Air Tags

[Carsarelife]

Anyone bought a collar with Apple AirTag to use on their cat? Just wondered what you think of it and if it's worth £40?

I looked at this. You can buy collars to hold them. The problem is it requires an Apple device within 100m of the AirTag to bounce the signal off. We live rurally and a cat can travel 2 miles so it wouldn’t work for us.

Alternative is Tractive which is GPS. It’s not cheap, requires a subscription and the device is quite chunky.

The AirTags we have are pretty big. Would be too heavy for my cats (I’m not a fan of collars on cats really - my relative is a vet and routinely get a cat in near death who’s been caught by their collar which hasn’t been quick release when needed most and those are the ones found in time to try and save them). My cats are microchipped and I’m hanging on for trackable microchips.

There won’t be trackable chips because a battery is needed to send a signal.

Thanks just looked at Tractive, seems to have really good reviews. I have a kitten who is just starting to go out so wondering if I can get him used to something quite big. He does wear a collar.

Please dont put a collar on your cat, there is no need and they are so dangerous.

I have a wandering cat and I would LOVE to know where she goes for the three or four days a month she goes AWOL. I looked in to tracking devices but decided that there was nothing that was safe,effective and not a pain in the neck/potentially dangerous to an active adventurous cat. So I have to leave my curiosity unsatisfied.

@ZeroFuchsGiven in the village where I live if people see a cat with no collar they assume it's a stray. They either take it into their house or send it to a cat sanctuary. I see it on social media all the time. I started putting a collar on him so folk knew he belonged to someone

Even if it's microchipped? Really?

I don't know about Air Tags but I attached one of these to a harness and put it on my wanderer the first time she went out. https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-one?variant=109114&cur=g&cl=header&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjw_YShBhAiEiwAMomsEMFr3-0eUH0-e44rAOxkwXifPbNXsOUeAuQGGAyYbSEA7dnclKIs4RoC9XwQAvD_BwE It was about two days until she somehow managed to get the harness off (little Houdini) but by then I knew she could find her way home, so it did its job.

I'll be doing the same for any future cats. It gave me real peace of mind.

Why has no one invented pet microchips with a GPS locator function? It would be a game changer.

I am a scientific ignoramus so feel free to explain to me why this would be impossible!

Battery size would be too big to implant under the skin.

Collars are so dangerous - please don't use one on an outdoor cat that likes to explore.

If your cat gets stuck somewhere and his collar won't release it will kill him.

How will you keep it powered or charged? What happens when the battery dies?

I Imagine you would charge it like a phone but how would you get your cat to stay still for a few hours whilst the cable is attached to the portal 😂😂😂

Isn't wireless charging a thing now? One could buy a cat heatpad with a charger embedded. And batteries can be very small, these days

I personally don't recommend tractive. I bought one when I moved and it barely held charge for more than a day and the GPS signal was useless.

Cats will go anywhere except where you actually want or need them to go 😂

Maybe someone needs to invent a wireless charger that lives in a cardboard box or under a pile of clean laundry 🙈

If they get taken to a vet don’t they scan them and return them to the owners?

My Bengal got trapped in a snap release collar, if a 6.5kg ball of muscle can’t free himself when he’s in trouble I don’t think a kitten would manage.

I got one of the tracking ones for my cats when they first started going out, but it was too big and bulky, and they didn't keep their collars anyway so I soon stopped bothering with them. (quick release ones - after 3 in quick succession I decided to stop littering the countryside plus girlcat isn't as adventurous, but it kinda matted the fur round her neck, and boycat is a wally who absolutely would get caught by his collar if he could)

It's a nice idea in theory, but I expect it you'd spend more time trying to find the missing airtag than using it to track the cat!

I have an indoor cat who plays in the garden sometimes. He won't wear a collar. So I have a harness for him and I've attached a 'tile' onto it so I can track him. But cheaper than an apple one

I have Tractive and love it. They have just brought out a smaller device for cats.

The battery life is really good, we know where our cat is and when to go and retrieve him from his favourite garage.

He is incredibly skilled at collar removal though, can even undo buckles so we have had fun retrieving the device from neighbours gardens.