Samsara Inc. has launched a 360-degree AI camera and an accompanying equipment offering aimed at machines that work away from public roads. The Samsara 360 Camera uses a dual-fisheye lens, and together with Samsara Equipment it brings the AI safety and operational visibility the company already provides for road fleets to equipment operating in demanding environments.
According to Samsara, frontline workers on construction sites, in warehouses and mines, and at airports operate excavators, forklifts and other ground vehicles with open cabs, often within feet of coworkers and other equipment. Until now, the company says, none of that equipment had a camera system built for the job. Without footage from the ground, incident investigations stalled, liability was disputed and the same unsafe behaviours could be repeated.
One mount point instead of four cameras
Samsara says conventional 360-degree systems for equipment require four cameras, four mounts and a separate recorder. The 360 Camera captures a full 360-degree view from a single mount point, and managers can pan and zoom through any recorded event to watch it from every angle. It installs like a Samsara dash cam and is built to withstand harsh weather and rough operating conditions.
AI detections turned into a safety program
Samsara AI, which the company says is built on nearly a decade of its AI dash cams, converts that footage into a safety program. Per Samsara, teams can:
- See every angle of risk — AI detections flag mobile phone use, camera obstruction, seat and lap belt use and harsh impacts, trained on how equipment is actually operated.
- Understand where risks are happening — managers can see which operators, sites and equipment types show repeat risky behaviour; when something does happen, every impact automatically pulls video into the Samsara Safety Inbox so investigations close on evidence instead of competing accounts.
- Act before it happens again — managers coach operators using their own footage, enforce zero-tolerance mobile phone policies and speed up OSHA investigations without adding headcount, while timestamped footage supports insurance claims and helps establish or clear liability quickly.
On the same platform as road fleets
Samsara for Equipment combines 360 Camera equipment monitoring and agents on the same platform organizations use for their road fleets. Teams can see how long each forklift or excavator sits idling, schedule preventive maintenance on actual engine hours instead of the calendar, and see how many forklifts actually run at peak before buying more. Samsara agents work with this equipment out of the box, so a fault code can open a work order automatically. Rather than a separate OEM portal for every equipment brand, every vehicle, piece of equipment and operator lives on one platform.
Company position
David Gal, vice president of product and engineering at Samsara, said frontline workers operating forklifts, excavators and ground equipment do some of the riskiest work in physical operations. He described those machines as having open cabs, no windshield, no roof and hazards on every side, and said the company built a camera tough enough to work in those conditions and see all the way around the operator, so customers can protect frontline workers on the warehouse floor, the job site and the ramp the same way they do on the road.