Weird Strava question. I use ActivityFix and I would like to add my dog as a piece of “equipment” and put a sensor on him so that if that sensor is detected, he is added to the hike. I do this with my bikes – power meter A is on my road bike so if you detect power meter A, set the equipment to my road bike. I want to say if sensor Dog is detected on my hike, set the equipment to Dog. My question is, what sensor could I use for this? Creative ideas welcome!
I don’t believe Strava does any ‘sensor-based’ detection today for any sports. Rather, it’s triggered via sport profiles on your device (e.g. Trail Running on a watch, triggers the allocation of your trail running shoes to it).
Now, that said, there is the newish Strava dog collar (I’m actually not kidding), which I think roughly does what you want: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/strava-insider-journal/strava-s-new-integration-with-the-fi-smart-dog-collar/ba-p/21432
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ActivityFix does the sensor detection and updates Strava based on rules that you set
Where’s the DCRainmaker review and GPS accuracy test results? 
If you need dogs to test this on, I have 3 available in small, medium, and very large sizes 
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A Tempe makes most sense to me. Other sensors would provide superfluous (and almost certainly false) data like cadence or heart rate, whereas temperature could at least be useful (depending on amount of fur).
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I like it!
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Sorry, was talking natively. Good point on activity fix. And I agree, Tempe sounds like the absolute easiest and lowest bar. Crazy long battery life, just works factor is high, and supported widely on Garmin devices.
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I have a dog. Or, what is technically classified as a dog. In reality, she thinks she’s human and arguably the laziest, most sassy one out there. She gives side-eye like no other.
Here’s Lucy, annoyed that @GPLama isn’t giving her the proper amount of attention while he edits.
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First off, not sure I understand your ask correctly. So keep that in mind
A friend of mine daily posts entries to Strava that are recorded with a Fi Smart Dog collar (https://tryfi.com ). The collar claims to record the steps the dog takes (not your steps).
Is that what you are trying to do?
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Thanks! I’m not looking for another GPS unit for Bodie, I’m just wanting to add him to hikes, etc. as “equipment” and have ActivityFix update the Strava activity title to include his name. I want a sensor to put on his collar that my watch can pair with, then have a rule that says if this sensor is present, then so is my dog so add him to the hike.
I’ve used this with my bikes for years and thought why not track dog activities in the same way?
I love this idea.
The only problem is, let’s say you start a ride/run from your doorstep without your dog. If you start the activity on your driveway, your watch may still connect with whatever sensor your dog has on its collar. This may result in a couple false positives since the sensor is then also “registered” in you activity.
Ideally it’s a sensor you manually “turn on”, I’m thinking of a garmin compatibly light on his collar for example.
Or you can go the route DCR suggested, have a couple different activity profiles (for with or without dog) setup in your watch that are linked to different activity types or gear. And use that with ActivityFix to get the data correct in Strava.
Does the Garmin Tempe have an ANT+ ID associated with it? It doesn’t seem to work with ActivitiyFix, even with the activity that I used to add the sensor (the 0 column is the ANT+ ID)
Whenever you have your dog with you, why not just record them as runs (or any other outdoor activity you don’t do) and then have activity fix the workout type?
I’ll dig one up out of the bin and see where it plops the ANT+ ID. Or, if you want to just shoot me a file with a Tempe activity in it (first name at domain name).
My guess here is that ActivityFix may not have been coded to recognize that ID/type for whatever reason (logically, honestly). But, it’s an easy lift for them if so.
Seems to be working OK now. 
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Just in case someone is searching for dog gps and sees this i thought I should point out how Fi works. Notice how small it is with a great battery life? It gets that by not using it’s gps much. Most of the tracks it records are the gps tracks of the cell phone running the Fi app.
Still trying to figure out if the Garmin GPS collars paired with alpha units can save the route and upload to Strava
Maybe use a foot pod on the dog?