WhistleReviews of whistle.com

My rescue Pointer has recently decided, to my frustration and heart ache, that the 5 acres he is currently confined to is not enough. The "call of the wild" has kicked in and now he is scampering over the fence when I'm not paying attention. The Whistle was and IS a complete life saver! I knew immediately which direction to go in order to retrieve him. The last offense was really frightening for he was headed towards a main road. I also love the fitness alerts. An invisible fence is my next step for this hunting maniac but I will not remove the Whistle just because it makes me feel so secure and unfortunately may need its assistance again. Thank you, Whistle. You saved my dog's life!

I thought this product would provide basic tracking data beyond distance, such as speed, elevation, but it only provides distance. Even the distance calculation is off by more than 40% based on tracking with my GPS watch. We used Whistle in the Colorado mountains and the tracking signal rarely worked when you are hiking and you frequently lose the signal. It happened a few times when our dog ran off and we were unable to rely on the Whistle app to track her. Not a good feature if you actually lose your pet. I tried to cancel the service a week after the 90 day trial ended (forgot to cancel earlier) and they wouldn't give me a pro-rata refund for the annual service I paid upfront even after escalating to a supervisor. Do not buy this product: worthless for tracking your pet and the data is far from accurate!

NOT RELIABLE. If you ever lose your pet, you want the tracker to be real-time (i.e. show where your pet is NOW). Of course some lag is expected, but my experience is this lag is a few minutes at best, and up to hours! (yes, HOURS!!! I had many instances that the app was not able to update my dog's location for hours!) Whistle customer service insists this happens due to lack of cell reception. However, you can easily test this and know this is a device issue. I simply walk around with my dog, making sure my ATT phone has good data connection, and try to get Whistle's location, which also uses ATT's network, and still the device cannot show me the location of my pet! (I live in SF, very urban with good cell coverage, and this happens ALL OVER THE CITY!) The issue is even worse with "safe places". The app is supposed to give you warnings whenever your pet leaves a safe location, e.g. your home. My experience is I get the warning anywhere between 10-15 minutes to HOURS after my pet leaves home! The activity tracker works fine, but that's not why I bought this device! There are cheaper and better pet activity trackers out there! If you still decide to buy this, please do some testing during your 1 month money back period. You don't want to be in the situation where you find out this thing is not working when you really need it! :( UPDATE: the replacement device had the exact same issues (plus battery issues!). Whistle is now sending me a second replacement. I will update this review if the new device is any better

Cheap Rubber Attachment. Lost the Tracker Sunday and could not locate it. Don't Buy!!!

I have had Whistle for several years. The old ones lasted for several days but the new Whistle 3 does not even last for 24 hours. I have lost two cats in the last month and can't even find their bodies if that is all that is left because their batteries on the trackers didn't last. I am cancelling Whistle for good. I will find something else. I have been paying for a service that has not served my cats. My heart is broken. Don't rely on this service.

Advertised as "works with cats", but it does not. We tried it on two of our four cats. You have to charge the unit almost every day, so the daily process of taking it off the cat's collar at night and then the next morning putting it back on was too much. After the third day, our cats resisted and did not want it around their neck. So we sent it back to the company and are still trying to get our money refunded. I believe that they will eventually credit our card, but it has taken several emails on our part to make that happen, not to mention over a month has passed since we sent it back.

I would not buy this product again. The first unit crapped out after a couple of weeks (just died) and now the replaced one keeps telling me the dog is away from home when it is sitting at my feet under the kitchen table. How can you trust this type of product. Also, forget good service from the technical/service people. They take days to respond and then don't do anything to help you. Move on and find something else.

I would caution everyone to think twice before committing to this unresponsive company for an entire year! It is a very poor quality GPS tracker, the biggest flaw being the false alerts it gives 25% of the time. I can't count how many times I would be sitting at home and get an email alert saying, "Buddy is 600 feet from home!", only to find him sitting on the porch or even at my feet. When I got it, I wasn't aware of the fitness tracker, and thought it was a pretty cool feature until I realized after using it, that it was extremely inaccurate in recording his activity. Another big problem is the battery. It takes over 3 hours to charge and lasts for two days, three if you're lucky. Very easy for the unit to just be left, forgotten, on the battery charger. Finally, be prepared to keep buying their disposable attachment rubber bands (10 bucks a pop - $5 price, $5 shipping) that only last a few months before they break apart. All in all, a product that does not live up to its claims.