GPS Dog Collar

Factual Questions
1

How far away is current technology from inventing a GPS dog collar?

You bring the collar home from the store and register it on the manufacture’s website on your computer and then put it on your dog.

If you dog gets out, you simply go to the website which has a local map of your area, and it will show you exactly where your dog is (as long as the collar hasn’t come off).

How about a GPS chip that could be inserted under your dog’s skin?

Are GPS units too large and/or expensive for this??

How about one for your car keys?

2

It’s here.

http://www.petsmobility.com/

3

The problem, elmwood is that the website you linked to says it will be available in mid-2008, and the Where to Buy page says “To be announced.”

Looks like that one never made it to the real world.

4

Garmin has one that is targeted at owners of hunting dogs.

5

GOOGLE zoomback.com.

I tried it here, but it seems that you need a very strong cell signal for it to work. It did not work for me. We barely get a cell signal.

I do not advocate that dogs should just run free. But when you get 30 feet of snow in a year, fences don’t work.

6

As mentioned, there are products out there already. Googling “GPS pet tracking” will return a bunch more hits.

The difficult part is that – like your TV – normal GPS units can only receive and not transmit. While they can easily calculate your (or your dog’s) current position from satellite signals and display it on a screen, they can’t send that information back to the satellites or to anyone not physically present… at least not without additional technology.

That’s where cell phone networks usually come in. Devices like Zoomback track their location through a combination of GPS and cellular positioning and then send that information over the cell network, almost like a text message. Like cell phones, they also require a monthly fee (though not as high as a regular phone – many of which, I might add, have similar tracking capabilities built in for paranoid parents and the like).

As for chips inserted under the skin and chips for keys, antenna and battery power are both going to be of concern. The tracking devices are basically small cell phones, so once engineers find ways to make 'em even tinier and last even longer… maybe you’ll get your wish.