Have you ever thought I would really like to know what the cat gets up to during the day? No, OK its just me then. Anyhow, I was surfing one of the many ChinaBay websites the other evening and spotted a rather cheap “Pet tracker”.
Marked as D69 Pet Locator, the advert suggested it could record GPS locations and pass these to your mobile phone via a downloadable app called “there”. As with many of these Chinese products the online description is somewhat unclear, so it comes down to price and if you want to take a chance.
The online description claims the following:-
Standby time 6 Days using the MT3337 GPS chip, and a weight on 32 Grams. Size 16x56x38 mm. Search terms seem to be GPS tracker D69 GSM, and this should locate the product for around £25 to £30 UKP.
You will need a SIM card, this can be pay as you go, so long as you have GPS data and the ability to send and receive text messages. I purchased £10 of credit with GiffGaff, as they seem to offer good value and your credit doesn’t expire to 180 days (longer if you make / receive calls)
Tracking options
Real time, you click on the app and it attempts to locate your pet and return a position on the screen. Its often not clear if this is live or historical, but it does work if you have a GPS fix.
Historical, you can set the tracker to upload spots every 1 or 10 minutes.
By sending a text, you can text your pet using url# and the device will return a text message and a google maps link showing the last known locations. It will also return “NO GPS” if you don’t have a GPS fix at the time of location request.
Example of text received
Calling the tracker
You can phone the tracker and speak to your pet (no I dont know why) or call and mute your audio so you can hear the location your pet is in. This can be especially handy if you suspect moggy is visiting other houses in your street.
Does it work
Yes its adequate but you need to keep in mind the following. It has two position modes GPS providing an accurate fix to around +/- 10m. If GPS fails it will use Location Based Services, this provides an approximate fix but for the purposes of tracking your pet it’s useless.
Cats often sit, rest and stalk in locations that are not GPS friendly, under cars and in bushes and this can cause the GPS fix to be infrequent.
Its also possible to setup a white list number, so only this number can call and text the tracker and Geofence your pet!
great!
just the info i needed.
thank you!
Hi there
Any idea how to set this thing up? I have a SIM card and tracker but keep getting error messages with everything I do.
Is there an instruction guide somewhere ?
Thanks in advance
Caddy
The best bet is to call the sim once in the tracker. It should answer and go into listen mode, if not it may be the sim can’t be connected to the network.
this is the most helpful info so far!! once i had it set up so i could call the tracker and speak to it (to talk to the person that that found her) now i cant get the tracker to call me or if I call the tracker I cant get them to hear me – have I muted it? if so how do I un mute it. The instructions are rubbish!