ish pounds and since the 1st hour of wearing the device on her collar, she was never uncomfortable about its size. It also works great in rural areas and responds comparative in the same way your phone makes or receives calls/texts because of signal strength or network. To end this review, again which I never do, I assure you, nobody coerced me, paid me anything, offered me product to spend the time to write this, but these are my true thoughts and feelings on how this product has improved my life along with my pets life (unknowingly of course) to have the peace of mind of your family members well-being and the ability to intervene at the drop of a hat at the time you need to the most. The whole package of what you get from this product by Tractive is money well spent and I guarantee you will not look back making you a long-time customer as long as you have a dog or cat because all the others can't touch this one by a mile. And any upcoming or 2.0 versions will only be better than already great version of what you can already get. But credit is due when your expectations are exceeded after using a product to make an accurate and educated review like I am doing now so you can learn from my mistakes and to support a company making a great product that actually frees your mind, or better yet, gives you peace of mind of your furry friend which we can all agree is priceless. Thank you Tractive!

I tried to keep my cat indoor-only but like Houdini, he always found a way to go on walkabout. Fitting him with Tractive Cat Mini was a concession toward his happiness and my peace of mind. Location: this has been dead-on accurate and such a huge relief. Recently, I wasn't able to return home before dark and got a notification kitty was 2 blocks away from our house. I drove right to the address shown in the app, activated the flashing light, called him and bingo, less than a minute later he came right to me and I got him home safe. I have also located him at other areas of the neighborhood during the day and when found he always blinks up at me rather bewildered, like "how did you know where I was?" There have been a number of other times I want to know exactly where he is and this tracker shows me. My only "wish for" is that live tracking is available in the 'safe' aka wifi zone. Sometimes I can shut down the program, restart, and have that option, but not always. I know the safe zone is for power saving but sometimes it's more important to me to know precise location on the property and the wifi/radar tracking is occasionally iffy. Battery: tracking my cat 8-10 times a day for a minute or two each time seems to use about 10% or less per day (kitty is only allowed out during the day). As I learn to trust both tracker and kitty, I'm getting more comfortable not charging the tracker every night, and am satisfied with battery performance. I recently downloaded the program update, so look forward to even more improved location and battery life with the update. Comfort: not gonna lie, even the 'mini' takes up quite a bit of furry real estate. But my guy is 20 lbs (ahem, "big-boned") and seems to wear it comfortably. I purchased the 'harness clip' for the Tractive and a dog-sized harness to fit him thinking that would be more comfortable having the tracker weight on his shoulders than having the tracker directly under his chin. Kitty doesn't like the harness on/off routine so for now we'll stick with the collar. The collar itself is very good quality and snaps on and off exactly as it should. It is easy to adjust for size and weight of cat (breakaway point). I took the bell off; just something to get in the way and didn't really produce much sound to warn wildlife. Sound locator: very, very quiet. Hard to hear unless very, very close. The cat will hear it though, and perhaps could be trained that when the song plays it's time to either come home or start looking for parent to give them a lift. Attachments: I found the best option for us is the flexible rubber encasement that fits onto the collar. It's easy to remove the tracker to charge and reinstall it. That said, though handling carefully, after 3 weeks of use it has already torn and I'm currently securing it with rubber bands. I've ordered replacements, but more robust durability of this item would be most welcome to prevent loss. Subscription plans: I like that I can pay month to month, which has been super helpful during the adjustment period to see if Tractive will be a fit for me before committing to a long-term plan. Tractive is a good fit, so at some point I will consider a longer subscription to lower the monthly cost. App: great app, easy to use, and accurate so far. The out-of-safe-zone and re-enter notifications have worked perfectly. It's fun to see the other Tractive kitties in the neighborhood and interesting to keep up with my guy's fitness/sleep stats. But where app really shines is location, location, location. Friends I show this to are amazed and fascinated. A tip if you don't have the upgraded plan that keeps track of history: screen shot your cat's location or history map each day to keep a record of their travels. That can be texted to someone helping locate/pick up kitty. Again, the ability to live track in the safe-zone would be a bonus for more peace of mind. Pretty please. :-D Value: with coupons/sales, I was able to purchase the tracker for under $40. I feel the tracker itself is well-made and a good value. I've been recommending it to friends and they are enthusiastic. All in all, the Tractive Cat Mini has met and even exceeded expectations on just about every front. My cat is happier, gets more exercise and I am 1000% more relaxed during his absences knowing I can locate him any time I need to. I highly recommend this product for worried pet parents. Please keep working on development to decrease tracker size/weight without losing too much battery capacity, add live tracking to safe area, and beef up rubber encasement attachment. Then it will be absolutely perfect! The big guy and I thank you, Tractive. This was just what we needed!

1. The battery life on the device sucks. And it sucks even more because the makers of this created a way to "save battery" by asking users to set up a Power Saving Zone. This requires setting up your home wi-fi to search for your pet via bluetooth under a tab called FIND NEARBY. They wanted to do the same thing the makers of Tile, Airtag and Galaxy Smartag did. However Tile , Airtag, etc. do not force you to have your phone GPS on at all times for this Power Safe Zone to work just via BLUETOOTH. Yet Tractive does which in turn extends the device's battery and instead drains your phone battery. Why Tractive engineers force having phone GPS on with a feature that doesn't find the pet via GPS. Strange! 2. The IRONY of all the above is that the 2nd way Tractive allows you to track your pet is via Google GPS with a tab called LIVE. You can ONLY use the LIVE tab if you are far away from your home's wi-fi Power Saving Zone since this feature really uses just GPS. Even turning off wi-fi on your phone WON'T allow you to use LIVE. One could think who cares to use LIVE via GPS if the cat is at home. EXCEPT if you set up Power Safe Zone it seems 70% of the time you cannot track the cat with FIND NEARBY. In other words setting Power Safe Zone messes up the app and your cat is untraceable . So you won't know if cat left the house! I kept thinking it was a fluke . Attempted every solution to a lame girl. Erase cache on app, log in and out of the app, get close to the pet. ONLY SOLUTION was to erase the Wi-fi Power Saving Zone . 3. After erasing the unusable "power saving zone" the battery on the device lasted about 40 hours. It takes around 3 hours for the device's battery to charge. A cat or dog can get lost during this time. So I STRONGLY ADVICE swapping your pet to a temporarily Airtag if you have an Iphone or a Smarttag PLUS if you have a newer Samsung Galaxy. These bluetooth trackers are pretty accurate and have longer range bluetooth capability than Tractive. You are not required to have GPS enabled on your phone at all times to track your pet via bluetooth since they are not GPS trackers. They also don't require a subscription. Having them wear something is better than nothing unless you want to purchase 2 Tractives devices AND pay 2 subscriptions for just 1 pet while one of the devices is charging. But wait read more... 4. Tractive Ring tone is very low. The Galaxy Smartag Plus and Tile ring tone are a lot louder. You better wear a hearing aid to find your pet via the Tractive ring tone. 5. While learning the Tractive app found an "interesting" button called Heat and Tracemap. This button supposedly shows where your cat has been. Somehow it showed my cat had moved 407 feet. Not sure how this could have happened. Unless my cat has invisible levitating powers unbeknown to me. The device was on my lap then on my cat who sat 5 feet away from me. Another fluke! 6. Tractive has a tab called Virtual Fences. I live in a 4000 + sq foot home with 80 feet length of AC area. Was getting excited something finally would be of use in this app. Wanted to know if my cat jumped out in the pool, yard or escaped. EXCEPT when setting the perimeter around my home I kept getting a warning saying: " The Virtual Fence is Too Small" . What? 7. Tractive requires you to pay RIGHT AWAY for a subscription. You don't even get a 1 day free trial test. Buy the device and be ready to pay upfront 1 year. Yes feel free to waste your time asking for your money back because we all have lots of it to spare trying to recover the $ that took us time to make. Dear Garmin please start making GPS devices for cats. You guys are the gurus of anything GPS. For now I will be testing the Marco Polo tracker and use this Tractive to track coons and possums inside my garbage can instead. That may be the only place this stupid device works.

The mini works great on my 12lb cat who is only allowed outside during daylight hours. We decided to try Tractive after realizing the limitations of AirTags. I was very hesitant because our cat had never worn a collar. Having a 12lb cat, we started with the 9lb+ version, which is about double the weight of a collar with an AirTag. It didn't come with a collar, and we quickly found out that the one we purchased didn't have a strong enough buckle. The good news was that the GPS made it very easy to find the tracker after the cat had released the buckle and ditched it. After we got a collar with a stronger buckle (but still breakaway), we had no problem with the cat keeping the collar on. And we had no more nights walking around outside calling for the cat to try to get him in before coyotes wander into the neighborhood. There have been a couple of times when it hasn't been very accurate about his location, but it's good enough for our purposes. Realizing that the main difference between the original and the mini is size and battery life, I quickly saw that the original was much more than we needed. I put the tracker on the cat in the morning, and he would wander about 3 miles covering our neighborhood. As it got near sundown, I pretty easily found the cat and brought him home, removing the collar for the night. The battery would still be 80% or 90% full, so I figured the mini might be enough for our needs, and ordered it. There were a couple of pleasant surprises: first, unlike the original, it came with its own breakaway collar. Second, it was super easy to transfer our subscription from the original to the new mini. The mini is only a little heavier than the collar with the AirTag, and must be more comfortable for the cat. There are 2 ways to connect the device to the collar, a soft silicon pouch and and a hard bracket. I liked the look and feel of the soft pouch but it tore after only about 2 months of use, so we're using the hard bracket. I'm delighted with this device, and the battery life is perfectly fine. I charge it every other day and it rarely drops below 60% full. I don't need more than that. In fact I could probably go 3 days between charging. It charges quickly, too. I put it on the charger when I get up in the morning and I get a notification from the app that it's fully charged within an hour, usually only a half hour. I agree with the negative comments about the wifi power-saving zone. This is a terrible idea which must have been designed by someone who never had a cat, or at least never had a cat and a fun yard with lots of trees and hiding spots. Don't Do It. If you set it up, DELETE IT. I have the most trouble finding my cat using the tracker when he's within 100 feet of my home, even without having the power-saving zone set up. It seems like the tracker is still trying to compute a power-saving zone. It should STOP doing this. There's enough charge here for 1 day and I do not need more than that.

I really cannot complain about the tracker as it has met my expectations given the other options available. I have been using the tracker for about four months. Love power saving mode - battery will last for weeks as long as device is within my WiFi range (and not using GPS live tracking or GPS normal tracking). My cat is almost always within WiFi range of my home, so he seldoms goes beyond that area. So I just charge the battery every few weeks. Love virtual fences - the options for creating virtual fences that are Safe or Danger zones is nice. The normal safe zone is the WiFi range around my house, and if the tracker goes outside of WiFi, I will get an alert within a few minutes. I just wish it would allow more than five virtual fences (combination of safe and danger fences) since my cat stays over at different family homes frequently. Love GPS Live tracking - on a few occasions where my cat got outside the Safe Zone (WiFi range), the GPS "Live" tracking worked well in my area. I was able to find my cat easily a few homes away using "Live Tracking". The battery does drain faster obviously when in Live tracking mode since it is updating the location every few seconds. so you really can't go that long in Live tracking mode when trying to find my cat (I am guessing it would last an hour or so), but that does not bother me since I only use Live Tracking in emergencies. When using normal GPS tracking (when outside the WiFi power saving area and NOT using the emergency Live tracking), the device would probably not consume the battery that fast since it is only updating the location very 10 minutes or so (or the 20 minute real power saving mode). But I don't have an estimate on how many days the battery would last since I have not tested that. Love family sharing - As I mentioned earlier, my cat stays over at the homes of others. So other people can also use the app and tracker, and have Safe Zones within their WiFi range of their home. Love the notifications - I get notifications when my cat is outside the Safe Zone (WiFi), or battery is low, or battery is fully charged. Love the size - I have a 10 lb cat, so the size does not bother him. It is not that huge of device, like slightly smaller than the size of and actual mini-candy bar you give out at Halloween. And I do not have the collar on him all the time, only when he goes outside. Just FYI....I used my old 3/4" wide collar with the device. I did not use the much narrower collar provided with the device, so I have no critique of the provided collar. I only used the rubber surround provided with the device, and then easily mounted the rubber surround on the 3/4" wide collar I had. I am not sure why someone would use the additional plastic clip since that would make it more uncomfortable for the cat, and make it harder to remove the device for charging. The only two wishes. You have to remove the device from the collar and use the specialized battery charging clip to charge the device. So I wish I could just leave the device on the collar and plug in a mini-USB plug or something like that. And like I previously mentioned, I wish it would allow more than five virtual fences. Summary - It works well and provides wonderful peace of mind.

This unit has saved me untold hours of anxiety by knowing where my adventuresome cat is. It helped me find him at the top of a palm tree, and I knew he was there during the night until he could be rescued. When I was out of town I knew he had not been locked in for the night, so I sent a caretaker after him right to where he was! The subscription is a great value for the knowledge of where my cat is spending his time. The product works with terrific accuracy. The features of using a safety zone saves on the battery. I only need to charge it once a week. I’ve used the map, and sound and light features to find it the few times it has safety-released from the cat. The first year the on/off button broke away, and Tractive replaced my unit right away no charge. I wish it were smaller but my cat doesn’t seem to mind. He waits at the door in the morning for me to put his unit on before I let him go outside. I have a large property and a large ‘safety zone’, but I wish there was temporary override feature so that I could find him inside the ‘safety zone’ sometimes. But as time has gone on I trust the cat to come home at least by dinner time! Cannot recommend this device enough. It’s interesting to see where he goes and how his territory is static or changes. Get one, you won’t regret it. It also shows elevation, so I know when he’s on a roof. Not like an air tag that requires other people’s iPhones to ping from, this is a gps satellite unit and you can watch your pet in real time. Best invention for wandering pets ever.

What kind of tracker you get depends on your use case. In our case, we live next to a canyon with cat-eating monsters (coyotes) in it. It's vital that our little guy come inside before dusk, when the monsters come out. After we had some good scares where we couldn't find him until after dark, I bought this. The collar is thin and small, but sharp-looking. You can adjust how much force is necessary for the breakaway collar to break away based on your cat's weight. The device itself is slightly bulky on my slim young cat; he's 12 pounds, but long and thin, and you can see from the photo how large it looks on him. But it doesn't WEIGH very much. If the collar is loose enough to be comfortable, it will slip down in front, always; I'd prefer if there were some way for it to be on his back instead; you'd get better signal that way. And you don't have to worry about losing the collar if it breaks away -- it has GPS, after all. Setup is fine. You have to download the app for setup, and it walks you through the process. You WILL have to buy a subscription to pay for the server time and cellular data plan. If you don't want to do that, there are systems out there that are more expensive but come with their own radio networks. These probably don't work as well in the city, though. Once you've gone through setup, you can also view your cat's location through the web. We get about two days' battery life when we do NOT use low-power mode. We don't have geofencing turned on, so we don't need the most-accurate responses; if we really need to know where he is at a given moment, we can turn on LIVE tracking mode, which is incredibly accurate, down to a couple of feet from where the guy is, and gives updates every few seconds. This does burn battery faster. The battery life hasn't been an issue for us, because when we lock him in at night, we pull the collar off of him until the next morning. It's been fascinating to see where he's been all day. You not only get a path showing his travel history, it also shows a histogram with where he's spending most of his time. (He really likes the gopher holes down the street from us, and has even brought home a couple of presents from there.) And when we need to find him because it's getting dark, we've been able to. Fortunately, if we can get near him, he comes when my daughter calls him. And that has given us a lot of peace of mind.

The gps feature is acceptable, and relatively accurate. Sometimes my cat will be right next to me and it will say he's 10+ feet away. I'm still able to find him when he gets out easily with the occasional inaccuracies. Because the collar is so close to the pet's ears and eyes the noise and light features are nearly useless. The noise is only audible in an absolutely silent room. A light breeze is loud enough to over power the collar. The light is only a tiny LED light that pulses. If you are not in a specific orientation relative to collar's light, then you cannot see the light. If Your pet has longer hair you will not see the light. The augmented reality feature is absolutely useless. It is constantly 90° off of where your pet actually is. If you want a cheap relatively accurate GPS that is easy to use and has a good battery. This is a good product. Do not buy if you're expecting to use the augmented reality, light or sound location 2025 UPDATE Has this device saved my cat's life? Yes countless times. Am I glad I got a GPS collar? Yes! I would now only recommend this product if you literally have no other option. 1/2 of the promised features don't work at all and honestly never worked. Bluetooth radar NEVER worked, augmented reality NEVER worked. The battery life has significantly diminished. What used to last over a week lasts a day. Frequently the GPS will say my cat is over a mile away from me, only to refresh saying the cat is actually twice as far away in the opposite direction. When the app says my cat is "Sleeping", it really means the GPS fell off AGAIN. The GPS only works is it can stay on, and it won't. It falls off at the slightest tug. Now the GPS really only works 60% of the time. If I'm inside I can't see where my cat is, so I always have to go outside. 50% of the time the GPS falsely claims my pet is in the safe zone when they aren't. 90% of the time the App won't let me use intrinsic features to the device. If the GPS claims my cat is within the safe zone, I no longer have the option to use the radar locator, sound locator, light locator, augmented reality locator, or the actually useful tool live GPS tracking. If you get too close to your pet, you can no longer track them and you can't use any of the other features anymore... Only sometimes though... Occasionally it will let you use these useful features and you can actually find your pet! Don't you just love spending over $100 and then a reoccurring monthly fee for a piece of s*** the only kind of works sometimes? Thank goodness I'm I trusted the safety of the innocent creatures I love most in the world on this piece of garbage. do not buy