Preserving battery life when you’re with your dog or at home is important to ensure your dog’s Fi Collar has as much battery as possible if your dog were to escape and remote tracking is needed. See: How Do I Improve Battery Performance for My Dog’s Fi Collar?
Understanding your collar's connection source is helpful for many reasons, including maximizing battery life. See: What Is the Best Connection Source for My Dog’s Fi Collar? The information below will help you understand how to avoid situations that drain your dog's collar battery most quickly.
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Conditions That Drain Battery Life
1️⃣ 📡 Powering on the GPS/LTE Chips when not needed (Lack of Connectivity to Fi App and/or Fi Base/Wi-Fi indoors)
If your dog is away from the Fi Base/Wi-Fi and without a human who has the Fi App installed on their smartphone, GPS/LTE will be used to confirm your dog’s location - which requires the greatest battery usage. This should only happen if your dog is lost and you need to track them remotely. Otherwise:
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Keep Fi App Running in Background at all times. For maximum battery life, the Fi App should be installed on your smartphone, and running in the background. See: Why Is It Important to Keep My Fi App Running at All Times?
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Add caretakers and other owners to Fi App. When your dog is not with you, but with a friend, caretaker, or family member, they should also have the Fi App installed and open. See:
- Set up your Travel, Daycare or Boarding system. See:
2️⃣ ❗️"Your Fi Charging Base Appears to be Offline" Error
The Fi App will alert you if your Fi Base goes offline. See: Troubleshooting: Your Fi Charging Base Appears to be Offline
3️⃣ 🏗 Metal Crates/Buildings
If your dog's crate or kennel is made of metal, it can interfere with the Bluetooth connection between the collar and base and decrease coverage. You may need to move the base significantly closer in range for metal crates than other rooms/areas in your home. See: Where Should I Set Up My Fi Base?
4️⃣ ❄️ 🥵 Extreme Temperatures
Extreme temperatures can cause faster battery drain. Ensure your collar is never in extreme heat or cold weather.
5️⃣ 🔴 Using "Live Tracking/Lost Dog" Mode
In Live Tracking/Lost Dog Mode the Fi Collar will try to obtain your dog's remote position by powering on LTE and GPS chips and requesting an update to your dog's location. This mode will cause the largest battery drain and should only be used when you are trying to locate your dog, not for daily activity tracking. See: How Do I Turn ON/OFF Live Tracking/Lost Dog Mode?
5️⃣ 🔎 Lack of LTE
If your dog is indoors without any other connection sources, or in a remote location where there is no AT&T LTE-M network coverage, the Fi Collar may not be able to communicate with Fi's Servers. In these cases, the Fi Collar will automatically calibrate to ensure updates are sent, while preserving battery life, but extended periods of being without LTE will impact battery life. See: How Will I Know If the Fi Collar Has Cellular Coverage in My Area?