News
WOW! Where to start with our report? The past weeks have been almost overwhelming. It is difficult to summarize all the impressions, experiences and test results. Now we are even more motivated to involve as many of you as soon as possible by delivering the collar to you. We can tell you one thing for sure: there is hardly a nicer experience than to see a beloved cat (presumably) disappeared and then retrieved with the petTracer GPS cat collar. To witness the relief and pleasure of the cat owners is the sweetest confirmation our project has yet received.
Review
Although the weather has been rather bad for the last few weeks … or because of this we could test very successfully.
Battery life test
– the collar remained in the same position and measured 480 position over 5 days. This is 4 per hour or one position every 15 minutes. For comparison, other devices measure just 42 positions and are empty within 10 hours even though they are bigger and bulkier and have an up to 3 times bigger battery capacity. As you can see, our collar is now extremely efficient!
– the collar was worn by a highly active cat and the battery lasted 49h with a very high number of position measurements (378).
– the aim of the current test is to find suitable settings for the battery to last for approx. 4 weeks. Current calculations show that this will be possible.
Robustness test
– None of the collars broke during the tests! No matter how many times the collar had been put on and taken off the cats. Not matter if the weather was wet, cold, sunny, snowy or there was hail, the electronics and the collar case held flawlessly.
Stresstest
This week we will start our laboratory stress test. The collar will be bent by a robot under the most adverse conditions.
Range tests
The radio antenna and electronics have now been optimally adapted to the final case material. We have achieved an incredibly high range under best conditions. Under standard conditions a large area can be well covered. None of the test cats had left the radio range.
The movement detector
Thanks to the integrated motion sensor, we now know if and when a cat moves. This information can be used in a variety of ways. For example if it makes sense to actually determine a GPS position or not.
Safety Buckle Test
The safety buckle works reliably (same as in the first field test) and we are confident that it will do so in the future. We did a little re-design but are still using the same well tested buckle.
Other long-term tests
We will now continue to involve more testers (already selected) and carry out long-term tests. This is important for us to gain even more experience and to have constant data for our web portal. This ensures the efficiency of the development of our web portal.
Final Development & Innovation
On the basis of the test results, we can now claim that our innovation & development stage for the hardware (collar & receiver) has been completed. We are now focusing on completing our web portal and Smartphone apps as well as the optimization of the production processes, manufacturing aids, tooling manufacturing and the completion of the test software for mass production. Furthermore we have to take care of the electronics acquisition and are waiting for the contract of the first mass production.
Best wishes and see you soon.
Alan & Claudio