How often the pin moves depends on what your tracker is doing right now — and on whether your pet happens to be next to you. Here's what to expect in each situation.
Jump to:
- During LIVE Tracking
- In Normal and Power-saving mode
- When your pet is next to you
- How quickly the app refreshes
- Reading the freshness label
During LIVE Tracking
LIVE Tracking updates your pet's location every 2–3 seconds. As the app puts it:
"LIVE Tracking updates your pet's location every 2-3 seconds, unlike regular tracking when updates are less frequent. This uses more tracker battery, so we recommend turning it on for shorter durations."
On the Tracker status sheet this appears as Live tracking mode — "The tracker is reporting continuously for real-time updates. This is the most precise, and uses the most battery."
A LIVE session runs for the length you choose under Live tracking timer in GPS tracker settings.
In Normal and Power-saving mode
The Tracker status sheet describes the two everyday modes like this:
| Mode | What the tracker does |
|---|---|
| Normal mode | "The tracker reports its location at a regular interval — a balance of up-to-date location and battery life." |
| Power-saving mode | "The tracker reports less often to save battery, so location updates are less frequent." |
[CONFIRM: the actual reporting interval in minutes for Normal mode and Power-saving mode]
Inside a Power Saving Zone the tracker deliberately rests and the map shows the zone's saved spot instead of a live fix.
When your pet is next to you
If your pet's tracker is within Bluetooth range of your phone, your phone reports the position instead — and it's much livelier:
| Situation | How often your phone relays a position |
|---|---|
| GPS Tracker map open | Each time you move about 5 m, and never more often than once every 5 seconds |
| Map not open | At most once every 30 seconds, only after about 10 m of movement, plus a check-in every 5 minutes even if nothing has changed |
How quickly the app refreshes
New positions are pushed to your phone as they arrive, so the map updates on its own without you pulling to refresh. While a LIVE session is running, the app also checks in every 10 seconds as a backup. Outside a session there's no background checking — the map simply waits for the next report.
Please note: if you're viewing a pet that's shared with you through Family Sharing, new positions aren't pushed to your phone instantly — during a LIVE session your map picks them up on the 10-second cycle instead, so it can lag the pet owner's map slightly.
Reading the freshness label
In the map drawer, under your pet's location, you'll see how old the position is:
| Label | Age of the position |
|---|---|
| Now | Less than 2 minutes old |
| A relative time (for example 18 minutes ago) | Between 2 minutes and an hour old |
| Offline | An hour or older, or nothing reported yet |
Tip: you can ask the tracker for an immediate report. Tap the + button on the map and choose Refresh. You'll see "Tracker refresh request sent." (Refresh needs the tracker's own mobile signal, so it's unavailable when the tracker is reachable over Bluetooth only.)
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