I'm impressed with this project! I built something similar a couple of years ago but it wasn't as polished. This is a prime example of a well-executed open-source hardware (OSHW) project.
I also noticed, like others here, that the tracker's size is a problem. My cat managed to remove the collar with my smaller tracker in just two minutes. I've been considering designing an even more compact tracker, integrating it into the collar itself. It would include a battery, GPS, LoRa with an antenna, and a microcontroller with power management. I'd use a small Heltec LoRa+Bluetooth transceiver for this.
Your work has inspired me to revisit my old project. Thanks!
I made something similar for my dog. Arduino Nano, GPS module, LoRa module, 18650 battery, and an antenna. I then had a "base station" using ESP8266 with a LoRa module and antenna that would forward the GPS data to the cloud. I was in a heavily wooded area and the LoRa signal would start dropping around 1000ft. I didn't know free SIM data was a possibility via Hologram.io or I probably would've gone that route.
I really don't like the idea of attaching a lithium ion battery to my dog's neck, and I never learned how to design PCB's, so I'd also like to revisit my project with some improvements.
Looks really good, and I'm happy there's an open source version of this. With that said, who's going to put such a big gadget around their cats' neck? I'm envisioning a cat getting stuck by that collar somewhere and suffocating. I think in its current version its better for big dogs
Still I hope to see new and improved iteration of it!
They’re pretty tiny. “Mr Lee CatTrack" did this in 2014 with little more than a SIM card and a gps, which was small. This one doesn’t seem much bigger.
Back in 2012 I was using a Zoombak for my cats, which was designed for dogs. Eventually one of them started getting less and less fur under his collar because the Zoombak was wiggling back and forth as he was running, causing the collar to chafe.
He didn’t seem to mind it though, and eventually he’d recognize my car as I drove to pick him up. He’d jump into the back seat like a dog right when the door opened. I miss that fella.
For a traditional cat collar, you might have an engraved nametag the size of a quarter. Even an apple airtag is clunky in comparison - and this thing looks several times the size of an airtag.
It's impressively small for something with LTE, and a multi-month battery life, it's just a lot bigger than a quarter.
Cat collars getting stuck can be a problem regardless of a bulky item being attached (though, it will probably be exacerbated by a tracker), so a breakaway/quick-release collar is a good idea in any case.
This is (unfortunately) very, very true. I don't have firsthand experience, thankfully, but 2x secondhand experience, and I cannot think about those two cases without getting tears in my eyes. It's not common, but uncommon things happen all the time in large populations.
This is great. Looks a tad big, would be good to know it's measurements
The main missing thing from this is waterproof design. Doesn't need to survive immersion (unless you have a Turkish Van) but it will get damp as the cat pushes through wet undergrowth or if the cat gets caught by a sudden shower.
Main things would be an ip67 rated usb connector, and a channel for rubber seal along the case join.
(edited to add)
From the STL, this is much bigger than a tabcat. The tabcat is 23x33x12mm in its silicone cover. This is ~27x60x13mm.
Another handy feaure of the tabcat (although not essential) is a beeper.
I've tried all the major pet trackers. Most of them are too big for cats. Many of them are just Bluetooth which doesn't help at all when your cat gets far away. The better ones have Bluetooth, wifi, LTE, and GPS.
The ones with more than Bluetooth try to be clever to preserve power and only enable the other radios in certain situations. I haven't found one that does this well yet. I would prefer they use more power and track better. For something moving like a cat, you really need better tracking.
There are a few uses cases I want to work well:
1) I want to know when my cat leaves home and then be able to find him with realtime GPS.
2) I want to find my cat when he's home. He can easily decide to nap under a bush in my yard and then he's impossible to find.
The most common one I see people using is Tractive. I personally found it literally useless. When you're close to home, it only enables Bluetooth and your phone app is basically looking for the signal strength of the tracker's Bluetooth. I found that my phone (Samsung Ultra S22) didn't sense my cat unless I was 15-20ft away, which isn't very helpful as I already have to know where he is.
The one I decided to use is JioBit. When you're close to home (based on it sensing your home wifi) it only has Bluetooth enabled but it makes a connection to your phone. I found this to work over about 50ft. When connected, you can ring a bell on the tracker and find your cat. Pretty useful. When your cat is away from home, it only updates the GPS location every 5-15 minutes over LTE which I find too infrequent. Another annoyance is that it only does GPS tracking when your cat is too far from your home wifi. My cat can get way beyond Bluetooth range but still close enough to detect my wifi and then I have no tracking at all.
What I would really like is something like the JioBit but with better connectivity. I want:
1) It to check in with a server every few minutes. Using wifi when home or LTE when not home. I want this because I want to be able to enable realtime gps tracking when I'm looking for my cat.
2) When realtime tracking is enabled, actually be realtime. Give me updates every 15 seconds at least.
3) Give me the ability to ring the device over wifi or LTE.
The JioBit can last a few weeks in its current mode. I'm willing to cut that down significantly. And I really don't mind it burning power when I'm actively trying to find my cat.
WiFi and LTE are too power intensive for a pet tracker in my opinion. Something like LoRaWAN would be ideal. In urban areas public LoRaWAN coverage already exists and where it doesn't the coverage of one gateway would likely be far greater than a cat's roaming range. Bandwidth shouldn't be an issue either as a GPS point (without elevation) would easily fit inside the smallest LoRa packet.
You'd be able to do the switch over from low frequency check-ins to high frequency with the RX slot that comes after a TX slot, but the only issue would be having to wait for a check-in before the realtime mode is activated. But with a sufficient, ~5 minute, low-frequency check-in period, I'd imagine that's a small inconvenience.
I've got a really wandery cat whose range is about 1-1.5km in any direction from the house. We try to keep her within 0.5km as much as possible. If we didn't manage her location fairly actively, she'd probably wander farther.
The catch is that my cat's use case (being mostly outdoors, mostly out of Bluetooth range, and mostly draining power) doesn't match the engineering design model of a dog who's with you most of the time and might escape on occasion. They gave me a more power-conserving build, though.
The one anomaly here is one I've noticed with Pokémon Go as well: "rounding" locations to be at the street even when the cat isn't even within BT range of the street. (For privacy reasons in PoGo's case, after multiple lawsuits.) The one time this is particularly annoying is when our fuzzball is hunting lizards in the local schoolyard at night, and the tracker says she's on the street next to the schoolyard, but she's somewhere in the middle of it.
In practice, that means I know where my little darling was 10 minutes ago, rounded to the nearest street, and use a Bluetooth tracking app to narrow it down further. Naturally, a good third of the time, she's within BT range and just Not Interested™ in moving from wherever she happens to be. (We try to keep her fed on a regular schedule to reduce wildlife consumption.)
We're going to try FindMyCat on the other cat (who currently doesn't have a tracker) and see how that goes. He spends more time at home.
A bit too big for a cat. Also doesn't have bluetooth or a speaker so you can't narrow the location once you get close (you could add an airtag for that, more $, more bulk).
Waterproof.
Relatively inexpensive.
Has a documented API or you can use the Petovik app to track 1 item for free.
Can change modes by sending a command through the SIM providers SMS command or through one of the tools linked in the Petovik app (the command is only received when the device is "awake"). The modes with highest resolution allows 10 sec updates. There is also a "LOCK" mode which lets you switch to high frequency updates for a specified period of time.
Battery life is almost a day if you use "sleep when not moving mode" and set updates to every 2 minutes or so.
Which is 47 mm x 30 mm x 15 mm vs the Mictrack's 46mm x 41mm x 16mm - and that 11 extra mm would make it not work on a collar. Fitbark does have Bluetooth.
Can you run a deliberately weak or inward facing Wi-Fi network?
I don't understand how that location is too infrequent. Too infrequent for what? If you are trying to chase them around the garden then an audible ringer is going to be better than 15 second updates.
I keep dreaming up a very simple (ish) solution involving a never-obstructed camera at ingress points like a doorway where it can reliably track whether the cat is in our out of the house without relying on a hefty device they have to wear.
I have one of these for my dog (https://tryfi.com/) which has saved my GSD a number of times after running wild out in the woods of Northern Michigan. The battery lasts for months in normal operating mode but can be put into "lost mode" remotely where it will ping towers aggressively and give a precise location. This open source solution looks very polished and comprehensive though.
I have a Jiobit. It starts in ble mode and switches to gps when the cat exits a 30 m radius. It gets about 8 hours of fulll gps gsm battery life once it starts updating every 60 seconds. Normally it is 2 weeks battery life.
Note I take my cat out supervised in a large fenced in yard. He got away from me thrice over seven years. This is just a temporary safety feature now. He’s never ventured more than 100m during his getaways.
It is not impossible if the GPS is off by default. Battery life is 20 hours only in "lost mode", aka when the location is being updated every 30 seconds. If you don't need that, and are okay with updates on demand, it can last a year.
It is a lot of work to acquire and track the signals and this is often implemented in software. And then afterwards it takes a lot of work to calculate the navigational solution from these raw measurements.
This basically keeps a microprocessor busy which uses energy.
One trick people do for ultra-low energy non-realtime GPS tracking of wildlife is to store the “raw” radio samples and do as little processing on the tracking device as possible.[1] Then once the tracker gets back they batch process all the samples recorded and reconstruct where the animal has been. That is obviously a tradeoff of more storage used for less energy consumption. Obviously that trick does not work if you want to know where the animal is live, it can only tell you where it has been once you have processed the data.
GPS receivers are passive only in the sense that they don't transmit. But pulling a meaningful signal from a 25W transmitter 20,000 km away requires some seriously power-hungry signal processing. It's an engineering miracle that it works at all.
Weak signal, small antenna, high gain, lots of current to run amplifiers. And you need to keep receiving signal to get the position, not just enable it for a second then disable
20 hours for Lost Mode seems much too low. Ideally if away from home for a certain period (or if no motion is detected - I'm not sure if the device has the technology) it should go into sending out position every hour rather than 30s so it can last indefinitely - days/weeks atleast (like some vehicle trackers do)
My cat was missing for a few days about a month ago. It was really stressful. Currently, I’ve put an AirTag on her which works okay since she’s an outdoor cat but I still get paranoid when FindMy hasn’t updated in a while. I would really love to support this project!
Our cat once disappeared for a week and we still have no idea where he has been. We have already said good bye since we presumed it got caught by a fox or some other predator. Returned exactly 7 days later as nothing happened, in good shape, not particularly hungry, nor dirty. Go figure!
Some cats have multiple houses. Lots of people love cats, and if a cat starts frequenting their houses, they will start feeding them and kind of adopting them. Cat lives in the new house for a few days, then go back to original house, stay for a while, and go to the second house, and so on.
Happens to mine all the time! I figured a while back that he was just staying on the outdoor bench of a neighbor, and he had access to the food of her cats.
Important to note that this fellow has already published detailed engineering notes, BOMs, all of the gerbers. I believe this really matters when taking this to KickStarter, which is exactly what he should do.
One thing to consider is that many animals will not wear collars. However, they might wear a well-designed harness.
Readit News
I also noticed, like others here, that the tracker's size is a problem. My cat managed to remove the collar with my smaller tracker in just two minutes. I've been considering designing an even more compact tracker, integrating it into the collar itself. It would include a battery, GPS, LoRa with an antenna, and a microcontroller with power management. I'd use a small Heltec LoRa+Bluetooth transceiver for this.
Your work has inspired me to revisit my old project. Thanks!
I really don't like the idea of attaching a lithium ion battery to my dog's neck, and I never learned how to design PCB's, so I'd also like to revisit my project with some improvements.
Still I hope to see new and improved iteration of it!
Back in 2012 I was using a Zoombak for my cats, which was designed for dogs. Eventually one of them started getting less and less fur under his collar because the Zoombak was wiggling back and forth as he was running, causing the collar to chafe.
He didn’t seem to mind it though, and eventually he’d recognize my car as I drove to pick him up. He’d jump into the back seat like a dog right when the door opened. I miss that fella.
For a traditional cat collar, you might have an engraved nametag the size of a quarter. Even an apple airtag is clunky in comparison - and this thing looks several times the size of an airtag.
It's impressively small for something with LTE, and a multi-month battery life, it's just a lot bigger than a quarter.
The main missing thing from this is waterproof design. Doesn't need to survive immersion (unless you have a Turkish Van) but it will get damp as the cat pushes through wet undergrowth or if the cat gets caught by a sudden shower.
Main things would be an ip67 rated usb connector, and a channel for rubber seal along the case join.
(edited to add)
From the STL, this is much bigger than a tabcat. The tabcat is 23x33x12mm in its silicone cover. This is ~27x60x13mm.
Another handy feaure of the tabcat (although not essential) is a beeper.
The ones with more than Bluetooth try to be clever to preserve power and only enable the other radios in certain situations. I haven't found one that does this well yet. I would prefer they use more power and track better. For something moving like a cat, you really need better tracking.
There are a few uses cases I want to work well:
1) I want to know when my cat leaves home and then be able to find him with realtime GPS.
2) I want to find my cat when he's home. He can easily decide to nap under a bush in my yard and then he's impossible to find.
The most common one I see people using is Tractive. I personally found it literally useless. When you're close to home, it only enables Bluetooth and your phone app is basically looking for the signal strength of the tracker's Bluetooth. I found that my phone (Samsung Ultra S22) didn't sense my cat unless I was 15-20ft away, which isn't very helpful as I already have to know where he is.
The one I decided to use is JioBit. When you're close to home (based on it sensing your home wifi) it only has Bluetooth enabled but it makes a connection to your phone. I found this to work over about 50ft. When connected, you can ring a bell on the tracker and find your cat. Pretty useful. When your cat is away from home, it only updates the GPS location every 5-15 minutes over LTE which I find too infrequent. Another annoyance is that it only does GPS tracking when your cat is too far from your home wifi. My cat can get way beyond Bluetooth range but still close enough to detect my wifi and then I have no tracking at all.
What I would really like is something like the JioBit but with better connectivity. I want:
1) It to check in with a server every few minutes. Using wifi when home or LTE when not home. I want this because I want to be able to enable realtime gps tracking when I'm looking for my cat.
2) When realtime tracking is enabled, actually be realtime. Give me updates every 15 seconds at least.
3) Give me the ability to ring the device over wifi or LTE.
The JioBit can last a few weeks in its current mode. I'm willing to cut that down significantly. And I really don't mind it burning power when I'm actively trying to find my cat.
You'd be able to do the switch over from low frequency check-ins to high frequency with the RX slot that comes after a TX slot, but the only issue would be having to wait for a check-in before the realtime mode is activated. But with a sufficient, ~5 minute, low-frequency check-in period, I'd imagine that's a small inconvenience.
The catch is that my cat's use case (being mostly outdoors, mostly out of Bluetooth range, and mostly draining power) doesn't match the engineering design model of a dog who's with you most of the time and might escape on occasion. They gave me a more power-conserving build, though.
The one anomaly here is one I've noticed with Pokémon Go as well: "rounding" locations to be at the street even when the cat isn't even within BT range of the street. (For privacy reasons in PoGo's case, after multiple lawsuits.) The one time this is particularly annoying is when our fuzzball is hunting lizards in the local schoolyard at night, and the tracker says she's on the street next to the schoolyard, but she's somewhere in the middle of it.
In practice, that means I know where my little darling was 10 minutes ago, rounded to the nearest street, and use a Bluetooth tracking app to narrow it down further. Naturally, a good third of the time, she's within BT range and just Not Interested™ in moving from wherever she happens to be. (We try to keep her fed on a regular schedule to reduce wildlife consumption.)
We're going to try FindMyCat on the other cat (who currently doesn't have a tracker) and see how that goes. He spends more time at home.
A bit too big for a cat. Also doesn't have bluetooth or a speaker so you can't narrow the location once you get close (you could add an airtag for that, more $, more bulk).
Waterproof.
Relatively inexpensive.
Has a documented API or you can use the Petovik app to track 1 item for free.
Can change modes by sending a command through the SIM providers SMS command or through one of the tools linked in the Petovik app (the command is only received when the device is "awake"). The modes with highest resolution allows 10 sec updates. There is also a "LOCK" mode which lets you switch to high frequency updates for a specified period of time.
Battery life is almost a day if you use "sleep when not moving mode" and set updates to every 2 minutes or so.
Which is 47 mm x 30 mm x 15 mm vs the Mictrack's 46mm x 41mm x 16mm - and that 11 extra mm would make it not work on a collar. Fitbark does have Bluetooth.
Dead Comment
I don't understand how that location is too infrequent. Too infrequent for what? If you are trying to chase them around the garden then an audible ringer is going to be better than 15 second updates.
I keep dreaming up a very simple (ish) solution involving a never-obstructed camera at ingress points like a doorway where it can reliably track whether the cat is in our out of the house without relying on a hefty device they have to wear.
Dead Comment
It is 20 hours in gps mode:
https://www.findmycat.io/docs/TrackerModes#summary
I have a Jiobit. It starts in ble mode and switches to gps when the cat exits a 30 m radius. It gets about 8 hours of fulll gps gsm battery life once it starts updating every 60 seconds. Normally it is 2 weeks battery life.
Note I take my cat out supervised in a large fenced in yard. He got away from me thrice over seven years. This is just a temporary safety feature now. He’s never ventured more than 100m during his getaways.
This basically keeps a microprocessor busy which uses energy.
One trick people do for ultra-low energy non-realtime GPS tracking of wildlife is to store the “raw” radio samples and do as little processing on the tracking device as possible.[1] Then once the tracker gets back they batch process all the samples recorded and reconstruct where the animal has been. That is obviously a tradeoff of more storage used for less energy consumption. Obviously that trick does not work if you want to know where the animal is live, it can only tell you where it has been once you have processed the data.
1: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.06310
Weak signal, small antenna, high gain, lots of current to run amplifiers. And you need to keep receiving signal to get the position, not just enable it for a second then disable
Apple air tags last for 12 months apparently
https://www.tile.com/en-au/blog/airtag-battery-life#
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
Important to note that this fellow has already published detailed engineering notes, BOMs, all of the gerbers. I believe this really matters when taking this to KickStarter, which is exactly what he should do.
One thing to consider is that many animals will not wear collars. However, they might wear a well-designed harness.