The humanization of pets has transformed from a demographic trend into a $10 billion global powerhouse. Today, nearly 70% of U.S. households view their pets as family members, fueling a surge in demand for sophisticated safety tech. However, traditional solutions—like burying physical wires for invisible fences—are expensive, restrictive, and increasingly obsolete.
The industry is rapidly shifting toward virtual fencing, a market segment projected to grow at a 15% CAGR as owners seek real-time tracking and flexible boundaries. But as pet tech companies compete for dominance, they face a shared technical wall: standard GPS isn’t precise enough to guarantee safety. A multi-meter drift can trigger an unnecessary correction while the dog is still inside the yard, or delay a correction after it has already crossed the boundary. Either outcome can create stress for the dog, weaken training effectiveness, and undermine trust in the boundary.
To explore how the industry is overcoming these hurdles, I sat down with Randy Walston, a veteran sales leader at Swift Navigation with over 20 years of experience scaling wireless and IoT solutions. Randy and the Swift team are already deep in the trenches with some of the world’s most prominent pet tracking companies, helping them transition from legacy GPS to the precise, sub-meter reliability required for the next generation of pet safety.
Q&A: Empowering Precise Pet Safety with Randy Walston
EP: Randy, you and the team are already working with some of the biggest names in pet tech. From those conversations, why is sub-meter precision now the make-or-break feature for virtual fencing?
RW: It comes down to trust. For a virtual fence to be effective, the pet owner needs to trust that the boundary is absolute. Standard GNSS (GPS) can have errors of several meters, especially near buildings or under tree cover. If a tracker thinks a dog is outside the fence when it’s actually in the middle of the yard, the system might incorrectly trigger a correction. Conversely, if the dog escapes and the tracker has a 3-meter error, the owner might be looking in the wrong backyard.
Swift’s Skylark Dx solves this by providing sub-meter accuracy with instant convergence. This precision allows pet tech companies to create virtual fences that are just as dependable as physical wires, ensuring the fence stays exactly where the owner drew it on their app.
EP: Pet trackers are tiny and battery-operated. How does Skylark Dx help these industry leaders solve the power tax of high-precision location?
RW: Battery life is the constant pain point in pet tracker reviews. Traditional high-precision methods are often too data-heavy for a small collar. Skylark Dx was specifically architected for the wearables and mobile devices.
It offers a low power, processing, and data transmission burden. Because our correction approach minimizes on-device computing, manufacturers can use cost-effective, low-power chipsets. We’ve found that you can significantly reduce the update rate of the correction stream to save power with very little impact on accuracy—making it compatible with the sleek, low-power wearables that pet owners expect.
EP: Many pets live in suburban areas with heavy tree cover or urban canyons. How does our service perform where traditional systems struggle?
RW: Standard SBAS (Satellite-Based Augmentation System) requires a clear line of sight to low elevation geostationary satellites, which often fails in urban canyons or under heavy foliage. Because Skylark Dx delivers corrections over cellular/IP networks, it maintains uniform coverage and 99.9% availability country-wide. It operates seamlessly in those difficult environments, backed by a carrier-grade network and a commercial-grade SLA.
EP: Swift is known for its footprint in automotive and autonomous vehicles. How does that pedigree benefit a pet brand?
RW: It gives our partners massive confidence. We have millions of devices already on the road using our tech in high-stakes environments. When a brand partners with Swift, they aren’t just getting a data feed; they are getting a battle-tested platform that meets the most rigorous reliability requirements and safety standards in the world and supports all major constellations, including GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou.
EP: Finally, if a pet tech company wants to integrate this into their product line, how difficult is the deployment?
RW: It’s very straightforward. Skylark Dx is hardware-agnostic and works with widely used multi-frequency receivers from manufacturers like ST, Sony, Airoha, and Quectel. We offer flexible integration options—customers can distribute the corrections through their own cloud backends or directly to the device using standard RTCM and NTRIP protocols. We’ve made it a plug-and-play path to market leadership.
Technical Spotlight: Skylark Dx for Wearables
- Accuracy: Sub-meter
- Convergence: Instant
- Availability: 99.9% SLA
- Delivery: Over-the-internet (IP) via NTRIP 1.0/2.0
- Signals Supported: GPS (L1, L2, L5), Galileo (E1, E5), BeiDou (B1, B2)
- Compatibility: Works with any receiver supporting MSM1 via RTCM 3.2