Thousands Of Dogs Disappear Annually From Their Owners – Spåra GPS Tracker Helps To Find Them
A dog is walking with Spåra´s harness. Photo: Spåra

Thousands Of Dogs Disappear Annually From Their Owners – Spåra GPS Tracker Helps To Find Them

One out of three pets go missing during its lifetime, and out of these pets, around 16 percent are dogs. Most pet-owners only look for their pets in their home neighbourhood and are therefore not able to find their dog if it has strayed further away.  Spåra is a company that sell tracking devices and together with OSM we have develop a solar-charged dog tracker, using Exeger Powerfoyle as the power source, to help dog owners track down their lost best friends.

Having designed and developed several Powerfoyle integrated products previously, OSM was well placed for the challenge of ensuring people's best friend wouldn’t get lost in the wilds.

– This is a true example of advanced engineered soft goods melding with electronics. The nexus of the design was Powerfoyle itself, as the drain and gain study sun, ambient light captured, balanced with power consumption to ensure none or little mains charging had already been conducted and cell size determined. The key challenge was integrating the cell and connecting to the tracker dock, within an IPX6 fabric-based ‘housing’, says Simon Masters , Senior Director, Design & RD, OSM GROUP .

Owner does not need to think about changing batteries

Spåra Hunds GPS is easy to put on the harness, and with the Powerfoyle it is charged both with inside and outside lighting, which means that the owner does not need to think about changing any batteries.

What is the Key function of this product?

– The key factors to make this product work were protecting connective elements between the cell and the dock, waterproofing the cell, and the removable tracking device inside its housing. We also thought about the ease of assembly and how easy the positioning on the animal as well as being robust in the field, says Simon Masters .

The overall construction and assembly decided upon was a series of various material layers, one being semi-rigid to act as a chassis for all other materials to fix and bond to, the others adding padding or circuitry protection. Sealing the cell for IPX6 was achieved by the use of a 600D ripstop polyester, curtain kiss coated with TPU and Bemis bonded to the frame of the cell. 

Internally, the cell was sealed in the same manner to create a waterproof envelope around the cell and FPC and dock connections. Attachment to the harness itself was buying more traditional means of cut, and sew, Velcro, and various hardware.

OSM’s Key Undertaking

  • Use case understanding and SOW developed around this
  • Product ideation
  • Soft goods/electronics integration engineering
  • Mechanical engineering (GPS tracker housing)
  • NPI/Mass Production
  • Packaging Design  

 

Facts: OSM Group is a manufacturing company that has created brand excitement since 2004 with 100's millions of successful, high-quality products shipped to market. We make everything from on-trend retail-ready engineered soft goods to consumer and industrial electronics products for global brands. Our services include end consumer-driven design, product development, scalable mass production with retail packaging and supply chain management solutions. We operate globally and have our business centres located in major cities around the world including Dallas, Dongguan, Huizhou, Hong Kong, Delhi, Seoul, and Stockholm.

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