Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Tracking Waffles with the Tagg Pet Tracker

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss! Wanny play Tagg? You're it, Boss! You're it!! 

KATIE:  Actually Waffles, YOU'RE it. And this is no ordinary game of tag... I'm monitoring your whereabouts and activity levels right this very minute.

WAFFLES:  You mean you're SPYING on me?

KATIE:  Not spying, Waffles.  Monitoring, analyzing, keeping tabs on you with your new Tagg Pet Tracker. Think of me as Big Brother. 

WAFFLES:  Boss! I thought you were a girl!!!


Wait, What???
This funky little device is called the Tagg Pet Tracker. It allows us to track Waffles' location and monitor his activity levels 24/7 from our computer or mobile device.  

What you see above is the home docking tation with the pet tracker attached to the top. That's where we charge the tracker's battery, every 30 days or so, and it's how the pet tracker communicates with our computer to show us cool stuff like how many times Waffles raced around the townhouse or how many hours he spent sleeping, doing nothing at all.


Where's Waffles?
The Tagg Tracker works with GPS and cellular technology. No matter where I am - at home or far away, I can tell if Waffles is in the 'Tagg Zone.' The Tagg Zone includes everywhere within a 150 foot radius from the center of our townhouse, which is where we have our docking station plugged in.  If we lived in a giant mansion or way out in the country, we could make our Tagg zone much bigger. 

When Glogirly's away, she can check up on him by going to her iPhone app and telling it to locate Waffles. She gets an immediate text message and email letting her know if he's where he's supposed to be, inside the Tagg Zone. Sadly, I still haven't been able to figure out how to make it tell Glogirly when Waffles is annoying me or stealing my food.

Waffles Daily Activity Score
One of the most fascinating aspects of the tracker is the Daily Activity Snapshot. As long as Waffles is wearing the tracker on his collar, the device is hard at work keeping track of how much time he spends at any of four activity levels:
  1. Resting
  2. Lightly Active
  3. Moderately Active
  4. Highly Active

The snapshot even shows us how many minutes Waffles spent at each level and at what time of day and night he was either playing lazy or playing crazy!
Checkout Waffles At-A-Glance:

Waffles' Day Revealed
  1. Waffles spends almost 20 hours a day doing absolutely nothing at all.
  2. Apparently Glogirly is a late sleeper since breakfast isn't until 9:00 am.
  3. Waffles tears through the townhouse like a herd of wild elephants twice daily at 3:00 & 9:00 pm for approximately 19 minutes at each spurt.  
  4. We compared a few days side by side and learned that Waffles is a creature of habit. You could practically copy and paste one day for the next.

WAFFLES:  Whaddaya mean I spend almost 20 hours a day doing NOTHING????



You hope you never need it.
The most important thing the Tagg Pet Tracker can do for you is something you hope you never need it to do.

Losing a pet is terrifying, heartbreaking, dangerous  and something you hope and pray never happens. But thousands of pets are lost every year. Tagg's tracker will send you an alert via text message and email should your pet get outside your Tagg zone.

The GPS technology will not only help you find your pet, but provide directions on how to get there.
Although Tagg's website indicates that you will receive an alert within 12 minutes of your pet leaving the Tagg Zone, when we tested it here at the Townhouse, we received an alert in 5 minutes.

Admittedly, Tagg's core customers are dog owners and it's an awesome product for dogs. But it's also a fantastic device for cats that spend part of their time outside. Accidents happen and even pets who you'd least expect to get out, can and do.


What we Love
  1. Activity Tracking - Fascinating & Fun
  2. Tagg Zone - Peace of mind in knowing all is well when you're humans are away 
  3. Multi-device technology - Computer, iPad, iPhone...Tagg has us covered
  4. Easy to use - So easy, even Glogirly could figure it out!

Suggestions
  1. Size - The Tagg Tracker is recommended for dogs and cats, 10 pounds and up. Although it worked fine with Waffles who is exactly 10 pounds, we'd love to see a slightly smaller tracker for cats and smaller dogs. It's just a little bulky on a standard cat collar. But a great workaround for a smaller pet is a harness. The tracker was very easy to attach to Waffles' harness and since he's already used to wearing a harness, it didn't bother him at all.
  2. Maps - Tagg uses Bing Maps for their mobile device apps. Although quite accurate in residential areas, we live in the heart of the city with lots of high rises, and multi-dwelling homes are located. Bing's visuals are spot on, however the actual addresses that pop up on their maps are sometimes a little off as compared to Google Maps. Although this was the case in our neighborhood, it didn't impede our ability to use the GPS and tracking features at all. 


Special Savings
Enter promo code GLOGIRLY20 and receive 20% off the Tagg Promo Bundle, which includes the Tagg GPS Tracker and 12 months of service.

Get Social with Tagg
Tagg on Facebook
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Tagg on Pinterest



FTC Disclosure: We received our Tagg Pet Tracker & 3 months of service at no charge from Tagg. We also received a small fee to cover the time it takes to test the product, take photos and write the blog post. Receiving the free tracker and the fee did not influence our article or anything we say.  All sponsored posts on GLOGIRLY will always reflect our honest and unbiased opinions.


39 comments:

  1. I knew it! All this NSA spying on Facebook and now they track cats without a warrant...

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  2. well now that is brilliant.. How far does the gps work if the pet is outside the tagg zone?

    I also agree with a smaller option being helpful :)

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  3. @Tails from the Foster Kittens
    As long as there's satellite, the tracker will work anywhere, no matter how far out of the zone the pet gets. : )

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  4. I'd like to see a large, 200# version for a certain life form at MY house! heh.

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  5. I've been dreaming about having one of these for my former feral who still spends time outside. I'm curious where his feline offspring live when they are not here.

    I wonder how it would work on a break-away collar. I suppose if the collar came off, you could always find it again! Thanks for the review.

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  6. Wow! This is so cool.
    We think Princeton's pie chart would have been just the opposite of Waffle's. He's very seldom inactive. If he sleeps very long, Mommy gets worried! MOL!

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  7. I am personally surprised that Waffles does nothing for that many hours.

    I think he hacked the tracker

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  8. Is it available in a Husband model?
    ~Vicat

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  9. Wow, this is awesome! I need one for Binga, so my human can keep track of her whereabouts when I'm eating! That way, she won't be able to steal my food so easily.

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  10. That is a Pawsome thing !
    One of my mom's caretakers told her that on of their neighbors found their cat in a garage with a GPS gadget :)
    XOXO

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  11. That's cool! Vashti won't tell us where she goes outside ... We might could find out!!!

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  12. That's really amazing. We hope they make a smaller one soon. Mom's biggest fear is one of us getting loose and her not being able to find us.

    The Florida Furkids

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  13. The head peep asked one of the dog bloggers about her Tagg at Global Pet Expo and thought it was a great idea. She said that it had alerted her that morning that the hotel room so they didn't leave without it. What a great idea. If they can just make it a little smaller, it seems like they would open up a much larger market among cat owners.

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  14. While I realize that most cats spend most of the day resting, it actually surprised me that Waffles does! He seems like a hyperactive teen to me, MOL but then he is still a cat.

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  15. This is pretty cool! But we don't want the mom tracking us...she might see how many times we go into the food cupboard trying to steal foods. Though we still can't open cans. They need to come up with something that lets us cats open cans.

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  16. This is a great idea. I wish I had had one years ago when Tommie disappeared for three days. It turned out he was shut in a garden shed only four houses away!
    xxoo
    Maggie

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  17. geeze dood, as if Katie and Glogirly haven't made your life an open book already... (at least it doesn't break it down to "litter box" level activity... or was that that little spike at midnight... snicker) ~ Dex

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  18. A very cool idea..my only concern with cats who are maybe outside cats and even indoor and adventurous is whether it could pose a problem catching on things ..like collars with release mechanisms how does it actually attach..if it's made for dogs who don't climb etc I just wondered..btw my girls sleep 27/24 hours I am sure hahaha :) hugs Fozziemum

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  19. great review - agreed that a little smaller would be ideal for cats. and love the activity tracking....now Katie has a way to know where the orange menace is (does this mean Katie is getting an iphone?)

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  20. wow! That thing looks super cool!!!!
    Thanks for sharing!
    ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

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  21. 20 hours a day of doing nothing sounds about right! BOL That is some cool technology you cats have going over there.
    Happy Tuesday.
    Oz

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  22. That's so cool! Twenty hours doing nothing? Obviously, it doesn't take into consideration the deep thinking that you are doing during your down time! MOL!!

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  23. That is really neat. Interesting to see your findings too.
    Sue B

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  24. Well that's rather fascinating. I don't go too far, tho. Plus I don't really want my FODs knowing when I'm being "moderately active," if you know what I mean. - Crepes.

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  25. Wow, I had no idea something like this existed. I guess I should be surprised, with as many techno toys there are out there these days. Very cool. If my cats went outside, I would consider using it!

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  26. 20 hours... Yes, that's a good score... Purrs

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  27. WAY cool. It is still too big to be comfortable on a kitty - but it looks smaller than Allie's collar camera (which she wore all of 2 times, managing to unseat it from her collar BOTH times!). We're hoping the tech continues to shrink til it's an easy fit for a kitty!

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  28. You do spend a lot of time resting Waffles. From the way Katie talks, I thought you were always on the go.

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  29. Interesting. Any idea how well it works with multiple kitties? Would you have to buy a different docking station for each kittie?

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  30. That is SO cool. Don't worry, Waffles ... we're kind of guessing that Moosey, Gracie and Zoe also spend much of their day resting. Just saying!

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  31. Katie, can you zap him with that thing?? Hope it doesn’t have one of those radio-wave things that give peeps cancer. I bet I’d get a lot of exercise if my condo was as big as the town house. I race back and forth several times a day.

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  32. Monitor, schmonitor. *I* call it spying!

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  33. One would expect Spitty to think it is spying. His tracker would probably show him at rest 23 hours per day. MOL. We think that is so cool. Mom says it is just like her FitBit, except we can't track her. Thank you for sharing about this. Since three of the eight of us are allowed outside the catio, Mom's going to check it out. XO, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

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  34. Awesome review! And how interesting to see what Waffles does when he's home. It would be funny to catch some of that on hidden camera I bet.

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  35. Great, now you can't get away with anything
    Lily & Edward

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  36. That would be fun! Wonder if I'd ever remember to charge it & if my kitties could get it off like every other collar. Would be interesting to see what they're up to in a day. Great review!

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  37. This is so cool! We may have to get one…but the question is who we should try it on first! Great review (and tips about the smaller cats) as we have a few of those in our home.

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