Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am writing this review for people who don’t current own a pet tracking device and are trying to figure out what works best for them. I just purchased the Tractive and am very happy with it. I had a Tagg GPS+ before and it didn’t work for me because it relied on the Verizon Network and that coverage is oddly non-existent at my house. (I live in a populated suburban area). Tagg’s customer service was cumbersome - -they said they were overwhelmed because the GPS+ had just come out. But, they did process a return. From my research, Tractive and Gibi rely on AT&T. Tagg relies on Verizon. Beyond that issue, I think anyone looking at buying one of these devices should think about what their needs are and what functions are most important. The first question is where does your pet spend most of its time? The second question is whether you are relying on this for routine tracking or for emergencies - -your pet is out of its safe space and you need to find it. Being inside or outside is important for the GPS feature which needs, at some point, access to the sky. (Or the cellular connect that can get you close but not as precise as the GPS). If you are relying on it in an emergency you need to think about how user friendly it is when you are panicked that you can’t find your pet. For me, my dog lives inside and only goes outside with me or the dog walker. With me, he does some off-leash walking. Also, I have an unfenced yard (can’t have a fence) and my dog gets supervised off-leash access. But, we have wildlife (deer and fox) that occasionally appear and my dog gives chase. So for me, the feature of getting notifications when my dog leaves the home zone (geo-fence, safe zone) isn’t that important as I will generally see him take off. But, if your pet spends its days outside, then you should focus on this. I think the Tagg and Tractive features are similar here – my experience is that Tractive worked better but that could be because of the Verizon issue. (Several times with the dog walker Tagg said my dog was out of the home zone for hours and could not locate him. I was pretty sure he was home safe and sound but the Tagg couldn't tell me this. And, Tagg said a cell phone booster would not work with their device) I have found the Tractive has a much faster response when I want to know where my dog is. For the Tagg, it could not locate my dog inside. That was probably due to the poor Verizon coverage. But even on our walks, there were several times it could not locate my dog when I could see him! Tractive has been speedy and locates very quickly. I find Tractive’s tracking function much better that Tagg – again quick and real time. I also like the Tractive app better than the Tagg app. It seems the notification function is more straight-forward and I didn’t need all the bells and whistle of Tagg. But, again, I wasn’t relying on the leaving the home zone function. But I also found that the Tractive app gives me information faster and in a cleaner format. Again, I want to be able to use the functions when I am panicked because my dog isn’t where he should be. I want to be able to cleanly get the information. It is one of the reasons I did not go with Gibi as they rely on a website and don’t have an app. To have my cell phone looking for a website and updating that website would add one more stress in an already stressful situation of looking for my dog. I have not found the battery life to be a problem. So Tractive gets five stars after several days of use. I will update this review if my views change. .