If you are thinking of buying a GPS dog tracker for your favourite animal, bear in mind that the price of a GPS dog collar ranges from several hundred euros (even more than a thousand to be honest) to a few tens of euros. Assuming that this is not arbitrary madness, we must assume that there are reasons behind all this and that there may be some compromises to be made in order to have a GPS dog collar at a price that suits our pockets.
How to choose the GPS dog collar
The first distinction to be made concerns the use we are going to make of the collar: if we want to use it in a preventive manner, fearing that the dog may stray from our backyard, then a median solution may be fine, while in other areas such as hunting, professional products will be needed, whose operation must be adapted to the particular conditions in which hunting takes place. Dogs move and chase prey in isolated places without major reference points or in the middle of thickets etc. where even the mobile phone connection is not optimal. It is therefore necessary to ensure constant communication between the collar and the handheld device on which the position is displayed, and this can only be done using radio waves, which however have the limitation of having a well-defined range and therefore become of little use in situations where this distance is exceeded.
This type of GPS collar for dogs has a very high price and must be used in very specific situations, whereas for more common needs it is very easy to find tracking collars that do not require a handheld device and whose cost is very low compared to others. Even the most recent models cost around fifty euros while offering a series of very useful and interesting services.
In this regard, it is worth remembering that, in addition to the price of the GPS dog collar itself, there are extra costs, some necessary and some optional. In particular, it is necessary to decide how to manage the GSM connectivity that allows the collar to communicate its position: some models require a SIM card, so the user must choose a good operator and activate a card to be inserted into the collar so that it can remain connected. Other manufacturers have decided to take over the management of the telephone line by entering into agreements with different operators: in this way, in exchange for a periodic subscription, the stability and efficiency of the connection is guaranteed upstream.