GeoZilla GPS Tracker Review

The GeoZilla GPS Tracker gets a thumbs-down from us. It’s fine for tracking items, vehicles, and even pets, but we wouldn’t trust it with a person due to some serious performance issues. The GeoZilla’s SOS button never worked during our tests despite help from customer support—and that wasn’t the only issue.

Learn what to expect from a GeoZilla and when to consider a different GPS tracker altogether.

We found inconsistent pricing information across GeoZilla’s website, Amazon listing, and app. Typically, the GeoZilla service plan costs around $19 to $20 a month. You may be able to snag an introductory price for $4.99 a month, but it seems to expire after about 60 days.

For the best price, you need to sign up for a 3-year contract. You pay for 3 years in advance and can’t get your money back.

The GeoZilla GPS Tracker looks good on paper but didn’t match our expectations when we put it to the test. The biggest problems involved the GeoZilla’s three buttons.

The center button is for SOS alerts. In theory, you just press and hold the SOS button for four seconds, or until the status lights light up. A text or push notification should go out to whomever you’ve designated as an emergency contact in the app.

Sounds very reasonable. But it never, ever worked. No texts or push notifications were received. We reached out to customer support hoping for an easy solution, but rebooting the device didn’t work.

That’s a huge problem—your child or loved one could try to contact you and you’d have no idea they needed help.

If you gave this to a kid (or anyone for that matter), they might not understand the nuances or realize that their message has been sent. And with no audio capabilities, there’s no backup communication option.

On to the next issue with these buttons: push notifications didn’t come through right away. There’s about a one-minute delay. And here’s what really bothered us—if we missed the push notification, it totally disappeared. There’s no record of any of these button-presses in the app.

That’s why we don’t trust the GeoZilla as an interactive tracker. There’s just no guarantee that your child is going to push the buttons right, that the device will send the messages in a timely manner (or at all), and that you’ll see the push notifications when they come through.

For the most part, the GeoZilla gave accurate GPS readings. But it wasn’t perfect. I had it on my desk most of the time, and occasionally I’d get a notification saying the tracker was “moving near Home.”

I also set up a geofence for 500 feet around my home. (You can’t make custom geofences—only a few pre-set distances are available, of which 500 feet is the smallest.) The app informed me that the GeoZilla had left the geofence despite it still being right there on my desk. That means it was off by more than 500 feet—yikes.

Other times, I’d check the map and see that my GeoZilla was roaming around in a neighbor’s yard a full block away. I’d be worried if I still had it strapped to my dog’s collar—but sure enough, it was on my desk.

And yet GeoZilla pinpointed my precise location when I was sitting in the drive-thru line. So while it does provide some spot-on GPS readings, it’s not consistently accurate.

In the GeoZilla app, you can make the tracker beep for 30 seconds to help you pinpoint its location. One problem: it either never beeped or started beeping more than a minute after we prompted it to start beeping. There seems to be a significant lag in communication between the app and the tracker (and vice versa).

The Geozilla App lets you control some important settings:

• Change location update frequency (every 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes)
• Program left and right buttons
• Enable low-battery alerts
• Designate SOS contacts
• Define common places and geofences (radii of 500 feet, 0.3 miles, 0.5 miles, 1 mile, or 3 miles)
• Cause the tracker to beep

The app isn’t always intuitive to use. There are multiple settings menus rather than a one-stop shop. And it seems impossible to go back and edit geofences.

We also wished there was a way to completely shut off location updates. You need to keep the app running in the background to get important notifications like SOS alerts (if they’d ever work!) and button messages, but that also means constantly getting pinged with location updates. That’s annoying when you know exactly where the tracker is.

Circles is a GeoZilla app feature with the potential to go sour. The idea is you can add friends and family to a Circle so they can all see the tracker’s location and get notifications. But people have to sign up for the Geozilla app to be added to a Circle, and that means you’re able to see their location and phone battery too.

If that doesn’t wig you out, it’s actually a decent alternative to Apple’s Find My app. As long as your family members are aware of what they’re signing up for, you can track each other regardless of whether they’re on a separate phone plan or have an iOS or Android phone.

Otherwise, location settings can be disabled and there’s also an Invisible Mode that you can use to give yourself some privacy—go to People > [Your Name] > Invisible mode.

If you’re looking for a kids GPS tracker, GeoZilla’s closest competitor is Jiobit, which also has no audio and an SOS button. But Jiobit’s monthly subscription is more affordable than GeoZilla’s, its battery lasts twice as long, and it actually worked when we tested it.

For keeping tabs on an older adult, we recommend Aloe Care Health’s Mobile Companion. It’s packed with safety features that older adults need, including automatic fall detection and quick access to an emergency helpline staffed by trained professionals. And it’s easy for caregivers to use the app to see their loved one’s location at any time without being dinged by too many updates.

The GeoZilla is fine to use for tracking pets, vehicles, or items. But there are pet-specific GPS trackers on the market that have better features, like a built-in light to help you find your pet in the dark. The same is true for vehicle-specific GPS trackers, which often include maintenance data.

For tracking items, Bluetooth trackers like Apple AirTags are an affordable alternative to the GeoZilla since they don’t require a monthly subscription.

Our experience with the GeoZilla GPS Tracker wasn’t great. We don’t recommend it for your loved ones—its safety features just aren’t reliable enough.

And you can get pet- and vehicle-specific trackers that perform better and cost less. That just leaves item tracking for the GeoZilla. It needs some significant tech upgrades to do anything else.

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