Whistle: Smart Pet Tracker Reviews

by DaveHinPA

The unit isn’t small and it’s square. 1.75”x1.5”x0.7” my dog isn’t small he is a Siberian Husky male. But this unit ends up spinning on his collar to down facing because of its size. The edges should be rounded or at least sloped. The square block it’s house in gets snagged on things. There’s no give since the edges are square.
This unit app is constantly beeping me or sending me emails and texts over the unit not moving on the counter. This happened a lot and my wifi os very close. it’s so over the top. I don’t need trophy badges or whatever like I’m 12 and my dog is human. Over the top. Just make it to work. I can’t turn this stuff off either and I tried.
I am a very Normal user. Dog at home. Dog with me on a walk. Dog at home. Dog camping with me. You get the idea. I actually don’t use it because it’s so annoying. Here’s is the worst part. My dog can me one mile from the house and this thing won’t tell me until it’s FAR too late.
I’ve been trying to return it yet another problem. I hope there are better units out there.

by Irritatedap

I finally really needed my this app app and it was a COMPLETE FAIL Whistle had stopped tracking my pet and never notified me. When he got turned around and was lost and I tried to check for his location it would not connect. For over ten minutes. Then, it knocked me completely our of the system. First tries to reconnect, I got a notice that the
Email addrsss was wrong. It wasn’t. I was using saved information. Finally on about the fifth try, it connected to the Ap. Then I kept getting the silly “humps” notice you use. The only reason I was able to locate my per was that I had a collar on him with his phone number printed in large type and someone called me. In case you were wondering if my phone was working- you can see that it was. When I go onto my app now, there is a large time gap where I can see that it was not working. As if my pet vanished into thin air. All with no notification. I have had small problems in the past and was assured they were taken care of. Obviously not. I am going to contact everyone I recommended your product to, to rescind my recommendation and let them know they should do the same. This really is not a service you can sell unless you attend to its quality.

by Captain Custerdome

Worked great for a couple of years, but now this app pushes unsolicited ad, sale and promotional notifications to my phone. No way to turn off ads in Whistle and no way to opt out of the notifications since they are tied to Whistle (not texts). I could turn off all notifications but that would make the pet tracker completely useless. It’s a shame a company who charges a subscription fee would not only disrespect its customers, but also provide no option to disable these notifications. I am now looking into the “Fi” product which essentially has all the same features as this app. Bad marketing decision, this app.

*Upon further research, it also appears this app is violating Apple’s TOS by using push notifications for ads and promotions; since disabling them also disables Whistle ’s primary functioning. Add to that a non-refundable 12-month subscription and users are forced to either eat $100 for switching to another device/app or continue to use this app with their unsolicited ads.

by MHanby1

With this latest update, on the activity tab, Wednesday is highlighted (today is Wednesday) but below it says Thursday and indicates no activity. If I tap on the “Tuesday” button, it shows Wednesday’s activity. In previous versions of Whistle , there are days when it shows my dog has traveled more than 10 miles, yet he never left our 2,200 sq/ft house. I find that hard to believe. When we do leave the house with him, alerts are about 50% accurate. Sometimes you get an alert that says “enjoy your trip” because it recognizes you and your dog have left the safe place together, and sometimes you get an alert that says “heads up, your dog is 1 mile from home” and sometimes you get no alert at all. I’ll take my dog to another spot defined as a safe place, and despite the location tab showing him well within the safe place on the map, I never get the alert the he is there, or when he leaves. When we return home it sometimes takes hours to get the alert that he is home. Overall I feel that the accuracy and consistency of alerts is around 50%. Because of this, the timeline feature that was added in an earlier update is a joke.

by Chloe Kessler

I had this application and product for 3 years and was ok but way too many problems and the customer service was not too good!
The worst part of this is all the false alerts that you get that your dog has gotten out of your yard and is 6 blocks from your house and you work in the next state but my dog is my buddy so I leave work and drive like a maniac pictureing him running down busy streets and hoping he does not get hit by a car and finally getting home and looking for him for 20 minutes using the application but not being able to find him and then my wife leaves work to help me find him but stops at home to get a leash and finds him sleeping upstairs in our bed!!
I called this app and explained what happened and the recommended me upgrading to their better tracker giving me 20% off for all my problems.
The new one worked better but after 2 months but the tracker fell off whistles own collar and we were not able to find it or track it down and again called customer service and they said if you can find the tracker and take a picture of it we will give you 20% off a new one!
I immediately looked online for a better company and found one named Fi tracker and I am only 1 week in but hope for more success from this company!!

by Maggie407

The this app app will track my dog and update fairly reliably when she is at home (near WiFi). However, I find I often need to physically open Whistle and press “refresh location” for it to update (even though it’s set to refresh every 6 minutes...)
Where I am very annoyed, however, is that when I bring my dog to the kennel (which does not have WiFi), Whistle can’t find her. When I drop her off, it has no problem connecting. But once we are not physically close, it won’t work. this app support assured me that the area has good ATT coverage, so this shouldn’t be happening— yet it does every time. Customer support’s advice is to try charging the device.... it was at 100% when I dropped her off 30 minutes ago, so battery can’t be the issue. I know she is safe at the kennel, but this makes me seriously worried about the usefulness of the device if my dog were to get lost. Currently, it seems like an overpriced fitness tracker— which I could have gotten without the subscription fee — since the GPS feature only seems to work when there is WiFi or I’m physically with my dog! What’s the point?

by Willey P

I have Springer’s and they like to put their nose down to the ground and wonder. At first I was pleased I tracked my dogs for six hours on a three thousand acres reserve and caught them right as they came out on the highway. Second time they went out at 8 Am and 8 pm they were still out but battery life was fading. Plotter on tracker phone was still. Didn’t know if the dog got killed or he lost device. Next morning still gone when to last location and nothing. Five that afternoon and five miles farther a friend call me on the phone said he had them. But due to the tracker but name tags with my phone numbers. A far piece from seven to nine days to ten hours. Did not have 3 g nor a Yfy and that was the reason for it not working properly. Works great when battery is still good. Going to keep item just in case things change

by Chwychuro

Unfortunately it still isn’t very accurate... last night it told me that my dog was about a mile away from home all the way at a nearby hotel. I freaked out called my boyfriend and asked if he had our dog and he’s like yes of course I do. He’s sitting right here next to the couch. Not only was he still on our property but he was also in WiFi range. My property is 2.5 acres so it’s not tiny but apparently , this app app still thinks that it’s too small of an area to be able to cover 🤔
I love it because it does tell me if he’s missing , like one time my boyfriend took him to work with him at 3 am!!! But it’s still super glitchy. And when there is no WiFi, it freaks out. And unfortunately the signal of gps is pretty poor. I do recommend having something, anything like this on a dog for any given as a just in case. This is the most economical once you do the 2 year fee.
I do really like the new features they have developed. They tell me what time he’s sleeping and when he was awake. Where he “went” is a little off but it was a little better. And the notifications is a little pick and choose. The tracking is currently nonexistent and I would like to see that fixed a little more quickly. But otherwise it’s kind of like a generalization. You dog is possibly gone ....

by Vmsm96

I’ll focus on reviewing Whistle and not so much the product. Whistle is great (when it works). I love being able to see how much exercise and sleep my dog has gotten. When you need the tracker the most I feel like it fails you. I wish somehow there were some way the tracker could work when your pup gets loose in a no service area ☹️ Our husky ran off and we had no way to track her even though this is what we bought the tracker for. The battery life is amazing but quickly dies when it’s not connected to WiFi. It’s like a mini cellphone so I completely understand these inconveniences. I play with the tracker all the time just to test it and whenever I want to update her location ( to practice when my dog gets loose). It literally takes forever to update or doesn’t update at all “We’re having difficulty connecting to Mila’s this app. Please try again”. I’ve been trying all day! We got home from a road trip 5 hours ago and it still says she’s 141 miles from home lol
I’m right next to the tracker. It has 92% battery and hasn’t updated on or off of WiFi. I’ve restarted Whistle multiple times as well!

by Megkh

Update:

Not sure why other than the tower issue that someone replying from this app mentioned, our maps were just pointless/useless from October to January, now they’re looking pretty decent again with many points captured per trip. We even had the unit replaced which didn’t help, so I definitely think if the towers are messed up in your area you’d see the behavior we had too for a long time. Seems like it should be easy enough to build a warning or alert into Whistle (hey something is weird about the tower, only pinging so often and your maps are going to be bad but don’t worry) so you know whether it’s something you’ve done in configuration, something wrong with the this app, etc.

The trip maps used to be super detailed and interesting, but over the last few weeks I’ve noticed even on hours long trips, there is only a single point or two. What gives? Is there some setting messed up? It wasn’t anything we changed if so. Help!

by AB:S

I have a husky that loves to escape. This little device has helped me find her every time. There are 3 problems I have though.
1. It takes 2 minutes to update the location. She doesn’t stop to smell the roses. So she has moved on by the time I reach the last known location. During the day I can at least see her. But tracking her in the dark is extremely hard.
2. Sometimes, almost rarely. The device will think she has left home. I go to chase her and she is lying down in her favorite spot. This is truly anxiety inducing.
3. When we go for a walk. The this app use to recognize my phone was accompanying her, but not anymore. So now I get update notifications that she has left home without a walking companion and they continue every 2 minutes until we arrive home. But I am clearly with her. Pretty annoying considering the battery is depleting faster in order to track her location.

by Ranxcerox64

The this app was the first reasonably priced GPS-based dog tracker that actually to the most part worked. Overtime somebody earlier versions location complains about being buggy and showing in accurate locations. I observe this sporadically but for the most part I did not interfere with the general use of the unit my earlier complaints were the health components such as the scratching an activity never seem to get enough data to give me any information and that seem to frustrate me and throughout all the time that I had it it’s gonna be a software issue more than anything else anyway that’s a big frustration with the earlier model was the battery not lasting more than a day and a half and having taking off the collar charging it and then I forgot to put it back on cash now going out.
Bottom line this newly designed unit with a dual batteries seems to be put together with some real thought it runs much better feels better than then you earlier models and lo and behold all of a sudden those areas that weren’t working before regarding activity scratching it supposed to be working now. I get them credit in designing a new unit that appear is quite sexy and seems to work very well I would actually recommended that’s far mind you I’ve only had it for a couple days

by Dianful

I’ve found over all that this app has been most useful as an activity monitor, and not as accurate at tracking location. Recently the location just wouldn’t update, even though we were both in a strong cell signal zone. I talked to this app support, and they suggested updating Whistle . That didn’t seem to be the issue, as Whistle is working much better now that I’ve updated the operating system on my phone. I decided though to add an Apple air tag to her collar, which is giving me more security, especially since the battery lasts a year. I’m keeping the this app though, since it has some advantages, especially now that it’s working better: it notifies me when my dog leaves the safe Wifi home zone (the air tag doesn’t); it can be tracked by multiple users (the air tag can only connect to one device); and it gives me reports on her activity level. I wish the location tracking was as immediate and accurate as the air tag, and I wish they would outfit it with a long life watch battery, as it needs charging every day if you’re not connected to Wifi. The bottom line is also that my dog is so precious to me, I need two tracking devices to feel secure, but I do hope they continue to improve.

by Iwanttaylorbackpleaseeee;;

I’ve used this app since early 2017. Apparently I made a 3 star review then. This is me coming back 5 years later to say they fixed every issue I had with Whistle , and more! this app has since saved my dogs life when she ran off after some deer and went toward a highway. I wouldn’t have found her unharmed without Whistle. If you have a dog that loves to run and chase, this gps is worth it. I do have one minor complaint at the moment! I wish I could track my dog without it needing to refresh on its own and tell me she’s lost. I visibly saw my dog take off and had to wait the 6 minute interval I have it set to before I could begin to find her. If there was an emergency option, I would really love that.

by Zander_004

I read a lot of reviews on Whistle saying that devices were malfunctioning, not syncing, dying immediately but I wanted to clear up for anyone that was looking at a this app that this hasn’t been the case for me (with the Go Explore).

It works great, has excellent connectivity and battery life, and it’s right on with distance calculations made by my Apple Watch. Some of you who are complaining about your dog being able to be across the street and still on your wifi network, you should consider using a small wifi extender as the geofence network. That way they’re out of range quickly and it prompts a GPS update.

Other than the occasional app glitch, this is far better than I was expecting—and great peace of mind for a puppy!

by P Slaw

I previously had another brand of Pet Tracker and this one was recommended to me. I have used it for 3 weeks and it’s great. Whistle is great, and the battery life far exceeds their 6-10 day website expectations. I have used the device for 15 full days and the battery is on 61%. I think I will get about 30 days out of the battery before having to recharge. Our dog is at the house most of the time, so it’s in WiFi range and goes on a walk once a day. I have the GPS poll time set to 3 minutes (fastest option) so we get detailed route maps.

The only thing I would like to see improved is the live tracking should be faster. Live tracking is only a location refresh every 60-90 seconds for me in full cell signal areas. I hope with time and updates this will be much faster.

by Michelle In MN

After a neighbor attempted to what we believe steal our dog we looked into various products and took our chances on the this app 3 and it’s everything it said it would be. My husband, me and the kids all love being able to track him or call him back into the yard. Love that you can set up multiple home locations as well for him so if we are at the neighbors with him it knows not to alert us. Love that we can track him anywhere! I wish there was a push button to tell Whistle you are taking him for a ride or a walk so it doesn’t keep telling you that he has left the yard, but I turn off the notifications and then turn them back on once back at home. If you consider the amount of money you would pay to have your dog returned to you if lost or the ability to find him if stolen, this is very little money to spend. Well worth the peace of mind!

by Cowgp

Starting to see some activity and improvements from the developers. Seeing a lot of improvements lately and I am finding the Heath information super useful. My dog has allergies and I didn’t know it until the health tab started telling my how “elevated” my dogs scratching and licking were. Now that I have that figured out by switching foods, her scores are much better in the health section and she seems way happier.

Also, been a long time user, and you kinda get used to the occasional false notification of your dog being away from home when she’s not... but honestly lately I haven’t been getting those anymore. So again, seems like developers are giving this product attention and making improvements.

by Richlab

To be blunt, I have been down on this company for over six years. First it was Tagg, now this app. I always thought the updates came to the phone ridiculously slow if at all, three minutes or more, for a dog that’s on the run through the woods, they might as well be in the next county waiting for these things to update. A lot of time it just simply didn’t work.

I used to tell people “I can’t believe I’m actually paying nine dollars for a month, for a product that I am this dissatisfied with.” However, it was better than nothing. Not much, but better than nothing.

When the last tracker finally died, I decided to take one more chance, see if anything was any better. At least it would be better than nothing, right?

The new tracker arrived, and I’ve been using it for 2 to 3 weeks. This thing works fantastic. Update are so fast, and when you are actually tracking your dog, the updates come very frequently. I have not timed it but maybe 15 to 30 seconds? Either way, it works great. The graphics are better, the unit is smaller, the battery is better, I can’t believe the turnaround that I have done regarding this product. Now I can strongly say, “buy this product, you will like it.“ Thank you to the folks at this app for getting this product developed this well.

by ChistaHart

As fate would have it, I have an incredible, one of a kind, cherished treasure of a puppy, which happens to be a Runner. As much as I adore my dog, I knew early on that this one thing is something I have to live with and accept.
But losing him was Never an option. So I tried to stay safe and keep him safe by arming him to the boots. He is microchipped, has multiple tags, in various places, and he has always had so form of gps tracking. Yes. I tried them ALL!!!
They each had one problem or another that made tracking obsolete. Then I came across this app. And life changed for both of us. When he ran from me, a few months ago, I was able to simply follow him around the neighborhood and found him playing with a couple of chattering squirrels in a park, .... 3 miles away.
Without his this app mapping his location precisely and accurately, there would have been No possible way for me to find my Runner.
I am a true believer and will NEVER switch. Ever!!!