Give your pets a digital squeal

A pet tracker has a particularly grueling set of requirements: small, light, rugged, incredibly long battery life, safe for the pet, and cheap. [Mihai Cuciuc] was looking at the options and wasn't thrilled with any of them. So, like any hacker would, he launched his own, dubbed Squeak.

It uses an RN2483 module as it is a LoRAWAN module with publicly available firmware from Microchip itself. This means that [Mihai] could add his code and keep the modem code without having to reverse engineer everything or add a second microcontroller. In addition to the modem, there is a GPS unit connected via UART. The smart part is the dual voltage regulators - the one that powers the GPS is turned on or off by the RN2483. In addition, the V_BACKUP RAM line is always powered, which means that the RN2483 can power the GPS and allow it to get a quick fix (thanks to the RAM backup line).

To maximize a packet's chance of getting through, he only gave them what was strictly necessary. There are return packets to change the tracker mode (like uplink interval or GPS capture frequency). With some cloud support, [Mihai] created an infrastructure to capture packets and relay them to Telegram. It can request the last location, receive updates and change modes.

We've got you covered if you want to track some of your dog's other habits.