You may be wondering – does dog GPS work without Wi-Fi? The answer is – absolutely! This is an essential feature for a device whose basic function is to locate an object, animal or person without spatial limitations. If the range of the device was limited to that of the Wi-Fi it wouldn’t be very useful, since the operating range would be a few metres and would be affected by the presence of obstacles.
Does the GPS work without Wi-Fi?
The dog GPS works without Wi-Fi and instead uses other technologies to communicate the coordinates it has calculated: mostly the GSM telephone line and Bluetooth. In fact, the GPS module contained in the collars for locating dogs is very similar to the ones commonly contained in our smartphones. This offers undoubted advantages such as the fact that it’s quite small, so the dog GPS can be adapted to every type of dog from the largest to the smallest sizes. So let’s not forget the improvements made which have greatly increased the battery life, to the point that nowadays these devices can last for about ten days.
However, while the smartphone communicates directly to us the user, in the case of the collar the position has to be transmitted to us remotely. The most popular collars communicate their location to a server and we can use our mobile phone and the appropriate app to access the information transmitted in real time. As we’ve already mentioned the communication protocol isn’t unique; you can use different solutions which don’t necessarily have to involve Wi-Fi. Indeed, the most used and actually better technology is GSM: after determining the coordinates in which it’s located, the device uses the 2G telephone line – the first to support transmissions of data packets – to send the information it has collected.
We can therefore conclude that dog GPSs work without Wi-Fi; indeed the GPS is often accompanied by Bluetooth communication systems since the GPS, although it may be an increasingly precise technology, still has a margin of error of a few metres and therefore Bluetooth helps us to locate our dog with pinpoint accuracy once we’re close enough.