So doggo (described below) managed to shed her loose fitting flashing red LED collar with its Samsung SmartTag a couple of weeks ago while we were at our island home. (Since they're both electronic, I keep the collar loose to be able to remove it from her around water.)
I didn't realise it was missing until we got back to the city; and it completely escaped me that the smart tag was on the collar. We're back at the island now and someone mentioned keeping track of her teenagers via their phones, which reminded me that the lost $5 collar also had my $35 smart tag on it.
I fired up the app on my phone and found that the tag had been "seen" (by other people's phones since I wasn't here), three times in the week we were away, as well as several times since I came back. There's not a huge amount of traffic past here; almost entirely island residents and tourist foot traffic, so my guess is someone else nearby has the required Samsung phone set to cooperate with SmartTags.
Anyway, the tracker is live with about 12 months of battery remaining, the tag is somewhere nearby, how hard can it be to find? I went out that night with a bright LED battery floodlight. I couldn't get it to connect properly to get the tracker to beep, but I could tell where it was to within about 25 metres, centered about 50 metres from my front gate. I tried again in daylight and eventually found it lying in grass between a parked caravan and the front fence of the property it was parked outside, one of doggos favourite snuffling spots.
My points:
- if I had been looking for a dog size target (suitcase,etc, or larger like a vehicle) I'd have had no trouble seeing it from 25 metres, but something like a dog collar or a bunch of keys needs to be reasonably visible. If you've put your keys down inside the house, you'll get close enough to get it to beep for you. At very least you'll be able to see where you were last near your keys.
- I knew the tag was near my house, but not in the house or yard because other people's phones had pinged it about 50 to 100 metres away, and because it was close enough to the road that my own phone pinged it whenever I went past. Even here in a semi-rural setting, it got pinged every few days by passing phones. Even without that, my own phone would have pinged it as I passed by as long as it was within maybe 20 metres of my travels.
Luggage, stolen vehicles, urban dogs maybe, keys probably, but not really very good for small stuff lost in long grass!
Advantages - battery lasts a year or more and is a cheap CR2032, doesn't need a sim and subscription with ongoing expenses. In principal once you're close you can have the smarttag beep but it is very quiet.
Disadvantages - reported location is only as good as the phone location of the phones that see it and can be hundreds of metres off sometimes, but will average about right if there are enough sightings. The last 20 metres can be difficult if the object is small and the environment is noisy.
I should put it in an envelope and post it back to the city before I head home to see how well it tracks within the postal service...
Originally Posted by
nonsense
The Samsung tracking device got cheap enough (Au$35) that I bought one more out of curiosity than anything.
Like most cheap trackers, it is purely a bluetooth device; it does not have a GPS and does not know where it is.
When it sees a cooperating bluetooth device (Samsung android phone), the Samsung system (somewhere out there in the ether) logs the known location of the phone and the identity of the tag and makes the tag location available to the owner.
Obviously for this to work, it needs to be within bluetooth range of a Samsung phone.
In practice this means that hanging it on my dog's collar in a rural area does not help finding her when she sets off on her unauthorised 3am explorations, but it also means that inside luggage in a busy airport is just about ideal since there will be many people and hence many phones nearby.
The other feature of the Samsung device I bought is that it connects directly to my own phone when it can.
This allows two useful features:
1) My phone bleats at me when I leave the tag behind; or more likely when the tag and attached dog leave me behind, alerting me to her departure within about a minute
2) When it is connected directly to my phone (eg it must be somewhere nearby), I can get it to audibly beep, ideal for finding lost keys, less useful for finding lost dogs. I've had no luck teaching the dog to come home for a treat when it beeps...
They're great for something like keys (likely left behind somewhere where my phone was with me).
They're probably pretty good for tracking baggage, etc, in an urban or busy environment with lots of compatible phones.
A dead loss for tracking wildlife in rural areas obviously.
Helpful but not as good as a GPS based device for tracking an errant dog...
PS I'll put mine in my bag next time I fly...