Imagine you're on a hike in a remote mountain range. Your hyperactive dog catches the scent of a deer and, powered by his hunter's instinct, disappears in the forest. He has a GPS tracker in his collar that can send his coordinates via the cellular network. But where you are, there is no mobile coverage. You keep whistling and calling but to no avail: your dog is nowhere to be seen.
That exact scenario prompted technologist Jonathan Bensamoun to develop what he describes as the world's first satellite-connected wearable device for dogs. Bensamoun is the founder and CEO of Fi, which has been manufacturing dog trackers since 2017. He first conceived the idea to make GPS devices for dogs when he adopted a young German shepherd named Thor and wanted to make sure that his hired dog walker wasn't cutting corners when taking him out for walks.
But even though the company had quickly grown into a market leader, Bensamoun kept hearing customers complain about the device's usefulness. That's where SpaceX's Starlink satellites came in.
"The number one complaint from customers is either 'I live in an area where the cellular network is not really good' or 'I get really worried about my dog when it's away from the typical suburban area. I am worried when it escapes the yard and runs into the woods," Bensamoun told Space.com.
When Starlink began delivering connectivity directly to smartphones in 2024, Bensamoun knew a solution to the problem was on its way. And on July 8, the world's first satellite dog tracking service came online.
The device combines a GPS receiver, which determines the dog's position in real time, and a simple battery-powered modem that connects to T-Mobile's cellular network, which partners with Space's Starlink system. When the dog's position registers outside a pre-defined zone, the owner receives a message via a smartphone app.
When no cell tower is within reach, the device links with an overflying Starlink satellite to complete the task. The dog owner can also set a geo fence around the dog, an area within which the dog is allowed to move without triggering an alert. When the dog crosses that virtual boundary, for example, escapes from the backyard, the tracker sends a message to the owner.
The device's battery lasts "multiple days", according to Fi, giving the desperate pet owner plenty of time to locate the refugee. To speed up the search, Fi enables the owner to send the dog signals — short bursts of vibrations or sounds — to entice it to come home voluntarily.
"You can train your dog with those vibrations and reward it with food every time they receive the vibration," said Bensamoun. "That way, they will start associating the vibration with their food being ready at home."
GPS tracking has been around for decades. In the animal realm, wild, endangered animals became the first to wear them in the 1990s. But those early devices were clunky and expensive, good for large mammals such as moose and caribou, but not fit for commercial use on pets. The technology finally shrunk to small enough dimensions in the early 2010s when first GPS dog trackers entered the market.
Today, some 11 million dogs worldwide are tracked or monitored by GPS in some form. Fi's new tracker — the Fi Ultra Direct-to-Cell tracker — takes the technology another step further by providing "nearly omnipresent connectivity," said Bensamoun.