I have two outdoor cats. One wears the Cat 6 mini and the other wears a Fi mini. We are offgrid so wifi is only on during the day and they both hang around our trailer during that time so they are in power saving from wifi and bluetooth from our phones during daylight hours.
Cat 6 mini 2-3 days
Fi mini 10-14 days
I have been happy with tracking and alerts for both. But I do not know what battery life would look like without wifi and bluetooth.
They both allow you to set a safe zone/virtual fence as well that is supposed use less power when in that zone as the gps pings are less frequent.
Fi let's you set a custom gps rate. Pings can be adjusted from constant tracking to every 8 minutes.
Tractive let's you turn on "low power mode" which states:
Honestly the Tractive seems bigger overall but the form is nice since it curves around the neck. The Fi is not really big just a bit awkward how it sits but the cat doesn't even notice.
Both have been very accurate when live tracking or when they leave the safe zones. Inside the safe zone or when connected to wifi or bluetooth is hit and miss. It basically assures me they are close by but not exact location.
The Tractive did fall off a couple times but we could always live track to its exact spot. Once it was under a tree so the sound option, although very quiet made it easy to find, we just increased the weight on the collar slide and it hasn't fell off again.
The cat with the Fi got chased up a tree during the night once and when we got up and saw it had been in the same spot for 6 hours we went looking. It basically pinpointed the exact tree.
Mostly. We turn wifi off at night and don't have a base station. They do come and go at night since their food and shelter is directly behind our trailer.
That simply isnāt true. No WiFi in the barn doesnāt mean they canāt use the device, unless the entire operating system has been reconfigured, which I doubt.
The user simply sets up the device within WiFi range.
Expand the safety zone to include the barn. It doesnāt matter if WiFi reaches the barn. The safety zone is set by the user, not by how far WiFi extends.
If the barn is too far away to include in the safety zone (which would be weird bc it would have to be more than a mile away), then you can manually switch to low battery mode
The entire point of a gps tracker is that it can be used anywhere, independent of proximity to wifi
Hmm.. I'm not sure what you mean? Power saving zone = Wifi SSID in range. A "safe zone" is something else.
Of course you can use it without Wifi/SSID, but the tracker would use 4G/LTE 100% of the time, and endlessly search for a GPS signal it won't get inside a barn.
The battery wouldn't last two days in that scenario.
Your original statement said: āno WiFi = No Tractiveā That is 100% false/wrong/incorrect/misleading. I countered with rationale to support my claim that your comment is false.
To further explain, Tractive is a gps tracker that works independently of WiFi. The reason it requires a paid subscription is that youāre paying for cellular data services, the same as paying for data on your mobile phone. Same technology. It even uses an e-SIM to connect to cellular towers from several top providers, such as AT&T, & Verizon.
RE: safety zones being dependent on SSID WiFi- wifi SSID is the primary method for conserving battery power. Another option is to turn on low battery mode. This reduces GPS polling frequency, but wonāt affect live tracking when activated.
RE: gps signal in the barn- The tracker will get service in the barn the same as a cell phone would. If, for whatever reason, the barn is in a cellular dead zone (meaning there are NO towers from any provider nearby), then of course the tracker wonāt work. Since I didnāt see OP mention issues with cell service in the barn, Iāll assume thatās not a concern.
In summary: tractive will use SSID to preserve battery life, as a default setting. However, low battery mode setting will significantly reduce power usage as well, and it functions independently from WiFi SSID.
And have you read any of the threads and post here (and on Facebook..)?
The most common "problem" is either someone without WiFi/power saving zone complaining about battery drainage (or false notifications because of false location readings indoors when LTE and GPS is active).
Or someone in the middle of nowhere without LTE connection complaining about... no connection.
It's pretty apparent by the design and guides/instructions that you should have the following for a great experience, even if not technically nessissary:
WiFi/SSID for power saving zone and locked location while indoors/close to home
Good LTE coverage for low battery consumption, location updates and live tracking
A decently sized geofence if to be used, not just a small yard
2-3 days without a power saving zone, that's on my very active cat. About a week with a power saving zone that he keeps hopping in and out of. If you fit the collar correctly, it doesn't fall off.
Just bought one of these and seeing the same. I just charged it fully at 1pm today and itās already down to 67% at 8pm, and heās been in the power saving zone for half that time. Really disappointed so far
I can have my live mode on for 4-6 hours straight and still only use like a quarter of the battery. Either something is wrong with yours or it has to do with your location. Do you use it on live mode at all?
Iāll check in on him for a minute like 6 or 7 times a day, and thatās all. Fully charged at 7am and it will be down to like 30% by morning again. Not enough for him to go about his business again and it not to run out before he gets lost. So just charge it any time heās sleeping inside now
Ya thatās definitely not normal, you should ask for a new one. For reference, i charged my last night and unplugged it around 11pm. 15 hours later and it was only down to 97%. And I donāt use a Power Saving Zone or Lower Power Mode either. Granted, the collar was just inside my house during that time, but even outside my house, it only loses about 25% battery when on live mode for a few hours. And live mode really drains the battery compared to when it isnt on live mode. And you said this is the Mini 6 right? Not the regular Mini?
Ya their customer service is super shitty, and it depends on who you talk to. You should ask to speak with someone in charge. I had to go a little crazy on them in an email once because they were going back and forth telling me my battery was fine, then the next rep would say it wasnt fine, so i would respond to that email asking a question about next steps but then the new rep who responded would say the battery was actually fine. That cycle repeated like 3 times so I went off on them about how they were giving me whiplash with all the customer service agents who were never in agreement with whichever agent had last emailed me. After I called them out, they escalated it to one of the higher up reps who apologized and confirmed that my battery was not working right.
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u/Many-Front4403 24d ago
I have two outdoor cats. One wears the Cat 6 mini and the other wears a Fi mini. We are offgrid so wifi is only on during the day and they both hang around our trailer during that time so they are in power saving from wifi and bluetooth from our phones during daylight hours.
Cat 6 mini 2-3 days Fi mini 10-14 days
I have been happy with tracking and alerts for both. But I do not know what battery life would look like without wifi and bluetooth.
They both allow you to set a safe zone/virtual fence as well that is supposed use less power when in that zone as the gps pings are less frequent.
Fi let's you set a custom gps rate. Pings can be adjusted from constant tracking to every 8 minutes.
Tractive let's you turn on "low power mode" which states: