If you have more than one pet wearing an Ask A Vet GPS tracker, you may notice the Bluetooth link seems to "follow you around" the app — it's on Bella's tracker, then you check on Max and it's on his. That's working exactly as designed.
One Bluetooth link, one tracker
Your phone holds a Bluetooth connection to one tracker at a time. When you open a tracker screen for a different pet, the app disconnects the tracker it was linked to and connects the new one instead. It won't hold two at once.
Which screens move the connection
Opening any of these for a pet claims that pet's tracker:
- The GPS Tracker map screen
- Activity & stats
- The tracker settings screens — Tracker light, Training Sounds, Tracker info and Power Saving Zones
- Starting a walk
- The tracker setup wizard, straight after pairing
The link stays where you left it
Navigating away from a tracker screen does not drop the connection. It stays on the last pet whose tracker screen you opened — even while you're on the home screen or in chat — until a different pet's tracker screen claims it.
What only works on the connected tracker
While a tracker isn't the connected one, these Bluetooth-powered features aren't available for that pet:
- Radar, the close-range finder that walks you the last few metres in
- Vibration on the Training Sounds screen — vibration can only be sent over Bluetooth (training sounds can also go over the mobile network)
- Walk recording, which pauses the moment the link drops
- Location updates with no mobile coverage, where a nearby phone takes over so the map keeps moving
Please note: If you open another pet's tracker screen while a walk is running, the walk will pause itself, because its Bluetooth link has moved. Finish or pause the walk first, then switch pets.
Getting the link back
Reopen that pet's GPS Tracker screen and give it a moment — the app reconnects on its own. You never need to re-pair, and nothing is lost from the pet you switched away from: their tracker keeps reporting over its own mobile connection the whole time.
Please note: Bluetooth work needs the Ask A Vet app open on screen. If you lock your phone or switch apps, the link isn't maintained in the background.
Two rules that are easy to mix up
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| One tracker per phone | The rule in this article. Your phone links to a single tracker at a time. |
| One phone per tracker | Once a phone connects, the tracker stops advertising itself, so a second phone can't connect until the first disconnects. |
Related articles - My phone won't connect to the tracker over Bluetooth - I signed in on a second phone and the tracker never connects - What still works when your tracker has no mobile signal