My Tracking Story
I’ve been using the Mictrack MT710 for over a year now, mainly to keep an eye on my two dogs.
At first, I was excited to have a reliable GPS tracker—it worked as expected, with a good GPS fix and no connectivity issues.
However, I ran into problems with the expected battery life. I had misunderstood some of the instructions, which led to unnecessary connections to the server, causing excessive battery drain. Instead of lasting as expected, the device would run out of power much faster than it should.
Fortunately, I was using a tracking server that allowed me to monitor connection frequency and view raw TCP messages. Additionally, my SIM provider enabled me to track network connections, base stations, and data transfer. Thanks to these tools, I quickly realized that something was wrong—in Mode 8, the device wasn’t behaving as expected. Without this debugging capability, I might have wrongly blamed the device itself, but in reality, it was a misconfiguration.
I reached out to Mictrack’s support team, and I have to say—they were fantastic! They patiently guided me through the correct setup and explained what I had done wrong. Thanks to their help, everything started working perfectly.
Now, I use two MT710 devices, and the difference is like night and day. The battery lasts much longer (4 days with three walks per day, totaling around 6 hours of tracking, with location updates every 30 seconds and some battery left for dog safety). I make sure to charge it before the battery drops below 3.5–3.6V, which helps maintain longevity. One thing I really appreciate is having access to all key parameters, including battery voltage, which is more informative for a technical person. For non-technical users, a web service could simplify this data for easier interpretation.
The MT710 is a very reliable device, especially once I took the time to understand how it works. That said, there’s always room for improvement. In next generation maybe a bluetooth tag for sleep mode instead of relying on Wi-Fi APs could help conserve battery life. Maybe support for esim or softsim. Also, since the BG95 module uses ThreadX, it might be possible to eliminate the need for an external microcontroller, making the device even smaller.
The current size is fine for dogs, but for cats, it might be a little too big. Still, the trade-off between battery life and real-time tracking is something every pet owner needs to manage. If the battery drains completely, the tracker won’t work—and I wouldn’t be able to find or help my dogs.
Having this tracker has given me incredible peace of mind. As a pet owner, there’s nothing scarier than realizing your dog is missing—but with the MT710, I never have to worry. If one of them ever wanders too far, I can quickly locate them and bring them back home safely. Once my dog lost collar with tracker, after 30 minutes of walk we realize it (on pic the other dog is walking while the lost has stopped), it was easily found at the spot on map, lying in high grass.
Moreover, the price of the MT710 is very competitive compared to other devices that charge monthly fees. With the MT710, you can manage everything yourself using chosen solutions or selfhosted and your chosen network provider, making it a cost-effective option.
If you’re considering a GPS tracker for your pet, I highly recommend the MT710. It took me a little time to get it set up correctly, but once I did, it became an indispensable tool for keeping my pets safe.
Thank you Garin for support!