Why is Whistle's reported activity different than my fitness tracker?

Occasionally, you may see differences in the reported distance calculations for walks taken with your pet (and your pet's Whistle!) when compared to other fitness or GPS trackers. There are a few reasons for this, and one thing to keep in mind is that every electronic device is a little bit different - different hardware, software, and firmware - and this means that the calculated distances will all be slightly different. Whistle was also designed as a tracker for pets rather than humans and are worn differently than human devices.

Whistle will auto-categorize activities based on the intensity of the movement and that intensity plays a role in both how long a walk is recorded for and the distance traveled. A "Walk" event begins when the activity intensity reaches a certain threshold for a specific number of consecutive minutes, and ends when Whistle detects only low-intensity afterward for a specific number of consecutive minutes. 

Because we use the same activity algorithm for calculating activity at home (no GPS data available), while outside (does have GPS data available), and with our non-GPS-capable Whistle Fit, we don't currently leverage GPS data for activity, and the activity is not technically related to the GPS location of your pet at the time. The accompanying map for your walk may include tracked locations if you manually started a Find My Pet session while walking (otherwise, Whistle will rely on the background GPS check-ins that took place while outside your Safe Place). The distance of your "Walk" event does not rely on the GPS data gathered by the walk, and this is one reason the distance shown by Whistle may be different than what is shown on Google or other trackers. The other reason may be that the walk starts or stops at different times than expected, leading to an overall lower distance for the event.

Here are a couple of examples:

You leave the house with your pet and immediately start jogging. Whistle picks up high intensity activity, categorized as "Running." You jog for 2 miles on a well-known trail and return home. The distance calculated by Whistle would be approximately 2 miles because there was consistent high intensity activity throughout the entire journey.

On another walk, you leave the house and travel at a more leisurely pace on the same trail. Your dog still has a lot of energy but isn't running, so Whistle categorizes this event as "Walk." When you're a couple blocks from home, you stop to talk to a neighbor and your dog waits patiently. Whistle ends the "Walk" event here because no more intense activity is detected. The distance calculated in this instance would likely be around 1.8 miles, even though the journey taken is the same.

On your third walk, your dog miraculously still has enough energy to run back and forth excitedly at the end of the leash for several minutes upon seeing a squirrel. This high-intensity activity would register more activity points, and would therefore elevate the distance calculated by Whistle during the walk. The distance would logically be longer than what is tracked on human devices (unless you're chasing after the squirrel too, that is!) because the dog is running back and forth multiple times.

Because we want you to feel confident in the activity information provided by Whistle, we use all available resources to examine the data provided and evaluate its accuracy. As such, you may see )and be informed of) changes in the calculations over time as we strive to provide the best overall health and location pet tracker known to man's best friend.