Tractive GPS Pet Tracker Review

We tested the Tractive GPS Pet Tracker by strapping it to a working farm dog named Kiki. The Tractive showed a complete history of Kiki’s wanderings and where she spent most of her time. Tractive’s Live AR mode is impressive, but its audio tracking and Find Mode need a bit of work. That said, this is a great pet GPS tracker for the money, and we loved every other feature.

At around $50 upfront and up to $13 a month, Tractive is the most affordable pet GPS tracker we recommend. You can get a few extra features from competitors, but Tractive has all the basics you need to find your missing pet or track their daily activity.

The Whistle Go Explore kicks things up a notch by detecting activities like licking, scratching, and drinking, which can give you even more clues into your pet’s changing health.

Tractive also doesn’t have any training features, which is Link’s claim to fame. It also doesn’t have Link’s temperature sensor.

• Tractive GPS Tracker
• Collar attachment
• USB charging cord
• Quick Start guide

Tractive shows your pet’s GPS history as lines on a map or as a heat map. You can toggle the lines or hotspots on and off by tapping the tri-fold icon.

Kiki’s location history did get stuck for two hours on the afternoon of Day 2. It showed her in the same spot in the barnyard for a solid two hours, which didn’t seem right. All of her other data shows that she paces around quite a bit.

I texted Kiki’s owner to make sure she was still wearing the Tractive—she was. I did a hard refresh on the app, and her location updated about a minute later.  But the data from that two-hour time span wasn’t recovered.

You don’t need to live on a farm or have an escape artist pet to use Tractive. Its location history lets you document and share walks with your furry friend. From the History section, just tap the Share icon in the upper right corner. You can save a photo of the route shape on top of a satellite image or a plain background.

The distance and time also appear at the bottom of the screen.

I already had the Tractive on and ready to go when I drove to Kiki’s farm. Tractive traced my route in the app, but the lines didn’t match the roads visible on the satellite view. Instead, they skewed to the southeast about 50 feet.

I kept this in mind when evaluating Kiki’s movements—I know she didn’t actually walk straight through the pond, for example. In more crowded areas, it might be tricky to know whether your pet is in your yard or the neighbor’s. This also could create some false alarms if you set up geofences and your pet toes the line.

There’s a map setting called “Show Location Accuracy” that displays a circle around your pet’s icon. Your pet could be anywhere within that circle. Toggle it on by tapping Map and then the tri-fold icon. 

If your pet’s missing, switch from passive tracking to Live Mode. In addition to updating the tracker’s location every two-to-three seconds, Tractive shows you its speed, distance, and altitude.

Live Mode also gives you four options to help you find your lost pet:

• Directional cues
• Audio cues
• Find Mode
• Nightlight

The directional cues and nightlight were the most useful features. Once you turn on Live Mode, tap the AR cube in the bottom right corner. Your camera will turn on and you’ll see a little box floating on your screen. The box shows the direction you need to travel and how far you need to go to find your pet.

If the box appears to the left or right of your screen, keep turning in that direction until the box moves to the center. Then you know your pet is straight ahead.

I tried this at home while Kiki was back at the farm. It showed me I needed to travel 7.4 miles southeast to find her, and I was glad to see it worked over a long distance.

However, when I was right on top of Kiki, it said I needed to go 15 feet to the right. Clearly, that wasn’t true—but this margin of error is on par with other GPS trackers.

I ran into a little bit of trouble getting Kiki’s activity data to sync to the app. It said I needed to be close to the tracker so it could sync via Bluetooth, so I went back to Kiki. Sure enough, the data uploaded just fine.

I thought I would have to do that every time, but the next day it updated without issue while I was miles away. And then it went back to not updating. I think this won’t be an issue for most people—but it was a snag in my testing process since Kiki was far away from me most of the time. If your pup goes to daycare, for example, you may not be able to sync their activity data until pick up.

Tractive sells a version for cats and a separate design for dogs. Both weigh the same and have the same dimensions, but their collar attachments are different. The Tractive for cats has integrated loops at either end for the collar to slide into, whereas the Tractive for dogs has a removable silicone strap that wraps around the back of the collar.

There are also some color differences: the Tractive for cats comes only in black, while the Tractive for dogs comes in white, blue, and brown.

The app barely changes for cats vs. dogs. The most significant difference is that cats don’t get a sleep efficiency score. For cats, you can also input rib and hind limb measurements for more accurate activity recommendations.

You do have the option to select “other” if you’re tracking neither a dog nor a cat, but you’ll lose all activity monitoring features.

The Tractive pet GPS tracker was a breeze to set up. It needs to charge for at least two hours out of the box, and then it’s ready to go on your pet’s collar.

I didn’t even have to take off Kiki’s collar to put on the Tractive—the silicone strap goes under the collar and easily slides over the tracker’s four nubs. For what it’s worth, Kiki has a rolled leather collar, and the Tractive fits on it just fine.

Setting up the app was also easy-peasy. I scanned the QR code in the Quick Start Guide, downloaded the app, and created an account. The app paired with the Tractive right away—I didn’t even have to put in any serial numbers. It was as effortless as I could’ve hoped for.

The only slightly confusing thing was the charging cord. It has a magnetic component, but that’s not enough to keep it latched onto the tracker. You have to snap the cord onto the tracker. That’s explained in the Quick Start Guide, but if you’re like me and skip that part because “I know how to charge things!” . . . you might end up befuddled.

The Tractive GPS Pet Tracker had all of the features I wanted for my Kiki testing scenario without making me feel like it was overpriced or stuffed with things I’d never use. Tractive’s location updates were reasonably accurate, its geofencing settings were surprisingly customizable, and the activity monitoring data was insightful.

I recommend spending the extra $12/yr. to get Tractive Premium if you want to share account access or export social media-friendly images of your walking routes.

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