Invoxia is a brand already known for its innovative tracking solutions and they now present the MiniTailz Tracker designed to monitor both the dogs’ health and location. This tracker has won seven international awards, including a CES 2024 Innovation Award in the AI category, highlighting its unique features in the field of dog trackers.
Its features are similar to their previous Invoxia Smart Collar that we reviewed in 2023 but that was bulkier and came as a full-collar design. The Smart Collar is now discontinued and Minitailz offers the same functionality packed into a much smaller device to fit smaller dogs as well.
Invoxia MiniTailz
Location & Health Tracker for Dogs
A comprehensive GPS and health monitoring device that tracks your dog's location, activity, and well-being in real-time.
Disclaimer: this review contains affiliate links, which support Dog Gear Review if you purchase the product after clicking on it without costing you anything extra. Using affiliate links will never compromise us in writing unbiased, honest reviews!
How does the MiniTailz work?
The Minitailz Dog Tracker is a cell-based tracker therefore it operates using a subscription plan, which you can select through the mobile application during setup. It connects via Bluetooth 5.3, LTE-M, and Wi-Fi to ensure consistent performance.
The tracker works in the United States, Mainland France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden and Finland. It does not work well in the UK due to poor LTE-M coverage.
The Module
The Minitailz tracker is designed to be compact and durable. It has an IP67 rating, making it dustproof and capable of withstanding short-term immersion in fresh water. The rechargeable battery can provide up to 15 days of usage (highly dependent on settings) and it can be charged with a USB charging cable.
While their previous Smart Collar had a big module integrated into a collar, the MiniTaiz tracker can be added to any 1" collar that has a bit of extra length around the dog’s neck so you can continue using and buying any collars you like.
Location Tracking
GPS tracking provides position updates every 2, 5, or 10 minutes based on the selected frequency, allowing for location monitoring. You can also find unlimited location history in the app. Smart geolocation combining Bluetooth, a Wi-Fi positioning System, and GPS, ensures optimal coverage and precision in tracking. The collar’s AI algorithm enhances accuracy and allows for delivering personalized insights about your dog’s activities and whereabouts.
New features compared to the Smart Collar we have used before are the live mode, fencing, escape alerts, and “find nearby” which further enhance the collar’s capabilities.
The app has a list of customizable push notifications to choose from:
- Tracker-wearing notification: triggered when the tracker is put on / taken off
- Walk: when the dog starts a walk or finishes it
- Zoomies: sent when the dog starts running or being hyper
- Barking: triggered by extended barking
- Transport: when it recognizes that a dog is moving in a vehicle
These alerts are sent both when the event starts and when finishes. The phone’s push notifications worked well with my Garmin watch (this is not an app for a watch). These alerts are also sent to you if you are remotely monitoring the dog and are not nearby.
Zoomies alert
Transport alert
Activity & Health Tracking
MiniTailz provides comprehensive health and activity tracking features to understand your pet’s well-being better. They use AI to detect active minutes automatically and distinguish between various activities.
The full list of activities currently tracked in the app (1/23/2025) are:
- Daily Active time chart
- Walking
- Running
- Trotting
- Resting
- Transport
- Being petted (beta only)
- Playing (beta only)
- Eating (beta only)
- Drinking (beta only)
- Barking (beta only)
Daily activity breakdown
New features in beta testing when writing this review
The collar also includes Resting Heart & Resting Respiratory Rate features, enabling pet owners to establish baseline vital signs and identify abnormal changes. By examining the resting heart rate, resting respiratory rate, and a unique heart signature (a geometrical representation of heartbeats), the collar aids in the early detection of signs related to heart disease. Invoxia has developed a patent-pending range of sensors paired with artificial intelligence algorithms to extract digital biomarkers to draw conclusions on pathologies, aging, and stress levels (research in progress).
To collect these measurements, the dog needs to wear the collar 24/7 over a longer period as the data is only collected when the dog is resting and it takes time to establish the baseline and analyze patterns.
Resting Heart & Resting Respiratory Rate
Heart signature
Invoxia MiniTailz Review
It was a great and smooth experience using the Invoxia MiniTailz tracker. It does a good job of combining health data with GPS tracking features and doing both on a level that is useful and seems to be accurate.
While I was happy with the battery life and quick charging, the 15-day is a very best-case scenario with a dog being closeby so most of the communication can be done via Bluetooth and with the refresh rates being pretty slow. I usually got around 8-10 days of battery time but was pushing it with the fastest updates. We did a 4-day road trip while testing the tracker and while it worked very well across many states, it had around 5-6 day battery life while being away from wifi and being out and about.
On slow weeks while mostly staying home and not adventuring much, it is possible to reach the 15-day battery time but again, that is not with active use and quick refresh.
We live in an area with spotty cell coverage so the location tracking can be spotty for many trackers. However, the MiniTailz did a great job logging daily walks, and the tracks rarely had those outlier points when it suddenly puts a location point a mile away, messing up your track. I assume the latter is thanks to the AI adjusting these logs. While the historical tracks can have inaccuracies, when I pulled up the app to check on the live location, it always showed the correct spot.
I also really enjoyed the Daily reports that give you an AI-generated summary and analysis of how your dog’s day was based on all the data it collected that day. Zulu usually doesn’t wear collars at home so we usually lacked the health data but it still provided a nice summary and it was great to have all the information in one place, in an easily consumable way.
Location tracking while driving and last known location
Daily Reports
The metrics I can easily distinguish seemed more or less accurate with Zulu. I got accurate and quick notifications about starting walks, transport, and zoomies, however, the “stopped” notifications sometimes came in with a more significant lag (5-10 minutes even when the fastest refresh is set).
Midway into testing the tracker we had a week when the tracker started sending all notifications in batches a few times a day. I contacted their customer support who helped me fix the issue which probably originated from a phone software update. The notifications worked accurately after that.
Beta features like being petted and barking were a bit inaccurate for us while “transport” is triggered pretty quickly and accurately most of the time.
I have a hard time evaluating the accuracy of the health data, but the charts align with what I would expect based on the times when we are out for a walk or playing and when she is resting. Zulu is a young dog who shouldn’t have heart issues so I didn’t see anything on the data that would indicate otherwise. I would love to see the same on a dog who is known to have issues with these.
Many assume that this collar needs to be tight to collect the measurements, but it is supposed to fit as a regular one. It collects health measurements when the dog rests and puts their weight on the collar. Their FAQ page confirms that “The heart rate and breathing data are collected exclusively at rest. A continuous recording during several sets of ten-minutes-per-ten-minutes of sleep is necessary to have a representative average of the Resting Heart Rate and the Resting Respiratory Rate”
The app is easy to use, with good UX/UI and an intuitive menu system. I like that you can break down most stats to see a daily, weekly, or monthly view, which allows you to check trends or dive deep into the details. The only thing I miss is being able to set an activity goal and see how you are progressing/trending with that.
We ran into one problem with the metal ring that is used to attach the tracker to the collar. The first one snapped open after three months of use for an unknown reason. Zulu is not a strong puller and many times she wears a harness so the pressure is not on the collar, so I am still unsure why that snapped. There are two rings in the package (one black and one silver) so I continued using the module with the second one and haven’t run into a problem with that one so far.
I would probably recommend adding the module to the other side of the collar - away from the leash attachment point to minimize the force on that ring from any potential leash pulling.
Invoxia MiniTailz Functionality Review
- Is the Invoxia MiniTailz a good option if I’m worried about my dog getting loose and running away?
None of the trackers we tested so far worked perfectly in every situation, which is why it’s important to note that these are still only backups for emergencies, not a replacement for training and regularly practicing good recall. So far, the location tracking has worked seamlessly, but the fencing/started walking notifications can have a bit of a lag especially if you have a small yard where the WiFi covers the entire area or even outside of it.
We received all started walking notifications within 1-2 minutes which is aligned with the 2-minute update rate we had set.
- Is the Invoxia MiniTailz a good option for tracking how much my dog is running around while we are hiking?
It logged in our activities pretty accurately, but it doesn’t count steps or the distance, so you will only have the activity time and the breakdown of how much of that was spent with running, trotting, etc. The track will also not be a step-by-step track to see how the dog was ranging out from you, as the track followed the trails. It does show multiple tracks for the dog while playing fetch in a park.
- Is the Invoxia MiniTailz a good option to track my dog’s overall activity level?
This collar does a good job of logging the time spent with each activity (playing, walking, etc.), and each of these metrics can be checked on a timeline in a daily, weekly, and monthly view.
- Is the Invoxia MiniTailz a good option to check on my dog while they are with a dog sitter or at the doggie daycare?
You can use the MiniTailz for remote monitoring, as you can pull the same stats through the cell network. We put this to the test and I received timely activity notifications even while I was on another continent.
Using a tracker to keep the dog safe?
We can’t push enough that connectivity and coverage can be spotty or interrupted by the environment and cause problems outside the tracker’s responsibility. The technology also relies closely on your phone, providing accurate location - which is better for some phones and worse for others. A tracker is a good backup and can be a lifesaver in emergencies, but any electronics can and will have blind spots. We see many people getting lazy with recall training or keeping an eye on the dog because they have a tracker. Please don’t expect any smart collar/ tracker to keep your dog safe because only you can do that. Knowing their location or getting a notification that they left without you will not keep them from being run over before you get there.
Invoxia MiniTailz Review Summary
I have really enjoyed using the Invoxia MiniTailz tracker and I believe it deserves more publicity among the dog trackers. Even besides their innovative health-tracking features, the location-tracking capabilities are already impressive. Receiving the timely notifications gave me peace of mind, especially during road trips or while I was out of the country.
It is important to understand that no tracker will ever get everything perfectly right and if you are facing any issues, I recommend reaching out to their customer support to discover why it is happening and how it can be resolved as the coverage and the phone’s settings also have a significant result in usability and user experience.
While I didn’t find the module bulky on Zulu, I wish there would be a better/alternative way to attach the tracker to the collar - maybe just with the addition of another loop or ring across the module once it is on the collar to have a backup in case the ring breaks. I also wish it could be added to wider collars as most of ours are wider than 1" but this size works reasonably well for a wide range of dogs. An alternative collar attachment option would solve all the cons I can think of when recommending this tracker.
Invoxia MiniTailz
Location & Health Tracker for Dogs
A comprehensive GPS and health monitoring device that tracks your dog's location, activity, and well-being in real-time.
Disclaimer: this review contains affiliate links, which support Dog Gear Review if you purchase the product after clicking on it without costing you anything extra. Using affiliate links will never compromise us in writing unbiased, honest reviews!
