WhistleReviews of whistle.com

Our Whistle 3 was needing to be frequently charged and we were not receiving push notifications when our dog was outside of his home range. This is our second Whistle so we were confident that the Whistle needed to be replaced as we had the same experience with our first Whistle. When I called customer service I was told, however, that the current Whistle had to be properly tested to ensure there was indeed a problem. So I had to fully charge the battery again, and place the Whistle 8 feet from the router overnight and then return it to the charger and notify the representative that the test was complete. Correspondence was occurring by email with the representative who in time said that he had been authorized to provide a discount on a new Whistle of 30% + one month of "free" service. There were no subsequent instructions from the representative related to followup purchase. After not hearing from the representative for 24 hours I called Whistle customer service again and the representative walked me through the ordering/discount process. All told the time invested from the first call, through the test to the subsequent order was more than 48 hours which seemed cumbersome and excessive to me. We are loyal Whistle fans (our new Whistle will be our third in 3 years), but would appreciate a more streamlined system for unit replacement.

I needed to correct my order 30 minutes after I placed the order and the on line chat service was not able to do anything. This was disappointing.

I have a few issues with the device and the support (company's policy.) 1) The device does not have real-time tracking. It will only report a location at set intervals- 3 minutes being the shortest. I can press the 'Update Location' button and it will update about every minute. An animal can go pretty far in 1 minute. 2) After 6 months the tracker stopped reporting at 3-minute intervals. For example, on a 1-hour walk it only tracked 1 location along the path. I called and they sent a refurbished unit. 5 months later the replacement started to do the same. 3) The company's policy is to not provide replacements for loss however the Whistle 3's original design had a rubber strap that would fail. They even had to redesign it. This poor design led to the tracker being lost. The representative on the phone just said the company's policy does not allow for replacements. I would have been appreciative if the company recognized that I had an earlier, faulty design and sent a replacement. Instead they only offered a 20% discount and an additional 3 months subscription. Another issue I have with the company's policy is that they will provide a replacement only once. Based on my experience of having both trackers fail after 5-6 months, after 1 year (the warranty period), I own a device that's waiting to fail and cannot expect the company to be willing to support its purchasers. These devices are not built to last. The Whistle 3 is the pet tracker with the most positive reviews which speaks poorly of the products that are out there. If you really don't need a tracker right now, hold off until the technology improves. If you absolutely need one now, the Whistle 3 works pretty well...for the first 5-6 months. If it fails, customer support told me they will only provide 1 replacement only- after that you'll have to pay $80 to buy a new one (that's with the 20% discount). Update: I was contacted by Miranda from Customer Support and she was able to refund me the $80 I paid for the replacement. As a result, I bumped up my rating by one star due to the customer service. It is my belief that they refunded my money due to the faulty attachment strap which resulted in the loss of the device rather than the faulty device itself. Even though I had to discuss the matter with at least two different people in Customer Support, in the end they made things right.

The collar, even the small one is too big for small dogs and cats. I had to order a separate piece to see if I can put the whistle device on another collar. Felt like they should be included in the original package.

Had to cycle through a lot of "extras" before the CHECKOUT appeared. Then my coupon didn't "take" so I had to repeat the process 3 times before I could check out. Whistle makes a good product but the checkout process is too confusing. SIMPLIFY please!

Not real impressed with customer service. I emailed your company and got no response to my email. Easy to put contact as email so it can be ignored, and no number for contact.

Numerous false notifications that my dog is out of the yard. Battery failed and had to charge the unit daily (used to last 5-6 days on a single charge). Tech support via email is extremely delayed and not helpful.

Update: I am on my third Whistle for my cat. There is one major weakness with this device. There is no audible tone you can initiate when it is lost. Even though the GPS gets you close, you can be right on top of it and not see it. I have suggested this improvement to Whistle, but they have not acted on it. Instead, they added a light, which is weak and useless. As a workaround, I added a Tile to my cat's collar. This has saved me from buying many more Whistles. So, if you decide to buy this, beware and buy a Tile too. If another company adds this feature, I will go to them. Great product. Works wonderfully. I have one product improvement suggestion - Add a feature that allows you to make the unit beep. This can be used to train the pet and to find a lost unit.