Why is my pet's location wrong or out of date?

Outdoors with a clear view of the sky, ZoomiTag finds your pet to within a few metres. When the map looks wrong, it's almost always one of the situations below, and most have a quick fix.

The pin is behind my pet on a walk

In normal mode the tag reports every 5 minutes, and the map always shows the last position it sent. A dog can cover a lot of ground in 5 minutes, so on a walk the pin can be several minutes behind, and the route and distance cut corners.

Fix: start a GPS Boost a few minutes before you set off. The tag then reports as often as every 30 seconds for up to 4 hours.

It says my pet is still at home when they're out

When your pet leaves the house, the tag first has to notice it's left your WiFi, switch GPS back on and find satellites. Until it has a confirmed new position, the app keeps showing the last one it trusted. It does this on purpose, so it never shows a guessed location. The first outdoor fix usually takes a few minutes, but under thick tree cover or between tall buildings it can take longer.

Fix: start Boost before you leave, and make sure the tag sits on top or side of the collar with the logo facing out, not tucked under the chin, where your dog's body blocks the sky.

The pin drifts around, or shows the wrong spot, when my pet is home

GPS needs a view of the sky and works poorly indoors. Inside a house, the tag can report an old position from outside, or a fix that jumps around the street.

Fix: set up Home WiFi. While your pet is home, the map then shows your saved home location instead of trying to use GPS.

If your pet shows at home but the home pin itself is in the wrong place, the home location was probably saved while your phone only had a rough position. Turn on Precise Location for the Zoomi app in your phone's settings. Then, while you're at home, go to Account → Power Saving Mode and tap Update next to the home location.

The pin hasn't moved for hours

A position that doesn't change at all usually means the tag has stopped reporting. Most often the battery is flat, the tag has been switched off, or it's somewhere with no mobile signal. Check the battery level and the "last seen" time on the Track tab, then see Why is my tag offline?

There's a gap in the route

The tag sends its location over the mobile network. It isn't tied to one network like your phone: it uses whichever network has the strongest signal where it is, so it often keeps working where your phone has none. In a true dead spot (deep woodland, steep valleys, remote moorland) it can't send anything. It carries on as soon as it has signal again, so you may see a straight-line gap where it was out of reach.

A brand-new tag shows the wrong place

A new tag needs its first GPS fix before it can show your pet. Take it outside with a clear view of the sky. This usually takes a few minutes, but can take up to 30. Until then the Track tab shows Setting up GPS.

The distance in the Health tab looks too low

The all-day distance on the Health screen is worked out from the tag's location reports. At normal 5-minute updates it joins points several minutes apart, so a fast dog's real distance is under-counted. Boost on walks gives a far truer figure. To record a specific walk, use Start activity: see Activity and steps.

How accurate is it at best?

The tag uses several satellite systems at once (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou).