An application to geolocate my cat

In the wake of technical progress and innovation, the democratization of advanced technologies today seems to be experiencing an unprecedented acceleration. While in the past, the territory of high tech was confined to digital, audio-visual or certain specific and elitist sectors, today, the most innovative technologies invite themselves into every home, and even into every pocket! Via a simple smartphone, applications with intuitive interfaces allow everyone to be at the controls of complex systems and to perform, at any time and in a few clicks, veritable little miracles.

On the market for connected objects, the ruthless competition breeds the appearance of innumerable products and gadgets. From household appliances to sports coaching via well-being and beauty: the sectors of daily life are taken by storm. Also, pet owners are not left out. Feeding or monitoring your animal remotely, monitoring its health or controlling its weight gain is now a simple question of investment. Likewise, the remote cat locator is now available to everyone. But how do I geolocate my cat? This is what we will see here.

How do I geolocate my cat?

To geolocate your cat, the best option is to turn to Gps trackers specially designed for cats. Today, a handful of brands are vying for this niche market. Weenect, Tractive, Kippy, Invoxia and a few others have in fact in common to offer consumers a GPS tracking service for pets, directly controllable from a smartphone application.

Geolocating your animal: what is a GPS tracker for cats?

So, how to geolocate a cat? It’s very simple ! A small box is attached to the animal’s collar. This contains on the one hand a system which makes it possible to hang the GPS signal from the satellites in orbit around the Earth. On the other hand, a SIM card, often multi-operator, is also included to make it possible to transmit location data to the application server, then to the user’s phone. Finally, in order to carry out the transfer of this information, your cat’s gps collar of course needs to integrate a small battery. As so often, this is where it all comes down to builders. To stand out from the competition, you must:

• lighter ;
• smaller ;
• while guaranteeing excellent autonomy of the device;
• unfailing resistance;
• a good degree of tightness.

Let’s not forget that this is a connected object that we will have to entrust to an animal ! Claws, teeth, puddles and sand should not come to an end!

How do I geolocate my cat from a smartphone application?

Outraged the tracer necklace, the other side of this pet GPS tracking system is Smartphone app that goes with. Indeed, if the brands compete on the purely material aspects of the products they market, there is also a clear tendency to want to stand out on what relates to the software part, namely the application. It must be intuitive, offer interfaces with pleasant and ergonomic graphics, but also make room for multiple additional features that must be as innovative as they are useful. Since the box of the tracker contains a SIM card and uses the telephone networks to transmit the positions of the cat, the use of a GPS collar for animals often involves the subscribe to a subscription with the brand that sells it. This subscription can be:

• monthly;
• annual;
• biennial;
• or still valid for 5 years

depending on the seller and the offers. Once this formality has been settled, you have access to the various functionalities of the application and in particular to the geolocation of the animal. Our cat will appear as a small dot that moves on the map of our neighborhood. Plan or satellite view, movements in real time or updating of positions every 10 minutes: many setting options are available to the user.

Geolocate your cat: concrete applications

We have just seen how to geolocate a cat using GPS trackers for pets. Now you might be wondering why? Why do you want to geolocate your cat? What can these smartphone applications for geolocation for animals be used for? Far from being mere gadgets, these GPS trackers actually have concrete applications that can be very valuable for cat owners. Find a runaway cat, protect your animal from a dangerous area or even detect the beginnings of an illness in your companion: here are some examples of the services that a GPS collar for cats can provide.

Geolocate your cat to better protect it

The main advantage of the geolocation of pets is of course to allow their owner to be able to act quickly and efficiently in the event of a runaway. Runaway pets are not uncommon phenomena. Also, it can be very complicated find a runaway cat. Users of these tracking technologies will only have to turn on their smartphone to find out in one click where their animal is. It’s still better than hanging posters all over the neighborhood! Better: the users of these devices will be able, from the application, to set up virtual barriers around their home. Thus, if the cat leaves this customizable perimeter, its owner will receive an alert notification and will be able to pick up his animal before it is in danger. According to the same principle, some brands also allow the establishment of “dangerous zones”. We can therefore be warned if we have a cat that approaches too close to a road or a swimming pool, for example.

Additional features and health monitoring

These pet tracking services can also perform unexpected functions. For example :

• find a cat hiding nearby;
• call his pet and talk to him on the phone;
• ring his cat’s collar;
• Personalized advice based on data analysis;
• set up activity goals for your pet.

Getting to know your cat better, its habits and the extent of its territory are in fact so many promises that the players in this market seem to be able to keep. Thanks to a history of positions viewable on the application, but also at detailed activity reports daily, monthly and sometimes annually, it is possible to know precisely what your cat does when you are not with him, and this, over time. Even more incredible: these activity reports would allow users to closely monitor the health of their companions and sometimes even be able to detect the first signs of disease. This activity tracking also includes an estimate of calories burned, running times, games and rest. Also, a sudden drop in the overall level of activity in cats can be a sign of a health problem, and thus justify a visit to the veterinarian.