Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Well, I was skeptical that this would work but for the most part it has. The range can be a limiting factor but if you are willing to walk around you increase your chance of becoming in range and finding your kitty. I did this and located where our errant Siamese was heading off to. I did this numerous times to figure out the places he was frequenting. Unfortunately / fortunately, it even found him when days after having a run-in with some other critter outdoors, he didn't return and we eventually found him dead (owl or eagle got him, we believe). :-( Even though the token was beneath him, against the ground, we still were able to get a signal and well,... it's better than not knowing. I did believe that the range was slightly extended by the thin wire ("wire wrap" type wire) that I heat-shrunk to the circumference of his collar, as someone else's detailed review mentioned. In theory, it is likely that it would capacitively-couple to the antenna inside.. I've been using both of the locator tokens with our remaining two cats without the kludged "collar wire" and in random testing I've found that perhaps it was just been my imagination that the wire increased the range. Some day when the weather permits I hope to do a methodical test at the park to better determine that. Fortunately the other two cats don't stray far from home (they seem to realize what happened to the Siamese). They are savvy about going out and they are gray and don't resemble a bunny like poor "Kukui". As for any issues that folks might have with replacement BATTERIES, aside from making sure that they are fresh and not expired... I can say two things: 1) Same as the batteries that came with the unit, my replacement ones lasted for many months.! I finally wore the one in the hand-held receiver out searching all night for Kukui. The collars are seem to run for many months assuming that you aren't hunting your cats down every day. Whoever designed this was pretty intelligent and the collars expend very little power waiting to receive a signal from the hand-held locator unit. Once that is obtained they go into the more power hungry transmit mode so that, instead, their signal can be hunted down. Ham radio operators have a name for searching for a hidden transmitter. It's called "fox hunting" and works on similar direction and signal strength hunting along with the hunters skill. You can and will be doing the same.! 2) WHEN YOU CHANGE THE BATTERIES WEAR THIN GLOVES SO YOU DON'T GET ANY SKIN OILS OR DIRT OF ANY KIND ON THE BATTERY! People are ignorant of the fact that it takes almost no oily finger residue between the very narrow positive & negative electrical connections of these hearing-aid / watch type batteries to cause a current to flow (continuously) at a higher average rate than the electronics that they had hoped to keep powered. The dirt can also prevent a good current path between the terminals of the battery and the electrodes of the device. And DON'T SHORT OUT the batter even momentarily while installing them. Never use metal tweezers because you ARE going to short positive to negative. Shorting the battery, even briefly is a big No-No that will shorten the battery's life considerably. Ask a knowledgeable electronics engineer and they out to concur with these facts. Hopefully now you've been "brought up to speed". I hope that you keep your kitties safe and when they do make you wonder that you find them alright with this fine product. It isn't purrrfect, but if once you figure out things like the need to keep turning it back on while hunting for more than the auto-shutoff period... well you should have lots of success locating your cat(s).