Acquisition sends thousands of Whistle pet trackers to IoT graveyard

Whistle pet trackers are headed to the Internet of Things (IoT) graveyard. After releasing its first product in 2013, the Seattle-based Whistle has just been acquired by a competitor that has decided to brick all of Whistle's smart GPS and activity monitors.

Tractive, an Austrian company that has also been selling Internet-connected GPS trackers for pets since 2013, on Monday announced its acquisition of Whistle from Mars Petcare, as spotted by The Verge. Mars Petcare is the pet food subsidiary of Mars Inc (which also makes candies like M&M’s), and it acquired Whistle in 2016 for $117 million.

Tractive bought Whistle to expand its business in the US. Until September 30, Whistle owners can get Tractive devices to replace the Whistle trackers that Tractive is bricking. People currently paying for a Whistle subscription will see their subscriptions transferred to their new Tractive device. People with a Whistle device but no subscription must “pay for a Tractive subscription” in order to get a replacement device, Tractive’s website says. Tractive subscriptions start at $108 per year.

Despite buying Whistle’s technology, Tractive says it would be too difficult to run both its own and Whistle’s platforms. Its website reads:

… maintaining and developing two separate ecosystems—devices, apps, and software—doubles the complexity and could limit the quality of service and innovation.

By unifying efforts under a single, powerful technology platform, Tractive can deliver new features and improvements faster, more reliably, and with greater impact for all users—including former Whistle customers.

Tractive devices have some features that Whistle products lack, such as resting heart rate and respiratory rate monitoring. Some Whistle users still aren’t sold on the switch, though, because Tractive devices don’t have all the features that Whistle’s product line has, including the Health 2.0 Smart Device’s efforts to track pets’ licking, scratching, eating, drinking, and sleeping.