(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

Life360 is all about keeping track of the things that matter to you the most – and that's now extended to keeping track of your dog, thanks to a new GPS device.

Life360 is an app that allows you to keep track of your "Circle" – that might be a group of friends, but many use it as a family tracking app. It draws information from your phone so others can see where you are, where you've been and what state your phone is in.

That might sound like stalking and perhaps it is, but it's also a great way to keep tabs on the kids or your wider family, primarly designed around personal safety rather than snooping.

But your pets are also a part of that family and thanks to the new pet tracker from Life360, you can now add Fido into your Circle too.

The pet tracker is a compact GPS unit that you setup via your phone and then attach to your pet's collar. There's a USB-C port for charging – with charge expected to last around 14 days – and it's IP68 protected, so it should survive the worst of what your pet gets up to.

(Image credit: Life360)

The pet tracker has a small speaker and light on it, which can be activated through the app. This means you can have a light on your dog's collar for night walking, for example, or use the ringer to locate a cat that's trapped in a shed.

Once added to your Life360 app you can name your pet and add an image, after which they will appear just like other family members. The location of your pet will be accessible to everyone in your Circle, allowing family members to track where that pet is.

You can also set locations–- so you'll know that your pet is at home – and you can get alerts when it leaves home, so you'll know if the cat is out or the dog has escaped.

Because this is a GPS tracker with its own cellular connection it doesn't need to be connected to other devices, but can connect to Wi-Fi when at home to save battery life.

What happens if you lose your pet?

If your pet goes missing, you can activate Escaped Pet Mode. This will notify the members of your Circle to be on the lookout for your pet, while it also flashes the light on the pet tracker to make them easier to spot.

In theory, your pet shouldn't be "lost" because their location should still be shown thanks to the GPS. But there's the option to then send that lost pet alert out to the rest of the Life360 community for more help with locating that pet.

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

This works in the same way as a lost Tile (which is part of Life360 too) whereby other users can detect the lost pet tracker and that's anonymously reported back to you. The "finder" won't be alerted to the lost pet, you'll just get an updated location.

Thanks to the design of the pet tracker, the 14 days of battery life is backed up by 6 months in "low power reserve mode", which I suspect is the same as Tile's Bluetooth detection.

The downside to the Life360 pet tracker is that is requires a Gold (£9.99 a month) or Platinum (£19.99 a month) subscription. That bumps up the cost significantly, but includes breakdown assistance and other services that you'd have to examine to decide whether it was worth the expense.

That cost is really paying for the cellular connection in the device, to make sure the location data can be shared.

As for the pet tracker itself, it normally costs £49.99 – but it's currently available for just £3.60 from Life360 direct.