Halo Collar 4, All New GPS Wireless Dog Fence & Training Collar with Real-Time Tracking, Waterproof, One Size (4 Colors)

Keeps our Boy happy, safe, and gives us peace of mind
We rescued our pupper a little under a year ago shortly after moving into our first home together after closing. We have 2.2 acres with a 45mph highway to and about 1 acre in our front yard, corn to our south and west, and a creek separating us from our 11 acre neighbor’s property. It’s not a property we can fence in and even if we could it’s not a cost effective solution and problematic with our shared property with a farm, especially since we’re maintaining the previous owner’s handshake agreement of trading off some land from the west to the south for the farm’s use.For the first month our pupper did fine since he was timid learning his new home and getting used to things. We let him roam while attached to a 25 foot rope so he still had the freedom to run. As he got more comfortable we started to test things without the rope to see how well he knew and understood his boundaries and for another month he did amazingly well building a strong sense of trust in him from the start.Unfortunately shortly after he started to get too adventurous to the detriment of his safety. He would jump across the creek into our neighbors yard. He once got lost in the corn field for 20 minutes until I spotted him on the other side of the yard gallivanting happily like it was a non-issue that he could’ve gotten himself terribly lost deep within the corn field. And the worst was two instances, once while I was at work forcing my pregnant wife to hold him down and call her sister to come help and another time when he got away from me where he ran into the road almost getting hit by cars without a care in the world.We could go back to the rope full time but the rope had some flaws. The pup would sometimes attack the rope as he wasn’t the most fond of playing with it and training against it wasn’t easy. He would still be adventurous with the rope but it did make it easier to catch or prevent issues. And lastly he didn’t like to go full zoomie while attached.I found buried wires and after reaching out to our realtor learned from the previous owner the old electric fence wires were non-function so we started searching for wireless solutions. I thought strongly about buying a projection based fence from PetSafe where it shoots the fence based on a radius from a base station but our yard is a little too rectangular for that. I then found two GPS options, one from PetSafe that just released that was cheaper and had no subscription and Halo.I ultimately decided on Halo based on multiple factors, it already had a proven track record of success compared to the PetSafe GPS option and secondly it allowed for saving multiple virtual fences which was super useful for me as we have multiple family members nearby that we go to all the time especially with dogs of their own to allow them to play together.Once we received the Halo and I get it setup I started immediately with training our pup on the safe borders and what the beeping sounds meant. Use the rope I would give a light tug after a beep as we walked the borders and give him a treat. He was a super fast learner and in less than a week immediately understood that beeps meant return to safety. He would jut past the line occasionally which is where the vibration and shock feedbacks came in but after those occurred only a handful of times he never made those mistakes again. (I absolutely tested the shocks on my own neck first before doing it on him).The best part is now months later we can fully trust him on his own outside and know he is safe. We’ve had 0 incidents since training and using the Halo with crossing the creek, going into the corn, or even passing to the front yard. He loves it too because he gets more outdoors time, and when we play he has full reign.The only downside I’d say is it does suck having to pay a subscription but the service has only improved so I cannot complain. The app used to be slow to startup when I wanted to give him a whistle return command to come inside or to turn off the fence when we would be going for a car ride. Also the Halo was hard to turn off and on for awhile as we always took it off inside and would turn it off so we didn’t have to charge it every night as to not murder the battery. We only need it for outdoor usage. All of these issues have been fixed though which has been fantastic.Be prepared to adjust the fence posts a lot when initially setting up a fence as it takes a bit of tweaking to do everything based on GPS images. Also sometimes the GPS glitches when indoors so if you have fence posts close to the indoor structure I wouldn’t recommend wearing it while indoors.Overall I’d highly recommend this to anyone looking to give their dog the freedom to enjoy the outdoors safely!

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.
Update at the bottom… I still stand by my original review (unedited here), but I’ve got updates (good ones) about my interaction with the company.—————————————————–Man, I really wanted to like this. I’ve used an old-school buried wire invisible fence in the past, and it worked great. I wanted something I could take to the in-laws’ farm, though, and hoped this would work. I just kept running into problems, though.1) the first one I got locked up and wouldn’t boot after about a week. Ran through all of the online steps. Then called tech support. He was very friendly, but he had me run through all the same steps again. Then sent it back for replacement. OK. Fine. These things happen.2) Indoor training went OK.3) Outdoor training was tough. Here’s the BIGGEST PROBLEM. Feedback is uncertain in BOTH SPACE AND TIME. Details:3a) There are pretty big distance errors in WHERE the thing goes off. Sometimes 1 foot beyond the boundary. Sometimes 30. I know this because I carried it around myself to test. So, I don’t really know how to align MY feedback with the collar’s feedback while training. I can’t actually tell when the thing is going off, you see. I can’t hear it outside when he’s 20 feet away. Wait… I know, the app notifies me when the dog gets feedback.3b) there are many seconds between when the collar gives feedback and when you get the notification. Again, I tested myself with the collar in my hand. So I have no way of knowing when my dog is getting feedback… not with enough precision to help with training. The training solution I finally landed on was to turn off fences completely and manually hit the feedback buttons when he got to the yard boundary. That worked OK for a while, but… I don’t need so much tech and a subscription for that!4) the stupid collar just keeps loosening. I have to tighten it every stinking day.5) After training, the dog doesn’t really understand the feedback because it seems to happen at random places and times. After about a week, this totally eroded the training. Also, the dog eventually decided that he doesn’t CARE about the feedback. I don’t blame Halo for that last bit. My dog is legitimately crazy.6) you really can’t turn the thing off. I don’t mean “you shouldn’t”. I mean “you can’t”. It does not have an “off” function. It must be on the dog or on the charger. If you leave it unused on a shelf, it will drain the battery just as if the dog were wearing it. You MUST put it on the charger every night if you expect it to work the next day. I get why they did this; so you don’t have it on the dog thinking everything is good, when it’s not. See note below about training philosophy. But come on… some family member will take it off because it looks so huge and uncomfortable (or we go out for a walk). Telling them to turn it off would be easier than telling them to run downstairs to use the…7) SINGLE PROPRIETARY CHARGER you get…. the one that magnetically attaches to the collar port that’s usually covered up by the cloth wrap so you need to wiggle and twist it until the little light starts blinking. Or if you’re like my kids, get it close enough for the magnet to attach, but not actually close enough to charge.8) OK, fine. So this isn’t keeping the dog in the yard. I’ll whip up a physical fence real quick. I’ll keep it on him as an overpriced tracker because he’s a new dog and it’s a new fence, so… you know… lets set the Halo up to notify me when he runs off…. you know… out of the zone.9) oh, man, the notification situation is bad bad bad…. more sub-bullets coming9a) you don’t actually get location notifications. you get FEEDBACK notifications. So, if I turn off the feedback (which isn’t working for my dog), then I don’t get notifications when he leaves the yard. Sigh… OK, I guess I can turn some of those back on.9b) there’s no granularity with their notifications. Everything gets sent exactly the same way, so “your dog is in the highway” is the same as “we’re having a sale on the thing you already bought and don’t like!”9c) the only way to get notifications on other devices (like my kids’ tablets) is to log in to the Halo app AS ME on their devices. Giving them full access to “shock him now at full power” capability. So… I guess if I’m not home, the kids will need to call me? And I’ll look at the map on MY PHONE?9d) maybe I can get notifications some other way… if they had an API… or email… or text… or web interface, I could filter based on content, and flash a smart light or something. NOPE. The ONLY communication is between Halo Collar, Halo Servers, and Halo app. They DO NOT communicate with ANY OTHER SERVICE. No API, no email, no text… nothing. You will use the app notifications (including marketing BS) and you will like it.9) one of the stupid static pins fell out. The ones they told me to hand-tighten only? Yeah, that. It’s gone. Probably in the yard somewhere. Not a big deal I guess, since I stopped letting it zap the dog randomly.All of their marketing and packaging is pretty slick and flashy. I actually think their technical engineering is pretty good, too. There’s A LOT going on in that collar. They’ve got some good EEs. But man, everything else about it was just a hot mess. I’m switching over to a dedicated tracker that integrates with other stuff. Now that I built a physical fence, I don’t really need the zappy zappy. Not sure about the farm solution, yet.Training philosophy: the idea behind this kind of collar is very very different from a traditional wire-in-the-ground collar. With the wire in the ground, you train the dog to NEVER GO WHERE they will get a shock. With this kind of collar, you train them to turn back at the beep BEFORE they get the shock. With the wire-in-the-ground style, what happens if you forget the collar? Nothing. The dog still doesn’t want to go to the ouchy place. With this style, what happens if you forget the collar or the battery is dead? The dog never gets the “time to turn back” signal. I’m not blaming Halo. For the first style, you really do need very high precision, and you just can’t get that with GPS. This is the only way Halo CAN do it. It’s just fragile. You need the collar ALL THE TIME. If you forget the collar, forget to charge it, or the dog slips out the door, you’re kinda out of luck.——————————————–Update: After (like, pretty darned soon after) I left the above review, I was contacted by Halo. I was a little nervous about that.. it was a harsh review; fair, i think, but harsh. They were lovely. They thanked me for my “thoughtful review” (I did try to be thoughtful, so that acknowledgement was appreciated) and they invited me to talk to the engineering team. Not to help me troubleshoot my problems, but to give them feedback about how to improve their product. Unexpectedly fantastic.I did have that conversation with an engineer, and it was great. They chatted with me about some problems they were having trouble pinning down (collar loosening; those 1-in-a-thousand problems only show up AFTER you have thousands of users… I’ve been there), and acknowledged that some of my grumbles are on their “To Do List” (faster notifications of feedback via bluetooth vs internet) but, you know, they’re prioritizing. All very reasonable. It really was a good conversation, and they clearly have an excellent culture about their product and their customers.In parallel, Halo reached out to me through Amazon and offered a refund. I had not asked for a refund in any form. I was past return windows. I was prepared to “eat it”. So… that was a nice offer. I accepted.Bottom line, I REALLY like the company. I don’t like the product yet. I know there’s a newer version than the one I tried, but I’m going to wait a few more generations, and maybe let the insane puppy chill out a bit (one can hope). I will be more than happy to give them another shot in the future.Finally, this update is all me. They never suggested removing or changing this review. I was just so deeply impressed with the professionalism of the company that I wanted to share. They really are the kind of people I WANT to do business with 🙂

Extremely expensive collar that doesn’t work on my Great Pyrenees. She walks right through it even though I’ve tried doing the training with her and I’ve tried putting the shock on. It doesn’t phase her.Also, the prongs fall out very easily and you have to pay $20.00 and wait a few days for a new set to arrive. The clasp broke off as well.I tried to make the collar work, thinking something was wrong with it as it glitched out a few times. So, I would deal with the halo support people( who were amazing) they would fix the software problems, but when I finally admitted defeat and realized the collar wasn’t going to work, I was 6 days over the return date. Amazon won’t take it back. And even though I was dealing with software issues, which pushed me past my return date, the Halo collar company would not let me return it through them either.Now I am stuck with an extremely expensive dog tracking collar (which is the only thing it’s good for). On the bright side, I found a shock collar that she listens to, so I use the expensive halo dog tracking collar along with the shock collar that actually works and it keeps her in the boundary.. as long as I’m home to keep watch and press the shock collar remote. Just a tip for anyone else in the same frustrating boat as me.

We have an Alaskan Malamute, so she likes to be outside a lot of the time. We can leave her out there as much as she likes. When it is cooler she prefers to be outside and we have no issues leaving her out at night. Early on she tested the boundaries, but knows them now. She has about 5 acers for her to roam and we rarely get notifications that she is close to a boundary.