Keep track of the things you love most with the Pod 3 Customizable GPS Tracker. This system helps you find your items virtually anywhere in the world at the touch of a button. This device can track anything from your backpack to your pet using four layers of technology. The Pod 3 uses GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even cellular connectivity. In addition, the cellular connectivity allows it to function in 175 different countries with unlimited range. Use the app to create a virtual fence, and, if your items leave this safe zone, Pod 3 will send you an alert. Additionally, you can monitor the activity of your items with the motion sensor alerts. Finally, you can even track and share the route of your adventures with the recording feature. In addition, Pod 3 is a modular system so you can create a tracker to suit your specific needs. Add on the XL battery, sound, light, ultrasonic, or power dock module to utilize the additional features.
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The Goods:
- Cat seemed to take the Pod without a problem. She's average size female cat, so we were worried it may be too big for her. We've attached it to her collar opposite to LoCator (more on that later) and she have been acting oblivious to the presence of now much larger cylinder right under her neck. - Pod is full choke of sensors, it would show position (but not triangulate) based on Bluetooth or WiFi signals and have better positioning if using GPS. - Activity Monitor and Security Zone are great concepts - feel like they are still underdeveloped - Adventure Recording is great too, just not for our cat. She's more then happy to snooze under the bush for hours and battery does not last that long. Perhaps we need to play with frequency of pooling - Changing batteries is piece of cake! Great concept, excellent execution. Maybe one advise is to mark positioning a bit better. Right now there is unlocked and locked symbols on the Pod that you are supposed to use as guidance. The problem is, when Pod is on a cat's collar and cat is not waiting patiently for you to replace the battery, the alignment may be a bit tricky. - The iPhone app was updated yesterday again - very happy to see that devs are constantly working on improvements and patches. There is even an iPad app, which is fantastic for such a small company. I know few examples of way bigger and more established companies that still lack a dedicated iPad app. - Annual contract price. It obviously varies by region and the what is affordable to one person would seem to be exuberant for another, but at least by USA standards, the price is well within the affordability level at close to $50 per year. Monthly charge seems pretty high, but if it is designed for a short term use (vacation), and can be renewed without issues, it's OK. The Not so goods:
- Several times Pod would not be able to refresh cat's location in various situations. Not sure why this is happening as we are blessed with very strong 3G signal from AT&T and good to strong signal from TMobile. And it happened even when cat was snoozing right in our feet on the bed. - WiFi locating needs to be improved or reworked. It may work in denser areas where there are dozens of WiFi networks and Google has a good database, but in our suburb area it would basically put our cat's location at the center of the house and be done. The problem is, our WiFi signal is pretty strong and easily reaches 50 yards from the house in most directions. So the cat can be virtually anywhere within this space. Just for reference, the area covering 50 yards is equal to ~ 70,500 square feet and the cat can easily fit within each and every one of them. For whatever reason, Pod does not seem to perform GPS location if it can detect WiFi. So why we know whereabouts of the cat, we don't know the actual location and good 5 years old LoCator is absolutely essential in finishing the search. The support web page states that Pod's purpose is to bring you within shouting distance of your pet. One small issue with this is that cats don't respond well to shouting if they respond at all. With our cat, I have to reach in the god damn bush if I want to retrieve her. Too early to say:
- Battery life. Definitely does not last 4-5 days even if all features are turned off. With safety zone turned on, you are lucky for it to last a single 24 hour window. But there are so many different settings that we are still learning the optimal compromise between functionality and longevity.
Bluetooth location - supposed to show you that you are close, but with no direction guidance I am not sure what is the purpose of this sensor beyond pulling data from the Pod. Seems more marketing gimmick then a useful feature.
For those of us who ordered the pod with additional modules when might we expect to receive them? Also are any retailers likely to receive modules ahead of backers?
Offering details in addition to what we already have to this group would have done little except unecessarily increase concerns and cause a stir. We genuinely apologise for the wait - we completely understand your frustration and know you want your products as soon as possible. At this stage, we're providing reimbursement for your inconveniences and are doing our very best to get your product to you as soon as humanly possible. Again, we recognize it's been a bumpy road and we should have held off on giving any ETA if we weren't 100% sure (despite constant requests for updates). Instead we took our best guess with the information we had at the time to tried to keep everyone in the loop. It's a tricky balancing act coming to market with a new tech product under the magnifying glass of an entire group of backers!! In the end, we hope you'll come around and see that we've had the best intentions along the way and the ultimate goal was to get the best possible product to you within the shortest amount of time while balancing other commercial obligations, resources and 3rd party suppliers.
The team obviously got a bit too optimistic in their projections of the release, but let's give them some space.
Your alternative, after all is what exactly? Going back to LoCator? Name another product on the market with similar capabilities? And I am not just talking about GPS trackers, but the ones that have modular structure, size, small enough to fit on a cat, WiFi and Bluetooth built-in, smart app to tie everything together, etc.
Let's all be civil and wait for our shipment notifications that should be coming very soon. And to the product team I sincerely hope you were able to flush all the major bugs out, because the storm of negativity you have to fight off right now would be nothing compared to the bad mouth you'll hear if after multi-month delays the Pod would still fail in everyday use.
They may have been deliberately held back because there are still various software / firmware bugs.
Alternatively, they were held back so the manufacturer can send it bulk around the world which is cheaper / more efficient for them.
You will be even more angry / upset if it arrived now with all the bugs. Hopefully they will resolve the issues within 2 weeks and your POD will arrive at the same time.
You promised in this update (after advising of yet another delay putting you 3 months behind schedule apparently because you guys got major investment from a telco in a country not applicable to me!) that by end of June I would receive botcstion of a confirmed shipping date....well guess what, I've had nothing! And boy am I cheesed off.
You stated "You have all received a fantastic discount on what is considered in market to be a premium product" but a discount on NOTHING is worth nothing. I'm starting to believe, likes number of other backers, that this has been nothing but a scam �
"Our manufacturer is now producing the remaining units as fast as possible while ensuring the quality meets our high standards. We will be shipping the orders on a rolling basis over the next few weeks and you should be receiving shipping notifications very soon." Weeks and weeks ago backers were given different stories before being told they had to be a beta tester if they wanted the unit. Now backers are being told that instead of sending out the units, they have all been held back until you have enough units for a retailer launch. This doesn't sound like a KickStarter premise to me? Seriously guys, if it takes 8 weeks for your manufacturer to make enough PODs for a kickstarter then you have a big problem. ps: I checked with somebody else and neither of us appear to have received any official communication regarding your compensation that was intimated earlier.. A lot of promises that are never fulfilled without chasing, and the same thing happens again next time. I hate to say it but you guys have a slow learning curve. Hopefully this is because you are techies and about to resolve all of these software / firmware bugs and deliver a reliable product that can return a GPS location on demand.