> Whistle’s GPS Pet Tracker makes it easier to keep tabs on your pet’s fitness, with a collar that keeps track of steps. Know if your dog walker gave Fluffy a good workout, by checking in with Whistle’s connected app. Whistle’s activity trackers help you set your pet’s fitness goals, track progress and compare stats to other similar dogs.
> Whistle GPS Pet Tracker combines the best on-collar GPS tracking device with a simple mobile app, putting your pet’s needs and location right at your fingertips whenever you need it. It’s also the first device and app system to combine location-tracking and smart activity monitoring into one simple experience.
The Tagg acquisition discussed in the TechCrunch article was to add GPS capability to the fitness tracker. Products that start 'frivolously' often develop into something more important.
In my opinion the criticism is valid. Whistle solved a dumb problem (fitness tracking for dogs) and made a dog GPS service worse.
My sister has a grown Australian Shepherd with a Whistle tracker and she rescued a younger Aussie last year during the record cold spell in the Midwest. She didn't have a tracker on the younger one yet and soon after she brought it home, it bolted out the door into her fenced-in yard, jumped their ~4 foot tall fence and ran off. Her and her boyfriend spent 3 days searching during below zero weather until someone found it dead on the side of a road about 5 miles from their house.
If they had a tracker on their rescue it'd still be alive today, so feel free to mock "unimportant problems" but they often have important consequences.