A DIY LED Dog Harness That Lights up When Your Puppo Gets Too Far Away

Every dog owner’s worst nightmare is their dog running away. Obviously your pup loves you and doesn’t want to leave you, but sometimes they can take off in their excitement over chasing an intriguing new smell or mischievous squirrel. Pet identification chips and a collar with your contact information can help ensure that you get your beloved dog back, but it’s better to just prevent the problem in the first place. That’s why Javier Borquez designed this LED dog harness that lights up when his dog gets too far away, and he has a tutorial explaining how you can build one yourself.

This is a harness like you may already use to keep control of your dog, but with the addition of LEDs lining the straps. With the way Borquez has his setup, one set of LEDs are turned on all the time. He configured it that way because he often takes his dog out to play when the sun is going down and it isn’t too hot. Having the LEDs on all the time helps him keep track of the dog when it’s running around off-leash. But if the dog wanders off too far, the harness will switch to a second set of lights to indicate that Borquez needs to rein the dog back in.

Surprisingly, this project doesn’t require any microcontrollers. It is instead built with a pair of ultra-cheap walkie talkies, which can be found for less than $20. Cheaper is actually better here, as the distance for the LEDs to switch is dependent on the transmission range of the walkie talkies. Those are modified so that one walkie talkie — the one held by Borquez — is always transmitting. The second walkie talkie is attached to the dog’s harness. If it stops receiving sound, that means that the doggo has strayed too far. When that happens, the first set of LEDs turns off and the second set turns on. If you want an inexpensive way to keep track of your dog at night, this is a clever way to do so.