Whistle Labs has been focused on refinement since buying Tagg a couple of years ago. The $79.95 Whistle 3 is the smallest device we've seen yet for tracking your dog or cat's activity and location. The smartphone app that controls it is simple and intuitive. You no longer need a base station to create a safe zone, relying instead on your home Wi-Fi signal. And it's easy to set multiple safe zones for places you visit or work. These features, along with a more affordable price than many competitors, earn the Whistle 3 our Editors' Choice for pet activity and location trackers.
Pricing, Design, and Features
The Whistle 3 is priced competitively, with a relatively low initial cost of $79.95. That makes the required GPS service fee go down easier: $9.95 per month, $95.40 for one year, or $166.80 for two years. The Whistle's lowest two-year total cost is $246.75, a full $99.05 less than you'll spend on the Link AKC ($138.95 at Walmart) over the same period. It's important to note that a subscription is necessary to use any of the tracking features at all, even the ones that work over Wi-Fi.
The company has minimized the Whistle 3's ($70.91 at Amazon) packaging down to a stylish, Apple-esque cardboard cube. Inside are three items: the tracker, a USB charger, and an attachment with a rubber strap and bracket for securing the tracker to any pet collar or harness as long as it's 1-inch wide or less.
Whistle 3 - Contents
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Previous Whistle devices were quite large and obtrusive, whereas the Whistle 3 is 50 percent smaller according to the company. The tracker itself measures 1.45 by 1.82 by 0.61 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.25 ounces with the bracket. It looks reasonably sized on small dogs, such as my test hound, Madison, who weighs about 32 pounds (it's recommended for pets eight pounds and up). Naturally, it'll still stand out on teacup-sized canines or kittens, but not as much as the older Whistle GPS or the Link AKC.
Gone is the brushed steel look of the Whistle GPS, replaced by a friendlier gray plastic. It's rated IP67 for dirt, shock, and water resistance, which means it should be OK if your pet takes a quick dip in the lake or pool.
The tracker easily locks into the charger with a 90-degree twist. It does the same on the collar bracket, with the added step of pressing a spring-loaded button first to release it. It feels unlikely to come loose during any canine shenanigans, and didn't in testing.
Whistle 3 - Madison
When you charge the tracker, a small light on it shines orange, then green when fully powered—you'll also get a notification from the app. Battery life is rated for up to seven days of continuous use, but that's if your animal never leaves the home-area Wi-Fi, as GPS use will eat up battery faster. I typically found myself charging the tracker about every six days (with a long walk each day), which is still pretty great compared with the competition (the Link AKC doesn't even last half that long).
GPS positioning info is provided by AT&T. It doesn't matter what carrier your smartphone uses, as AT&T's towers talk directly to the tracker. Because of this, it isn't going to find your pet if you're somewhere without AT&T 3G service. Check your local coverage, then test it where you live—you have 90 days to return the Whistle if local tracking doesn't work well in your area.
App and Performance
Whistle 3 - SetupSetup requires the free mobile app, which you can download for your Android or iOS device. It's a completely different app from the one used with Whistle GPS. There's no desktop/web tracking option.
To get started, your smartphone and the Whistle 3 must be within range of your home Wi-Fi network. Using Bluetooth, the app will find the tracker and connect it to Wi-Fi through your phone. Once that's done, you've automatically created the safe zone in which your pet is considered secure at home—your Wi-Fi's range. As long as the pet is inside the Wi-Fi signal, the Whistle 3 stays in a Power Save mode with GPS turned off.
Once that's done you need to create a profile for each pet wearing a Whistle including species (cat or dog), breed, gender, age, weight, and time zone. You can't pick multiple breeds for a mix, so at best you have to pick the breed closest to yours (though some mixes are available in the app). You can also pick a daily activity goal in minutes. Each new pet/tracker needs its own GPS subscription.
Notifications can include texts, emails, or push messages; you can get them for your pet's GPS location, activity goals/streaks/trends, and other things like battery life and app updates.
Whistle 3 - LocationUpon launch of the app, you see the location of your pet on a Google Map. At the bottom of the screen is a display for battery life; swipe up to see Trips, a report on where your pet's been for the last day. For example, if you go on a hike and track the path, you'll see it mapped out here. After 24 hours, however, that data is gone. Oddly, there's no share option, so you can't even send the map to yourself for future reference. The Link AKC, by comparison, allows you to save this information.
Tap the graph icon at the upper right corner of the screen to go into Activity. The Whistle 3 tracks minutes and hours of activity (like most trackers), providing a graph of when your pet is on the move, so you know when it is the most active. The graph also shows its number of hours at rest next to a moon icon. The company doesn't recommend a certain amount of activity—you have to come up with that on your own. If your pets reaches or exceeds its daily goal, its profile picture in the app becomes outlined in green. The Link AKC goes a bit further, letting you add medical records and identifying different types of activity (moderate and intense).
The other major feature is Places. You'll find your initial safe zone location here, which you can change to make larger than your area of Wi-Fi coverage (this will use GPS). You can add multiple safe zones as desired, like a neighbor's house or your office. The app will request a Wi-Fi network for that location, which you can skip if there isn't one (though keep in mind the tracker will then be using GPS and burning battery faster).
Whistle 3 - Activity Should your pet make a great escape—my Madison has recently, and a skunk got involved—you'll get a notification. In my tests, it took up to four minutes to get the initial notification she was gone, which seems a bit long. That's plenty of time for a fleet-footed Houdini-dog to get far, far away. Whistle is aware of the issue. It says the average notification time is two to three minutes, and an update is in the works to let pet owners adjust the alert time to their needs (it's currently set the way it is to help save battery life).
To track your pet, swipe up on the location menu and you'll see a Start Tracking button. The location will update every 90 seconds. Tracking will turn off when it returns home, or within 30 minutes, even if it isn't back, to conserve battery. You must manually tell the app to start tracking again. While the GPS is active, the app will also send notifications every 90 seconds, generically listing the nearest street address even if your pet is in the middle of the woods. This tracked info also disappears in a day.
Conclusions
The Whistle 3 is a great pet tracker, even if it lacks some features we like from competitors, such as the Link AKC's data storage for adventures and advanced activity tracking. Using home Wi-Fi as the safe zone is a nice touch, as there is one less base station to contend with. And battery life is nearly a week, something almost unheard of for any tracker, even on humans. Adjustable alert times in future app updates will make the product even stronger, and the cost is right compared with the alternatives. For its strong combination of performance and price, the Whistle 3 earns our Editors' Choice for pet trackers.
The Whistle 3's cost, size, and battery life put it at the head of the pack for pet activity and location trackers.
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