The News: Samsara announces AI-based driver drowsiness AI detection and entry into the asset tracker market.
Samsara Beyond 2024: Drowsiness Detection and Asset Tracking Innovations
Analyst Take: Samsara has been laser-focused on operational safety. Their advanced drowsiness detection is a doubling-down on their leading transportation telemetry and safety systems. The company intends to expand its addressable market by entering the asset tracker sector. The creation of their AT11 tracking device represents an expansion of their services to potentially include workflows such as farm-to-table solutions.
Drowsiness Detection
Samsara has proven to stay focused on its core mission of improving operational safety. Samara has collected data on some six billion miles driven. While companies have used the data to save millions of dollars in fuel costs, Samsara’s primary AI insights focus on safety. That’s demonstrated via its AI-powered drowsiness detection system.
Samsara has announced the availability of camera-side vision models that can detect when a driver exhibits drowsiness. The model looks at hand movements, tracks eyes, and other key indicators that Samsara data centers have examined over the past several years.
This product innovation should strengthen Samsara’s existing customer relationships within the transportation vertical.
Asset Tracking
Samsara has entered an entirely new market with its AT11 tracking device. The rugged tracker has an expected battery life of up to four years and has been tested for operating temperatures ranging from -40 to 70 degree Celsius. The device is IP67 water-resistant, which enables it to be submerged in 1M of water.
The device provides an approximate GPS-based location via the Samsara Gateway network. The Samsara network is based on the deployment of millions of Samsara smart connected gateways that operate based on LTE carrier networks. An example gateway use case is the Samsara in-cab camera system.
The AT11 pings its location via these gateways across a few thousand feet. The size and connectivity enable use cases well beyond Samsara’s current target customer. Customers can track the movement of assets ranging in size and value.
Expanded Use Cases
Potential customers can use the AT11 and Samsara’s API to create unique new uses of the Samsara platform.
- Equipment Tracking: Construction managers can geofence expensive equipment by providing location-based alerts of devices running in size of a toolbox to a forklift.
- Food-to-Table: Produce creators can create tracking of shipments from picking to packaging. Leveraging the API and additional packaging inventory, producers can track produce from harvesting to retail delivery.
Conclusion
Samsara Beyond 2024 demonstrated the company’s commitment to its core mission of improving operational safety while expanding its addressable market for connected gateways for the purpose of growing the asset-tracking network. Samsara is poised to extend its lead in the telematics and connected operations space.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Townsend is a technology management consultant with more than 20 years of related experience in designing, implementing, and managing data center technologies. His areas of expertise include virtualization, networking, and storage solutions for Fortune 500 organizations. He holds a BA in computing and an MS in information technology from DePaul University. He is the President of the CTO Advisor, part of The Futurum Group.
