CollarID
Hear What GPS Can't

The first wildlife collar with long-term acoustic monitoring. Field-proven across 5 species, 3 continents, and thousands of hours of data.

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The Mission: Beyond GPS

GPS tells you where an animal goes. CollarID tells you what it's doing, hearing, and breathing.

Continuous Bioacoustics

Long-term, high-fidelity audio recording with intelligent triggers. Onboard accelerometer data initiates capture during movement or vocalizations, building massive datasets for ML-driven behavioral classification.

Synchronized Sensor Fusion

GPS, IMU, and audio streams fused into a single timeline. Distinguish between foraging, socializing, resting, and fleeing — not from inference, but from direct multi-modal measurement.

Environmental & Air Quality

Temperature, humidity, pressure, and particulate matter — recorded second-by-second from the animal's perspective. The first collar capable of detecting wildfire smoke and pollutant exposure in situ.

Location-Only Data

  • Limited behavioral context
  • Ambiguous environmental conditions
  • No direct health indicators

Holistic Sensing

  • GPS + Behavioral + Environmental data
  • Real-time microclimatic context
  • Direct air quality exposure metrics
150g

Total Weight

1000s

Hours of Field Audio

5

Species Deployed

3

Continents

Acoustic Recordings

No other wildlife collar captures long-term audio in the field. CollarID's acoustic system — optimized with insights from acoustic experts at MIT and in industry — records what existing platforms miss entirely. Listen to real field recordings below.

Hyena

STFT spectrogram of hyena

Hyena Running and Vocalizing

STFT spectrogram of hyena running and vocalizing

Hardware Specifications

150 grams. Solar-powered. Built to survive a lion bite. Designed for years in the field, not weeks.

Mechanical Housing

Designed for durability. Validated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) against the bite force of a lion.

Durability Validated

Waterproof and resilient through environmental chamber testing. Polycarbonate top and anodized aluminum base provide protection.

Solar-Powered Perpetual Operation

With just 1-2 hours of daily sun, CollarID runs indefinitely — recording audio 50% of the time with hourly GPS fixes. No retrieval needed to swap batteries.

Long-Range Communication

Low-power LoRaWAN telemetry for real-time status and location updates across remote field sites without cellular infrastructure.

Multi-Modal Sensors

GPS, high-fidelity bioacoustics, IMU, temperature, humidity, pressure, and particulate matter sensing.

Finite Element Analysis

FEA simulations validate structural integrity, ensuring the device can withstand the physical demands of tracking wild animals like lions and hyenas.

In the Field

Deployed on wild and domestic species across Africa, South America, and North America. Every deployment generates real data and refines the platform.

Spotted Hyena — Botswana

Deployed November 2025 in collaboration with Rohan Wadhwa, wildlife ecologist and doctoral student at the University of Georgia, studying spotted hyena movement ecology and human-wildlife conflict mitigation. Collected 3 weeks of continuous nocturnal acoustic data.

CollarID deployed on spotted hyena in Botswana
CollarID deployed on spotted hyena in Botswana

Wildfire Prevention Goats — Chile

Two-week pilot with Buena Cabra and the MIT City Science Group, monitoring goat grazing behavior as a natural method for clearing dry wildfire fuel. Acoustic and IMU data captured feeding patterns to measure vegetation clearing effectiveness.

CollarID deployment on goats in Chile
CollarID on goat in Chile
CollarID on goat in Chile

Cattle — New York

Multi-month deployment in partnership with Northaven Pastures, including through winter conditions. Three collars tracked cattle behavior and environmental exposure across seasons.

CollarID deployment on cattle in New York

Community Dogs — Kenya

Pilot deployment on domestic dogs in indigenous communities, in collaboration with Stephanie Mitchell, doctoral candidate in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Washington.

A New Lens on Life

CollarID began as a PhD thesis at the MIT Media Lab. It's now a field-proven platform shipping to researchers worldwide.

Origin

Designed by Patrick Chwalek, PhD, CollarID was developed at the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Kioxia Corporation, MIT researchers, and in consultation with National Geographic and the broader ecology and conservation community.

The Mk I platform has been validated across multiple field deployments — from spotted hyenas in Botswana to cattle surviving New York winters. Every deployment has returned usable data and informed the next iteration.

Mk II: Production-Ready

The Mk II builds on thousands of hours of field data with an optimized system architecture, lower assembly cost, and a larger solar panel for extended autonomous operation. Units are now available for pilot deployments.

Proven Across 3 Continents

Africa, South America, North America

5 Species and Counting

Hyenas, goats, cattle, dogs — and more to come

Research-Grade

Built at MIT. Used by university researchers and conservation organizations.

Deploy CollarID

Whether you're a researcher, conservation organization, or funder — we'd like to hear from you. Mk II units are available for pilot deployments.

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