1y ago

Selfhost dog/cat tracker?

Does anyone selfhost a tracker for a dog or cat? A reputable company charges 5€-13€ per month for it. I'm not sure I want to pay that for more than 10 years

41 comments

You can't self host a tracker like that, at least not for free, because the only way for the data to be reported is through a cellular connection which costs money. The subscription fee seems perfectly reasonable
- Not true. Free cellular connections exist in some places. And there are non-cellular solutions like LoRA trackers.
- That's not true at all! I'm using some 1NCE SIM that cost 10€ for 10 years of connectivity with 500MB of data. For my car I've calculated that it should last about 6/7 years, but even if it would last 1 year, it's still less than 1€/month!
  OP "just" needs to find the tracker and selfhost something like Traccar.
- I don't know the ins and outs of how they work, and I'm sure there's some catch and they overall skeeve me out a bit, but I have seen a few companies that offer very limited free service, something like 25 mb/month. I don't know how much data a gps tracker would use but that might be doable
  I'm sure those companies do everything in their power to get you to pay more than nothing, automatically change your plan if you go over, deceptive emails, etc. so definitely something to be careful about. I also wouldn't have a whole lot of confidence in those companies sticking around for very long.
  And while not free, there are some pretty affordable prepaid plans and such that may be competitive or slightly cheaper than what a regular subscription might cost.
  Depending on where you live, it may be possible to forego the call plan entirely, in a dense urban area with lots of open public WiFi networks, you may be able to work it entirely off of WiFi.
  If you wanted to get real weird with it and jump through the loopholes to get licensed, there might also be some options using ham radio stuff like APRS, though that's probably going to leave your dogs location exposed to any ham who happens to be playing with their radios in your area.
  Now I'm not saying that any of that is necessarily a good idea or worth the hassle of setting any of that up, I'm just spitballing some ideas for what someone could potentially do if they did want to homebrew such a thing.

You are basically paying them to have a sim card connected to cellular. It's the same way with vehicle/trailer trackers.
There appear to be some on Ali express that you have to get your own cell service.
- Some SIM costs 10€ and lasts for 10 years with 500MB (1NCE) that for a tracker are a lot! (Maybe not enough for 10 years, but some year is still a very good deal.)

If you find anything let me know. I have a couple of dogs I would love to keep taps on, when they are out hunting. And I don't have any iDevices, so AirTags are not useful for me.

https://www.findmycat.io (no personal experience, just aware of it)
- That looks fantastic, if only the parts were available rather than needing to find a pcb manufacturer, 3d print the case, etc.

I don't know any product that matches your requirements.
If I had to deal with that today I'd buy a rasberry pi, a USB sim card dongle and some raspberry hat with GPS receiver.
You can write a small API that listens to the raspberries, who sends periodically their positions, and save it to a database.
But it's a quite large project. There's a lot of aspects to consider. The GUI, security, batteries, and a way to attach it to an animal without being lost or destroyed.
Sorry for not giving a useful answer lol. If you come out with an actual solution I'll be glad to hear it, so I can track my cats in case they get lost.

I've not thought of such a thing before. How does it work on a technical level? Can't imagine a sim+gps being useful for long.
- Why wouldn't it be useful for long?
  You have to charge it once in a while obviously
  I imagine something that either reports the geo location each couple of minutes or once an hour would be sufficient I guess. On request could also be an option.
  
  Connecting to GPS satellites uses a LOT of power. Most GPS units small enough to go on a collar will only last for a day or two without a charge. That's why people are suggesting AirTags, because they don't use GPS and the battery lasts for like...a year? But if you're worried about your dog getting lost in the wilderness rather than near humans, then an AirTag won't help much.

What's with the space in the nick? I don't know how to cite you! Have a look at my answer to rbesfe.

We used this when we had cats: https://tabcat.com
It's expensive up front but works pretty well and no hosting fees. Of course it's not GPS so you kinda gotta know the general area the cat is in. But it was great for getting the cats in out of the yard. They would hide when it was time to come in until we got this. Worked ok for finding them in the neighborhood as well, just walked around pointing the remote everywhere. The collar tags are nice and small as well.

41 comments