Tracking people using GPS technology, particularly paroled felons, is gaining media attention. Now GPS Tracks LLC is applying that concept to help people keep track of something a bit closer to home: the family pet.
GPS Tracks CEO Jennifer Durst told Satellite News that the genesis of the idea resulted from her own personal experience. She said her dogs would frequently leave the yard to chase rabbits, undeterred by the electronic fence that was set up around her property. But when it came time to return home, her dogs would not cross through the electronic fence a second time. As a divorced mother of two young children, combing the neighborhood to find the lost dogs was a hassle. To solve this problem, she turned to GPS location technology to create a service called GlobalPetFinder and during the service’s development, has collected “eight or nine patents” covering the service.
“What I have actually created is the ability to set a geo-fence around your property,” Durst said. “As soon as your pet leaves your yard, [the system] will call you on your cell phone and tell you it has left the yard and it will start sending you location information every three minutes until the pet is recovered.” She added that the service can also provide location information on demand when pet owners dial F-O-U-N-D (36863) on their chosen wireless device in case the pet were to run away while in the middle of being walked.
The service does more than just track the location of the pets. It will offer pet owners other data such as information on when the battery on the tracking device (three rechargeable AAA batteries) is low and needs a charge. It also monitors the temperature of the environment surrounding the pet, alerting the owner when temperatures are too hot or too cold. This feature can be life saving for owners who leave their pets in locked cars, as the heat inside that car can be deadly if a pet is trapped too long.
Users of the GlobalPetFinder service can set up multiple geo-fences on the Web site to cover locations that the pet may frequently visit. Users also have the ability to set up an ad hoc geo-fence. For example, if a pet owner has gone to a location like the local park or the beach and was unable to set up a geo-fence, the owner could call in from his or her cell phone and with that cell phone as the epicenter, the owner remotely could set up a geo-fence.
–Gregory Twachtman
(Jennifer Durst, GPS Tracks, 516/729-6200)
