The Fi smart dog collar is a high-tech collar that lets you monitor your dog’s activity, health, sleep, and safety. Its GPS, LTE, and wifi connections allow you to track your dog at home, in the yard, or the wild should they ever escape. The collar also lets you track things like steps and sleep, so you can make sure your dog is getting the right amount of activity and enough recovery. For customers that don’t have false-alarm notifications, they find this collar to be great for tracking their dog’s whereabouts.
Our Score for the Fi Smart Dog Collar
Editorial Rating
What we like:
Keeps dog owners reliably informed about their pet
In This Article
About the Fi Smart Dog Collar
The Fi smart dog collar is designed for every dog. With a battery built to last 3 months on a single charge, reinforced waterproof hardware, and wireless tracking, the Fi Series 2 collar offer insights into your dog’s health and well-being like never before. Owners can now track their dog’s steps, activity, sleep, and location.
Location tracking utilizes 3 different connection signals based on your dog’s location. These signals include Wi-Fi, cellular (LTE), and GPS. At home, the Fi dog collar uses a “home base” technology to establish a Wi-Fi connection and track your dog within the Wi-Fi range. Outside of that range, the collar can connect to the web via Bluetooth to an owner’s phone. This is great for tracking on hikes and outdoor walks. And lastly, if your dog has access to a large outdoor space or escapes your yard, GPS tracking can take over when neither Wi-Fi nor cellular connections are available.
The Fi smart dog collar is available for $149 (USD). An annual subscription is optional but gives users full access to the GPS tracking abilities of the collar. Subscriptions begin at $99 for 1 year, but Fi also offers 2 and 3-year subscriptions for $186 and $248.
Important Features
The Fi series 2 dog collar has numerous important features that make it an excellent choice for a smart dog collar:
- Reinforced Hardware
- Waterproof (IP68 Waterproof Rating)
- GPS Tracking
- LTE Tracking
- Wifi/Home base Tracking
- Activity Monitoring
- Sleep Tracking
- Built-In LED Light for Visibility at Night
What We Like
The Fi series 2 GPS tracker smart dog collar is high-tech and high-value. There are a lot of things to love about it. Here’s a list of what we love and think you’ll like.
- Long battery life. The Fi series 2 smart dog collar offers a long-lasting battery, longer than any of their previous collars. The connection type will affect the length of your battery, but the collar offers up to 3 months of battery life on one charge with only a wifi connection. Utilize the LTE-M or GPS features, and you’ll need to recharge sooner, but we love how long it lasts on a single charge.
- GPS Tracking. It’s important to know where your dog is, especially if it has access to a large property, the wilderness, or is simply an escape artist. GPS tracking takes the searching and guesswork out of tracking down a pet in an expansive forest or a gigantic farm. It also shortens the time between an actual escape and your awareness of the escape, making a recovery faster and keeping your dog safer.
- Mobile Compatibility. The mobile app is a huge benefit to using the Fi smart dog collar. Not only is the mobile app your hub for tracking your pet when you’re not at home, but it’s also the center for all of the data the collar collects on your pet. The software allows more than one owner to access the information, making data like the length and time of your last dog walk or the duration of your pet’s most recent nap easily shareable.
- Sleep Tracking. Tracking your dog when they’re at their most active is great, but so is tracking them when they’re resting after a long day of play. Sleep tracking lets you make sure your pet is getting the rest they need, whether you’re at home or not. We love this feature, especially for moments when you can’t be with your pet but need to make sure they’re coping without you.
What We Don’t Like
Like with all technology, there are some downsides to the Fi smart dog collar before you purchase it.
- Limited usability without a subscription. Users must enroll in an annual subscription if they want to utilize the GPS tracking and Lost Dog features of the collar. Without the subscription, the Fi collar relies on Wi-Fi and cellular connections, which means you’ll have tracking limited to local service and Wi-Fi connections.
- Low refresh rates. While the accuracy of the Fi dog collar can be within 7ft, this is mostly only the case when using Lost Dog mode. Lost Dog mode initiates a refresh rate of once per minute, meaning your dog’s location is updated via GPS connection every 60 seconds. This dramatically increases the accuracy of your pet’s tracking, making it easier to find your dog. The Fi smart dog collar would also benefit from faster refresh rates in other modes.
- High cost for entry. At $149, the Fi collar is pretty expensive for most buyers. If you add in the $99 annual subscription to utilize all of the collar’s features, this collar selection is costly upfront, and the costs are ongoing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Fi collar work without cell service?
Yes. The Fi collar can determine your dog’s collar through GPS, LTE-M, and Wifi. When your pet is within range of a wifi connection or an owner’s phone, it uses these signals to determine its location. When the collar isn’t within range of either of these signals, it relies on GPS tracking.
It’s worth noting that GPS tracking and Lost Dog mode are only available to users that have an active My Fi GPS/LTE subscription.
Does the Fi collar have a monthly fee?
No. The Fi dog collar only has an added recurring fee if you voluntarily opt for the subscription. Their subscription plan is billed annually and gives you access to the GPS and Lost Dog features built into the collar and mobile application.
The annual subscription starts at $99 for 1 year and moves up to $186 for 2 years and $248 for 3 years of access.
Is the Fi dog collar worth it?
It can be. The Fi Series 2 smart dog collar costs $149 and does not include the annual subscription. Many users rely on this smart collar to track their pets that tend to run away or escape their fences.
If you believe you can use any of the many features the Fi dog collar offers, it can offer peace of mind, save on stress, and improve the health and safety of your pet. Ultimately, you have to decide if the collar is worth it for your pet’s needs.
Can you use the Fi collar without a subscription?
Yes. The Fi smart dog collar is functional without a subscription. Users can still use the Fi collar to track activity, steps, sleep, and other behaviors without enrolling in the annual Fi subscription. However, you won’t have remote access, GPS tracking, or Lost Dog mode.
How accurate is the Fi dog collar?
The accuracy of the Fi smart dog collar can vary. The collar uses several methods for tracking your pick, including LTE-M cell signal, home base/wifi, and GPS. Fi claims a range of 5-7ft accuracy across all methods.
Fi users, however, report a different range of accuracy. Some users report a range as much as a few houses away to as little as 50ft. Ultimately, connection, refresh rate, and tracking method will impact the signal accuracy and tracking of your pet. Overall, many users are happy with the accuracy of the Fi dog collar and rely on it to track their pets when needed.
Customer Reviews
Positive Reviews
Many customers have great things to say about the Fi dog collar. For many pet owners, the GPS collar allows them to track their pets while away from home. Many reviewers praise the collar as a tool that helps them track their “escape artists.” Despite some challenges with precision, users can determine when a pet has escaped and isolate the dog’s location within a specific range. While the Fi smart dog collar does include activity and sleep tracking, we found most users rely on this product for its GPS functionality.
“Last winter I bought my 14 1/2-year-old Terrier Mix a Fi Collar. It has been the best thing I did. She isn’t really an escape artist. We live on almost 6 acres and she is now deaf so. It has totally given me peace of mind knowing where she is on our property. I have attached a bell to her collar so that we can hear where she is. I would recommend this collar to anyone. I wish I thought about getting a GPS collar way before this. Fi is AWESOME.” – Christy, Fi Smart Dog Collar, 9/13/22
“This device is absolutely fabulous! The collar is attractive and the unit is thin (we’ve had others that were bulky) The monthly fee is low compared to others. Most importantly to us, it has an extremely long battery life. We live in a very rural area and there is one small cellular dead spot where it doesn’t provide location updates. This wasn’t really a problem.
The app was super easy and fun to use. We have a large outside livestock guardian on our 150 acres and had to move up to a geofence collar that provides feedback. If we ever have an indoor dog or a dog in a fenced yard I would buy the Fi collar in a heartbeat. It is a small investment to make to ensure that I would always be able to locate them.” – PossumTailFarm, Chewy, 1/10/22
Negative Reviews
While there is tons of positive feedback on the Fi smart collar, there are also negative reviews. The most common complaints mention false alarms, accuracy or refresh rate, and customer support. Some users report notifications that their pet has escaped when it’s safe in a kennel. Other users say low location accuracy when the collar isn’t in Lost Dog mode.
“We bought this for our puppy so that while we were out of town and he was staying with in laws, it would be easier for them to locate him if he wiggled out of the fence on their expansive property. Additionally, we wanted to use it for weekend trips to the lake where we leave him on the enclosed porch (since he has found ways to get out of that too). Every time we’ve been alerted that he has left the property he was not away from the property. Even if we had him in his kennel it would sometimes alert us that he got out and left the property, when he had not. We’ve rushed home from places when it was not necessary due to these notifications.
This device seems more concerned with building its online community than tracking the dog properly, and we are not that interested in our dog’s step count or the number of hours they are sleeping. An added annoyance is that when we tried to buy an updated collar since the puppy grew, they would not let us make the purchase using Apple Pay, but forced us to login to their system, which was very inconvenient at the time.” – Lexi, Chewy, 7/16/22
“This collar failed consistently to push location notifications to my phone. Working with support for several days numerous tests failed. Support blamed everything but the device. It DID show where the my dog had went after he came home on 2 of 7 tests. But that is pretty useless if the dog is lost and you need to find it. I may have just gotten a faulty device. But an exchange was never offered. I can’t in good faith recommend this collar. For some people it may work great. If you do have a problem support will probably not be very helpful.” – Dave, Chewy, 2/16/22
Final Verdict
The Fi smart dog collar is an excellent choice for owners looking to enhance the health of their dog and learn more about their dog’s activity. While some owners point to connection issues, false-alarm notifications, and the high cost for entry, many users report excellent value for the collar. Fi’s Lost Dog mode and GPS tracking give dog owners revolutionary access to their dog’s location in emergency situations, while Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity offer day-to-day tracking and activity monitoring. With up to 3 months of battery life on a single charge, you’re set to learn more about your dog and its behavior for years to come.
Compare reviews against our review of the Halo Collar Wireless Dog Fence Review, check out our series of resources on dog collars or our collection of posts on dog fences (many of which feature things like the best wireless dog fences).
Pet News Daily writers are experts in pet care, health and behavior. We are members of Society for Professional Journalists and practice ethical journalism.
