Jiobit Review

Jiobit tracker is a new GPS tracker on the market.

www.jiobit.com

It's about the size of a Fig Newton and weighs very, very little. I don't even notice when it's in my pocket or added to my keychain. 

So does it work? Is it accurate? 

Yes, the TLDR (too long, didn't read) version is yes, it's worth it for your dog if you need GPS tracking in a super lightweight form.

I've used it in both live mode (live tracking with updates every 10 seconds) and regular normal tracking (position sampled every two minutes and plotted on a map timeline in Google Maps app). Live mode drains the Jiobit battery fairly quickly, so it should be used only for finding your lost dog once you get in the vicinity of his/her last known position. 

This is a Jiobit in its charging dock (USB connected to your computer or a USB outlet). Solid green means fully charged and ready. 

This is what the Jiobit looks like on a fabric house collar. I squeezed this collar through the loop instead of using the included snap-on clip. 

Note: this isn't a walking collar or flat collar. For flat collars, you should use the included snap-on clip or a swappable clip (I use a lock S-biner) to attach it. Or you can use the included fabric pouch with strap. 


The pouch is small and has a wide elastic strap to slide the collar through. 


I have not used the pouch -- I don't really need it. 

Tracking mode is regular mode, plotting location every two minutes. 

If you want to see what your path has been, you click on "Timeline" (bottom left) to open the map for details. See next image. 

This is a basic accurate timeline. We drove from school drop-off to Garfield Park, then walked inside the park and around back to the car then drove off. 

Someone remind me to walk by Pee-Wee Herman's house next time I'm near Garfield Park. I haven't seen that house in ages.



(Incidentally, the homes used in the horror movie Halloween are also in the area. Less desire to visit those.)

This may look a little confusing, but we drove down then back up the street marked Via Del Rey, and I parked on a side street where Coe and I started our walk near the elementary school. 


Next, we went down Alpha Avenue to check for coyotes then back up and looped back to the car after not finding any coyotes in that cul-de-sac area of Camino Lindo.  

This is live mode. We are walking around a large public park, away from the car parked two streets west. This shows position points on the map. (This map is not zoomed in all the way.)

I had this running on my phone while walking, and you can see where we stopped due to sniffing (shorter segments).

I started this route with close to 100% on my Jiobit battery, then as we walked farther with live mode active, the Jiobit battery went down to 76%. 

As noted earlier, live mode is best suited for trying to find a lost dog. 

I have no doubt live mode would bring me close enough to Coe for recall (voice and squawker) and/or visual spotting if he ever got loose.

Jiobit has geofencing. Ours is set to 100 feet, as the 200-ft. circle was a little out of bounds for our rectangular lot. When I go out with Coe and pass the safe zone, both my husband and I will get a notification of departure as well as arrival. This happens in normal tracking mode, so samples taken every two minutes, not in live mode. 

There is a potential two-minute delay of notification depending on the exact moment you leave the zone. 

This could be troubling or worrisome to some dog owners, but I don't think it's that big of a deal when you can see live tracking by switching to that mode. 

Anyway, this is what my notification screen looks like for the Jiobit notifications. 

You can add individuals to your care team so they can receive notifications from the app. This is very easy to set up, but the person has to download the Jiobit app. 

People asked me, "How big is this unit?" 

See quarter and dog tags for scale. The Jiobit is like a Fig Newton. 

Also shown are the additional clip if you want to clip this to a child's belt loop, backpack, jacket, etc.,  and the fabric pouch. 

The pouch strap is on the back of it over the insert flap and isn't shown here; it's black and will stretch for a wide flat collar probably 1.5-2 inches.



I won't go into detailed comparison about Jiobit's features versus other dog GPS trackers because the Jiobit website covers that in a chart.  

The lack of exact activity monitoring may put some people off, but we really didn't care about that -- and who knows? It may be added in a future app version.  

I know activity keeping is handy for people who want to track miles on their offleash dogs, so Fitbark is probably a better solution, but then you don't get GPS tracking for a lost dog. I just use the Health app on my phone. 









3/23/19:

Jiobit on two dogs on the same walk: 

You can see both are accurate of our route, but one is slightly more accurate based only on sampling point times. 

My husband and the other dog lagged in the beginning.

I do not work for Jiobit, nor am I related to anyone who does. I did not receive any free review units. We bought these as early adopters based on initial press feedback. The rule with tech is, don't be an early adopter! :-P   I'm glad to say Jiobit isn't buggy and hasn't given us any headaches as a version 1.0  of the product.