Signal Tag is a pet finding system using a smartphone and a Bluetooth transmitter on a tag attached to the cat or dog’s collar.
This is a system for the digital age and a neat use of the ubiquitous smartphone. I recently reported on something similar. This is an American pet product and I expect it is currently available in the USA only but I might be incorrect.
Signal Tag has been introduced by PetHub Inc. If your pet is tagged, and you are signed up and linked into a network of like-minded people with the smartphone app downloaded, you are all able to help find each other’s lost pets using your smartphone and Bluetooth technology.
The tag is worn on a collar and is durable and waterproof. The battery life is 2 years.
When a pet goes missing anyone who has the software on their smartphone can pick up the signal emitted by the dog or cat’s tag. I believe the range of the Bluetooth signal is 500 feet. In other words, the signal from the tag can be picked up by a smartphone from 500 feet away.
The person picking up the signal is provided with the cat or dog’s details which helps them care for the companion animal while the owner organises a pick up after the finder has notified the pet owner. I believe that is the sequence of events.
With the premium Signal Tag service, shelters can be alerted too and the position of a pet is tracked using GPS so the owner knows where he/she is at any one time.
The subscription to the basic service is free (excluding tag purchase) while for the premium service, the charge, if paid annually, is $28 (USD). The tags cost between around $10 to $20 USD.
The Signal Tag creates a community of pet owners who are able to help each other. It must therefore rely on an extensive network of people. There is probably a threshold at which the system becomes viable.
My gut instinct is that there would have to be a sufficient number of people in one area to make it work well.
As this is a new product PetHub Inc is currently offering a $30 discount for the first 250 people to sign up.
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I can hear my dear, late Evelyn saying to me “there is an entire movie script in this thread!”
Bruce sighs… the Christian Biblical idea of the “End Times” must truly be nigh. We now put the “Mark of the Beast” on our beasts!!!
And I thought we were is deep trouble when we started putting Radio Frequency Identification “chips” (RFID) under Grandma and Grandpa’s skin to help find them when they wandered off from the Old Folk’s Home, under the skin of our children to make sure they were in the classroom, and in our wallets and purses – in our credit and debit cards – so we could buy and sell in the marketplace.
My, oh my.
A small, yet not unimportant fact: the majority of these tracking chips are manufactured not far from me in South Dakota, USA, by a manufacturer that brazenly touts it’s origins and intent: a company named “Alien Technology”.
Sure, our primitive “Smartphone” might be able to find Fluffy from up to 500 feet (150 Meters) away, but it takes but little stretch of the imagination to realize an alien technology can likely find dear Fluffy anywhere on this small blue marble in space we call “Earth”.
The idea that they have insidiously targeted our dear Fluffy for scrutiny and advanced tracking leads me to likely confirm what I have always suspected:
Kats are Keepers of the Universe!
“Come the revolution…” as dear Michael might say, our kats might be our only allies and staunchest defenders. The knowledge they own is truly unique and innate, “instinctive” is how we generally refer to it.
If “thinking outside the box” is what it might take to defend and save humanity, trust me: the Revolution has begun! Right here in my own home, on the kitchen floor, this very morning!
Well, I’ll join the revolution then. I don’t want to be overly critical of this device but I don’t think it will work 😉
In few words….me neither
Well, I’ll join the revolution then.
I must confess, I think the proper term for what you are proposing might be a “movement”.
(a revolutionary idea, however!)
Movement is better. I hate to say it but in the USA, the cat world needs a movement to change the mentality of a significant number of cat owners. The 1st objective is no declawing and then go from there to the semi-failure of cat rescue.