Pet GPS brings location tracking for dogs and cats into Life360

Australian families have a new option for keeping tabs on escape-prone dogs and cats after family location-tracking app Life360 released a device to trace animals’ whereabouts.

Unlike Bluetooth trackers, which are useful to locate inert objects such as keys or wallets, Pet GPS uses satellites and mobile reception to monitor location as accurately and often as a smartphone. It has a light and chime that activate when you mark the pet as lost, and integrates with the Life360 app so you can check your pet’s location or receive notifications if it leaves the property.

Family members are tracked in Life360 via their smartphones, and now animals can be tracked via Pet GPS.

“Our mission is to keep families safe and connected, and when people think about their families, that often includes pets,” said Life360 chief executive Lauren Antonoff.

“This is so exciting because it’s a critically important part of our evolution, from an app that was specifically for families with kids, to really becoming the family super app that helps families at all life stages.”

The move could also be viewed as a way to move free Life360 users to paid plans, or keep families paying once kids leave home. The company is reportedly working on a tracker for elderly family members who might not keep a phone on them.

Antonoff said Pet GPS offered advantages over Bluetooth trackers and traditional pet-finding techniques such as posters, rewards and microchips. She said the technology would empower owners to locate pets immediately and help ensure they weren’t captured by strangers.

Pet GPS can track for two weeks if the battery is fully charged.

“I came to Life360 after losing my dog, and I learned all sorts of things about what works and what doesn’t,” she said.

“When other people find the dog, it’s not like they can scan the chip with their phone. You’ve got to put the dog in the car, take it to a shelter or a vet. Most people don’t do that, either because it’s too much work or, I think in the case of my dog, it’s really cute and lovable and they were just taking good care of him.”

Pet GPS is advertised as lasting for two weeks on a charge, but Antonoff said it would last much longer. The quoted battery life assumes it’s tracking all the time, but when the tracker’s at your designated home location and connected to Wi-Fi, this will not be the case. Antonoff said that when the battery runs out, the device essentially becomes a Bluetooth tracker, so location will still update when someone passes nearby with their phone, and that it can last in that mode for six months with no charging.

The device will ordinarily cost $90, but as an introductory deal customers can buy their first Pet GPS for $3.60. Adding one Pet GPS to your Life360 account is free, but adding subsequent pets will cost a one-time fee of $139. And of course, the feature requires a paid Life360 subscription.

Life360 offers four different tiers, starting at a basic free service and ramping up to the $250-per-year Platinum tier. The basic service includes tracking of all family members, notifications when your family members leave or arrive at designated places (which could be your home, school, work or anywhere else), the ability for family members to send SOS messages with their location, notifications if a family member fails to show up somewhere at a set time, and crash detection that sends a notification if a family member suddenly stops after travelling at 40km/h or more.

The $160-per-year Gold tier, which is the minimum you need to access pet tracking, also includes individual driver reports that show details of every trip made by each young driver in the family — including their top speed and whether they used their phone — an emergency services dispatch button, roadside assistance and identity theft insurance. As the tiers increase you also get the ability to set more places and access location history for longer, and all users can integrate Tile Bluetooth trackers so they can see important items on the same map as family members.

Life360 has been criticised for enabling stalking and coercive control, and has also been scrutinised in the past for selling sensitive location information to data brokers and providers of targeted advertising. Life360 currently has relationships with location analytics and advertising companies, at least in the US, which enables it to monetise its massive user base even if they’re on the free tier. But the company says it excludes minors’ data, omits sensitive locations such as schools and medical clinics, and provides an option to opt out in its app’s settings.

In a more philosophical sense, some commentators have expressed concern that the normalisation of ubiquitous tracking could lead to a false sense of security, or damage to important social necessities, such as checking in with your family in person, developing and modelling trust, or educating your children about personal safety and responsibility.

Antonoff said that the company did what it could to minimise risks, and that the remaining downsides were offset by significant advantages. That includes not only the peace of mind that you’ll be alerted in the case of a rare disaster, but also the convenience of “location awareness” in everyday life.

“My most frequent reason for checking the map is to find out when my husband is bringing home dinner. I’m hungry, I want to know how long do I need to wait. Should I go get a snack,” she said.

On pets specifically, she dismissed the possibility that tracking could encourage lapses in responsible animal ownership, including keeping cats inside and providing proper fencing for dogs.

“I think of it as the opposite. This is a way to teach responsible pet parenting,” she said.

“You see your dog every time you look at your family on the map, so it’s a very active interaction. Your dog might normally be out of sight, out of mind when you’ve gone to work. But with our experience, we’re really bringing them into your everyday life.”

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