Halo Collar 4, All New GPS Wireless Dog Fence & Dog Training Collar with GPS Tracker, Subscription Required, Waterproof, One Size, Graphite

A daily review: Day 1: Directions are easy to follow, with short video demos also. Ninja is wearing the collar comfortably with only "two fingers slack" beneath it. I won't cut the VERY long collar until we are sure we will keep this; a zip tie is holding the loose end for now. PS It was delivered one day earlier than projected- nice jumpstart for training... Day 2: Training is going well. He has already learned the whistle encouragement in our lessons. Taking our time, no rushing as I want to do it right. Also, the collar went almost two days on first charge. It is nice to get the collar status on the app so you know when battery is getting low. Stay tuned for day 3. Skipping forward to day 6: Recap of the past few days is that we were busy with other things and didn't do much training. However, we have been consistent with the whistle training; this training is so easy to do. Today Ninja was very tired when we returned home from a fun weekend at our camper. His fatigue was perfect for training this afternoon. On a very loose leash, he chose to not go beyond the boundaries. He stopped walking and turned around- you could tell he was "catching on" that the warning and boundary feedbacks were enough. The level 4 for "emergency" seems to be working but when he is more spunky tomorrow, I will see if he still stays put even if there is something enticing over the boundary ( I will put steak fat and steak pieces within his scent area, but outside of his range). My only negative feedback so far is regarding the set up-having so many choices for the encouragement and prevention settings. The settings we chose are (for encouragement) the "long whistle, level 5:; we have "double paw tap" for warning and "buzz" for the boundary. I still am not sure if these are the best for him or if any one of them would do the job. Also, once you create a fence, make sure to turn on feedback- it took me awhile to figure out why the fence wasn't activated! I like that I am not the "bad guy"; I am not scolding, pursuading, or pulling on the leash. To Ninja, his boundary is now clearly consistent so there is no uncertainty So far, I am really impressed... It is expensive, but if it ends up working, what is my beloved dog's life worth? I had been nervous as it seemed like there were very mixed reviews. This has now taken less than a week- this wasn't even delivered til just 6 days ago. Ninja hasn't been traumatized in any way. Yes, he has had to learn some lessons that were not fun and enjoyable, but these lessons beat getting hit by a car, shot by an angry neighbor if he trespasses on their livestock, getting lost, or caught in some coyote trap. In the meantime, this beautiful, one year old, 50+ lb rescue dog is now enjoying exploration and life outside of a shelter....feeling sunshine and love and hopefully soon exploring 15 acres. Stay tuned. Day 7 and likely my final review: We are sold on this system. This morning, Ninja saw a rabbit and did try to chase it. He quickly came back home and we can see on the map that he had gone into the emergency area. He also went into a different emergency area (by the road) a few hours later. I know this isn't the most pleasant experience for him but again it beats him getting hit by a car or causing some kind of an accident (especially when a side by side goes by or horseback riders). We know that with time he will learn the boundaries and really enjoy his freedom. This is a very impressive system. Hoping that there won't be any glitches in the future. PS the battery is going strong with 24 hours left. A nightly charge is perfect. Day 8: One more thing... I know this post is long- you are debating buying an almost $600 item so, you want to be sure and you are reading this. I saw a few reviews that say the collar loses signal and you can't see feedback. I only know from our experience that it loses signal when Ninja is right next to the house- this makes sense and is no big deal as he is safe there. Day 10- I got nervous and had my doubts when I got notifications that the connection was lost, especially when Ninja was down in the trees and I couldn't see him. Then I read that this may be due to a weaker wifi ( country living) and that the fence is always on due to it relies on GPS. It was scary to not do live tracking and stunk that I couldn't use the whistle command, but it was very reassuring to see him come back even when he was under trees and in heavy brush. I continue to be impressed!

Update at the bottom... I still stand by my original review (unedited here), but I've got updates (good ones) about my interaction with the company.-----------------------------------------------------Man, I really wanted to like this. I've used an old-school buried wire invisible fence in the past, and it worked great. I wanted something I could take to the in-laws' farm, though, and hoped this would work. I just kept running into problems, though.1) the first one I got locked up and wouldn't boot after about a week. Ran through all of the online steps. Then called tech support. He was very friendly, but he had me run through all the same steps again. Then sent it back for replacement. OK. Fine. These things happen.2) Indoor training went OK.3) Outdoor training was tough. Here's the BIGGEST PROBLEM. Feedback is uncertain in BOTH SPACE AND TIME. Details:3a) There are pretty big distance errors in WHERE the thing goes off. Sometimes 1 foot beyond the boundary. Sometimes 30. I know this because I carried it around myself to test. So, I don't really know how to align MY feedback with the collar's feedback while training. I can't actually tell when the thing is going off, you see. I can't hear it outside when he's 20 feet away. Wait... I know, the app notifies me when the dog gets feedback.3b) there are many seconds between when the collar gives feedback and when you get the notification. Again, I tested myself with the collar in my hand. So I have no way of knowing when my dog is getting feedback... not with enough precision to help with training. The training solution I finally landed on was to turn off fences completely and manually hit the feedback buttons when he got to the yard boundary. That worked OK for a while, but... I don't need so much tech and a subscription for that!4) the stupid collar just keeps loosening. I have to tighten it every stinking day.5) After training, the dog doesn't really understand the feedback because it seems to happen at random places and times. After about a week, this totally eroded the training. Also, the dog eventually decided that he doesn't CARE about the feedback. I don't blame Halo for that last bit. My dog is legitimately crazy.6) you really can't turn the thing off. I don't mean "you shouldn't". I mean "you can't". It does not have an "off" function. It must be on the dog or on the charger. If you leave it unused on a shelf, it will drain the battery just as if the dog were wearing it. You MUST put it on the charger every night if you expect it to work the next day. I get why they did this; so you don't have it on the dog thinking everything is good, when it's not. See note below about training philosophy. But come on... some family member will take it off because it looks so huge and uncomfortable (or we go out for a walk). Telling them to turn it off would be easier than telling them to run downstairs to use the...7) SINGLE PROPRIETARY CHARGER you get.... the one that magnetically attaches to the collar port that's usually covered up by the cloth wrap so you need to wiggle and twist it until the little light starts blinking. Or if you're like my kids, get it close enough for the magnet to attach, but not actually close enough to charge.8) OK, fine. So this isn't keeping the dog in the yard. I'll whip up a physical fence real quick. I'll keep it on him as an overpriced tracker because he's a new dog and it's a new fence, so... you know... lets set the Halo up to notify me when he runs off.... you know... out of the zone.9) oh, man, the notification situation is bad bad bad.... more sub-bullets coming9a) you don't actually get location notifications. you get FEEDBACK notifications. So, if I turn off the feedback (which isn't working for my dog), then I don't get notifications when he leaves the yard. Sigh... OK, I guess I can turn some of those back on.9b) there's no granularity with their notifications. Everything gets sent exactly the same way, so "your dog is in the highway" is the same as "we're having a sale on the thing you already bought and don't like!"9c) the only way to get notifications on other devices (like my kids' tablets) is to log in to the Halo app AS ME on their devices. Giving them full access to "shock him now at full power" capability. So... I guess if I'm not home, the kids will need to call me? And I'll look at the map on MY PHONE?9d) maybe I can get notifications some other way... if they had an API... or email... or text... or web interface, I could filter based on content, and flash a smart light or something. NOPE. The ONLY communication is between Halo Collar, Halo Servers, and Halo app. They DO NOT communicate with ANY OTHER SERVICE. No API, no email, no text... nothing. You will use the app notifications (including marketing BS) and you will like it.9) one of the stupid static pins fell out. The ones they told me to hand-tighten only? Yeah, that. It's gone. Probably in the yard somewhere. Not a big deal I guess, since I stopped letting it zap the dog randomly.All of their marketing and packaging is pretty slick and flashy. I actually think their technical engineering is pretty good, too. There's A LOT going on in that collar. They've got some good EEs. But man, everything else about it was just a hot mess. I'm switching over to a dedicated tracker that integrates with other stuff. Now that I built a physical fence, I don't really need the zappy zappy. Not sure about the farm solution, yet.Training philosophy: the idea behind this kind of collar is very very different from a traditional wire-in-the-ground collar. With the wire in the ground, you train the dog to NEVER GO WHERE they will get a shock. With this kind of collar, you train them to turn back at the beep BEFORE they get the shock. With the wire-in-the-ground style, what happens if you forget the collar? Nothing. The dog still doesn't want to go to the ouchy place. With this style, what happens if you forget the collar or the battery is dead? The dog never gets the "time to turn back" signal. I'm not blaming Halo. For the first style, you really do need very high precision, and you just can't get that with GPS. This is the only way Halo CAN do it. It's just fragile. You need the collar ALL THE TIME. If you forget the collar, forget to charge it, or the dog slips out the door, you're kinda out of luck.--------------------------------------------Update: After (like, pretty darned soon after) I left the above review, I was contacted by Halo. I was a little nervous about that.. it was a harsh review; fair, i think, but harsh. They were lovely. They thanked me for my "thoughtful review" (I did try to be thoughtful, so that acknowledgement was appreciated) and they invited me to talk to the engineering team. Not to help me troubleshoot my problems, but to give them feedback about how to improve their product. Unexpectedly fantastic.I did have that conversation with an engineer, and it was great. They chatted with me about some problems they were having trouble pinning down (collar loosening; those 1-in-a-thousand problems only show up AFTER you have thousands of users... I've been there), and acknowledged that some of my grumbles are on their "To Do List" (faster notifications of feedback via bluetooth vs internet) but, you know, they're prioritizing. All very reasonable. It really was a good conversation, and they clearly have an excellent culture about their product and their customers.In parallel, Halo reached out to me through Amazon and offered a refund. I had not asked for a refund in any form. I was past return windows. I was prepared to "eat it". So... that was a nice offer. I accepted.Bottom line, I REALLY like the company. I don't like the product yet. I know there's a newer version than the one I tried, but I'm going to wait a few more generations, and maybe let the insane puppy chill out a bit (one can hope). I will be more than happy to give them another shot in the future.Finally, this update is all me. They never suggested removing or changing this review. I was just so deeply impressed with the professionalism of the company that I wanted to share. They really are the kind of people I WANT to do business with :)