Article Summary
Samsara has launched a disposable, paper-thin Bluetooth tracking label that provides real-time shipment visibility by leveraging its network of millions of connected devices.
- The Samsara tracking label is a flexible, paper-thin sticker with a built-in battery, Bluetooth radio, and antenna that provides real-time location visibility.
- The label uses zinc-based batteries that last 45 days and contain no lithium or hazardous materials, making it safe for air, ground, and rail shipment and easy disposal.
- Samsara's network reaches 99% of major U.S. roadways and tens of thousands of worksites. Any Samsara-connected device within range can pick up the label's Bluetooth beacon.
- The tracking label enables exception-based management using AI to surface shipments needing attention rather than requiring manual monitoring of each shipment.
- Teams can print labels from standard printers, scan them to activate, and link them to existing shipment IDs.
A couple of years ago, what was considered state-of-the-art asset tracking was a device the size of a grown man’s fist, a device that used cellular and GPS to provide location details maybe twice a day, said Samsara Vice President of Connected Equipment David Gal last week at the company’s annual Beyond conference, where he unveiled a new asset tracker.
The fleet management technology provider has rolled out the Samsara tracking label to provide real-time visibility of individual shipments.
The tracking label is a flexible, paper-thin sticker that delivers real-time shipment visibility via Bluetooth connection with Samsara’s network of millions of connected devices. The label sends out a Bluetooth signal that can be picked up by any nearby device connected to the Samsara Network, from trucks, trailers and buses to construction equipment, warehouse scanners and phones. When devices pick up the label’s signal, it is reported to the Cloud and relayed to Samsara’s new shipment center and shipment app that accompanied the label’s release.
Powered by connection
Samsara-connected devices reach 99% of major U.S. roadways and tens of thousands of worksites. Gal said Samsara’s network has more than doubled its strength over the past two years and noted the recent addition of 90 million phones.
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“This network is the secret sauce. This is what makes it possible,” Gal said during his demonstration at the conference held this year in Las Vegas. “Anybody can talk about Bluetooth tracking, but you have to have a network like this to make it work.”
Zoe Roth, a senior research analyst at 451 Research from S&P Global, said in Samsara’s news release that providing a persistent, wide-area network for Bluetooth assets could dramatically shift the shipment tracking landscape, which had previously been challenged by lack of infrastructure.
This has resulted in organizations relying heavily on GPS and cellular technologies to track non-powered assets because lower-cost alternatives like RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) were constrained by fragmented infrastructure, according to S&P’s most recent 451 Research Supply Chain Digital Transformation Survey.
Third-party logistics provider DCL Logistics, which was an early adopter of the tracking label, uses RFID and GPS tracking as well. But DCL President Dave Tu said RFID requires capital infrastructure and offers still limited visibility. The company has installed GPS tracking devices on high-value shipments because of its accuracy, but it’s difficult to deploy at scale, he added.
“We ship hundreds, thousands of packages a day with traditional carrier tracking that only tells part of the story. You have parcel tracking … (but) you maybe get five milestone tracking updates,” Tu said. “Then when it comes to freight tracking, which is your more valuable shipments – LTL, full truckload – the visibility is really limited. You get a (notice) when it leaves the facility and then another when it gets to the end destination.”
‘Slap and track’
The labels can be printed from an off-the-shelf label printer by connecting it to the shipment app. Once printed, the Bluetooth radio inside the label is “awakened” when scanned. Any barcode – a Bill of Lading, carrier tracking number or warehouse license plate number – can then be scanned using the app, which can be used on phones and warehouse scanners alike, to automatically link it to the existing shipment ID.
The app enables high-volume operations to print and pre-populate labels in bulk. Teams can also connect directly to an existing transportation management system (TMS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) business management software to write shipment data at print time.
The Samsara tracking label provides continuous real-time location visibility from origin to delivery without the need for carrier cooperation, additional hardware or extra scans because inside the 2x4-inch printable asset tag is a battery, a Bluetooth radio, an antenna and code that talks to the Samsara network.
A London-based company called Reelables offers a printable, disposable Bluetooth label for piece-level tracking, but they only track when cargo arrives and departs from a facility.
Tu said in a news release that using the Samsara shipment suite is like watching an Uber driver en route to a pickup, providing a level of visibility that didn’t exist before.
“You can see every move, every turn, right up until it pulls up to the door,” Tu said in a news release.
Pushing limits
Gal said when Samsara was working with its customers to develop the new solution, he was given a list of requirements that seemed impossible to obtain, like something from science fiction.
These were the requirements:
• Quick, low-touch install
• Paper thin
• Disposable to eliminate the need to retrieve the tag
• Economical
“There are 25 reasons why this will never happen” was Gal’s initial response. “Let’s pick one: the battery. Take a coin cell battery; it's a couple millimeters thick, so it's already not paper thin. It's got lithium in it. That's not safe to throw in the trash, so it's definitely not disposable. And they're kind of expensive, so it's not going to be economical.”
The Samsara tracking label is powered by a zinc-based battery that lasts 45 days once activated. It doesn’t contain lithium nor any hazardous materials, so it is cleared for air, ground and rail shipments and can be easily disposed of without special handling.
Tracking stops once the shipment arrives at its destination.
Managing shipments at scale
If a shipment doesn’t arrive at its destination for whatever reason, Samsara’s AI will surface shipments that need attention, enabling teams to manage shipments by exception rather than monitoring each one manually. This is done within the shipment center and shipment app, which plug into an organization's existing infrastructure, regardless of shipping carrier.
Here, teams can delve into individual shipments for deeper insight.
The shipment center provides details like date created, origin, content of the shipment and more while a map gives a live view of the shipment labels as they’re picked up by neighboring Samsara devices as well as locations of barcode scans like when a package moves through a cross dock.
Automated delivery notifications and geofence-based delivery notifications provide clear proof of arrival, helping prevent and resolve shipping disputes.
Gal said it also enables operations teams to make better supply-chain decisions, backed by AI. For example, they can get ahead of shipping delays and exceptions by asking the AI in the shipment center questions like “Which packages are at risk of being late due to the storm in Texas?”
Ops teams can also surface insights into warehouse performance, carrier on-time performance, declined delivery analytics and more. This information allows them to analyze performance and costs to identify efficiencies while also keeping jobs running on schedule, delivering better customer service and recovering lost or stolen shipments.
“This kind of visibility enables us to change the game, going from reactive to proactive. We can make decisions so much earlier,” Gal said. “There's no more ‘two days ago, it left Chicago. Where is it now?’ We know exactly where the shipment is.
“Slap and track. That’s it,” Gal said.
