In this Findster Duo+ review post, you will learn the major features and the reviews from actual users of the pet tracker. You will learn if the users generally had a positive or negative experience with Findster Duo+. Plus, you can learn how people’s interest in the tracker has moved over the past 5 years. Let’s first learn its major features. Throughout this post, I will j
Major Features
The key technology behind Findster Duo+ is a GPS-based tracking system, MAZE. Built upon the core technology, Findster Duo+ provides other essential features for your pet and yourself.
GPS Pet Tracker
You can enjoy convenient features backed by their GPS technology.
- You don’t pay any subscription fee because they use GPS for tracking (like your car navigation).
- You can track your dog or cat on a real-time basis.
- You can monitor the activities of your pet.
- You can track up to three pets.
- The device is water-proof.
Link to Smartphone
The Findster Duo+ device can be linked to your smartphone. On your phone, you can use the free Findster app to visually monitor your pet. By using the Findster app, you can do the following:
- You can receive the most up-to-date location information about your pet by using their real-time technology.
- You can define the distance limit between you and your pet while walking. When your pet moves beyond the defined distance, Findster will notify you.
- You can share your pet’s information with other people such as family and friends. There is no limit or fee to share it.
- The Findster App has a built-in Radar. This shows the distance between you and your pet and points you to the pet’s location.
Data-Driven Activity Tracking
What I liked about the app was the insights it provides by using collected data. By using the historical data and other pets’ records, it provides suggestions and comparison analysis.
- Findster Duo+ keeps track of the past routes that your pet has been. Findster Duo’s History allows you to revisit the walks and the locations.
- The app has a gamification feature that allows you to check the walking distance and steps walked of your friends’ pets.
- You can set goals and milestones or compete with other Findster Duo+ users to win badges.
- The app provides daily reports such as the hours your pet has walked and rested. It also shows how long the pet has walked and how many paws (steps) walked.
Maximum Distance
We now know that you can track your pet’s position in real-time. Our next question would be “how far is the coverage?” Findster answers this question in detail.
Findster Duo+ can track your pet approximately in a range of up to 4.8km. But, this is subject to your surroundings. There are key factors that can impact the range such as physical environment (buildings, fences, and etc.) and the weather. These factors can affect device connectivity and GPS accuracy as well.
In congested urban areas, it is expected to be, at least, 0.8 km. In a wide-open space like outdoor, it can exceed the 4.8km range. Findster pointed out that the record was 16km. Please note that Findster Duo+ is for outdoor tracking not indoor.
Battery Life
We absolutely don’t want to lose track of our pets because of short battery life. How long does Findster Duo+’s battery? Findster says that battery life depends on your use case. Check out some examples below.
Hiking (Continuous Walk)
When you actively use it like hiking, Duo+ battery can last 12 hours.
Regular Walks
If you use it more on a regular basis like two sets of 30-minute walk per day with GPS on and enable all-day activity tracking, the battery can last 3 days.
Stay Home
If you don’t walk and don’t use GPS and just use it for all-day activity tracking only, it can last up to 7 days.
Prices
Depending on how many trackers you want to sync, the price differs.
- 1 Pet Tracker: $149.99USD
- 2 Pet Tracker: $199.99USD
- 3 Pet Tracker: $249.99USD
Customer Reviews Analysis
When you consider buying a product or using a service, you will wonder what experiences other buyers had. Investigating the reviews of other users can lead to a better decision, and it is a wise thing to do as a consumer. If people are dissatisfied with it, they will complain about it and won’t recommend it. If they are happy, they will leave positive comments and share their great experiences. If we can compile and analyze those reviews, we can have an assurance about the product or the service.
That’s what I am going to do for you. I used around 700 reviews that people left on Amazon. I summarized those data to generate easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Those visuals will allow you to understand the overall sentiments the customers had toward Findster Duo+. They are also easy to understand.
Positive Findster Duo+ Word Cloud
In a word cloud, some words will appear bigger because those specific words were more frequently used among customers. So, the bigger the more frequent, thus, if those big words are positive, it proves that most of the customers had a positive experience. Have a look at the word cloud of Duo+.
The word cloud above should have given you a good impression of their products. The most frequent word that actual customers used in their reviews was “great”. Other big words are also positive – “good”, “best”, “peace”, “works”, and many more. Just by looking at the word cloud, we can learn that most of the people were satisfied with the products.
Among the words, what caught my attention were “battery”, “peace”, and “mind”. I looked at actual review titles that include “peace” and “mind”. Some of them were:
“Good, dependable product, giving us peace of mind.”
“Peace of mind on off-leash walks.”
“7 acres Worth of Peace of mind!!! Love my Findster!”
Positive reviews expressing peace of mind
When I looked at battery, opinions were mixed:
“So far so good. Only have had this a few days but the battery life has been good.”
“If you have your battery’s charged and are prepared this works good.”
“Long battery life”
“Great idea but battery lasts only 6 hours.”
“Battery life is very poor; everything else works”
“I wish the battery lasted longer…”
Mixed reviews about the device’s battery life
Although the device gave the users a peace of mind, some users complained about short battery life. I think it would be a good idea to fully charge your device and phone before having a walk.
A good thing is that Findster has a “30-day money back guarantee” program. So, you can try the product and return it if you don’t like it.
Customer Sentiments
The word cloud tells you what descriptive words people used for the product. There is another angle we can use to understand the Findster customer reviews. That is by categorizing the reviews into a type of 10 sentiments. While I used the review titles for the word cloud above, I used the review contents for the sentiment analysis. The result is the graph below.
I was able to run my sentiment analysis code to find out what specific sentiments people had over the Findster Duo+ device. As we could guess from the word cloud, more than half of the review contents were positive. Of course, people shared negative experiences. I haven’t seen any review that is all positive. Despite the negative reviews, overall, people left positive comments on the smart tracking device.
Findster Duo Interest Trend
Another type of analysis I often use for a product review is using Google Trend. It is an extremely helpful service by Google that gives you a historical Google search trend. The idea is that if a product or a company can maintain or can increase its search volume over many years, it supports the quality of the product. If a product is bad, people won’t show their interest and eventually will never search for the product anymore. Then, how is the trend of Findster Duo? Plus, how has people’s interest in general been changed?
The blue line above shows the changes in people’s interest over the past 5 years. It seems that people have started showing interest since late 2016 when I believe the firm began producing the product and marketing it. Since that year, in spite of ups and downs, it has been able to maintain a consistent level of search frequencies.
This proves that people keep coming back to Google to search for the product. Considering the trend in the past, this is likely to go on.
Note that this is a global trend that does not come from the U.S. only. If we break down by country, it looks like below. The biggest interest came from Canada followed by the U.K., the U.S., Portugal, and Italy.
Findster ships to major countries and the shipping cost is free as of March 2020.
Embrace Technology for Your Pet’s Wellbeing
Talking about trend, in this extensive article, The State of the Pet Industry: Pet Market Statistics and Future Trends, reveals that adopting smart pet technology has been on the rise and is likely to continue. In 2018, the sale of smart pet products reached $565 million in the US. The figure jumped by 11% from the year before. The article pointed out that if the trend continues, we could expect the smart pet market to grow to be over $1 billion before 2023.
Its statistics show that 8 in 10 pet owners use smart technology to monitor and track their pets including microchips (60%), cameras (20%), or tracking devices (20%) which is the segment of Findster Duo+. One statement that caught my attention was this:
“One overarching trend will be the move towards having these different devices talk with one another in order to improve the overall health and quality of life of the pet. For example, data produced by smart collars, can then be shared with veterinarians and other pet service providers.”
Pet owners embrace smart pet products
The highlighted sentence was the exact description of Findster’s other product, Findster Care.
Findster Care
When you subscribe to Findster Care membership by paying a $3.99USD monthly fee, you can gain extra insights about your pet and unlimited access to vet 24/7. This means that your pet’s data from Findster Duo+ will be analyzed for early detection of illness and behavior analysis. Plus, within the app, you can directly ask questions to vet about your pet.
Pet Insurance
Another point I wanted to make after reading the article was pet insurance. The pet market analysis explains that between 2016 and 2017, the number of premiums rose by 23% according to the North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA). That is equivalent to $1.2 billion. Furthermore, a OrbisRearch.com research shows that the pet insurance market is expected to grow by 13.5% by 2025.
Since paying insurance premiums can be costly, preventive measures by Findster Care might be a good idea. I reviewed one pet insurance in my post, Trupanion Pet Insurance Reviews, Great Deductible Option, if you are searching for pet insurance at the moment.
Conclusion
We learned the major features of Findster Duo+ and my customer sentiment analysis that turned out to be positive. The Google Trends result also showed people have shown a good level of interest in the product. Considering they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee policy, I believe it will not be a bad idea to try their product and enjoy a peace of mind.
Useful Links
Check these YouTube videos to get an idea of the product.
- Findster Duo+: The GPS Pet Tracker Free of Monthly Fees!
- Findster Duo+ | Attaching/removing the Pet module to/from a collar
These links will guide you to more how-to videos and extra information.
If you are interested in finding out other interesting pet products, check my review posts:
