Samsara has introduced a paper-thin, disposable Bluetooth sticker designed to provide shippers with real-time visibility on any shipment for up to 45 days — roughly six weeks — after activation. The product targets one-way freight movements where operators prefer not to manage the reverse logistics associated with more durable tracking hardware, according to David Gall, Samsara's Vice President of Product and Engineering for Connected Equipment.

The tracker represents a new approach to shipment visibility, combining a low-cost disposable form factor with Samsara's existing network of millions of connected vehicles and devices. The launch arrives as demand for real-time freight visibility has intensified following pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, which exposed the limitations of intermittent, checkpoint-based tracking and pushed shippers to seek continuous location data across carrier networks they do not own. Gall described the product as a single-use cargo tracker that enables customers to see exactly where their freight is at any given time, shifting operations from reactive exception management to proactive service delivery.

How the Technology Works

Inside the paper-thin, flexible sticker is a battery, a Bluetooth chip functioning as a radio, an antenna, and software that communicates with what Samsara calls the Samsara network — millions of trucks, trailers, buses, bulldozers, and other connected equipment operating across the physical world.

"The way the sticker works is it chirps out a little hello world signal, and all those millions of pieces of moving equipment and phones and warehouse scanners are listening for that hello," Gall said.

The label does not need to be on a Samsara customer's own vehicle to be detected. Any truck or device on the Samsara network within range will pick up the Bluetooth ping and report the location — a critical distinction for shippers whose freight moves on carriers outside their own fleet. Gall explained that even if a package is stolen and moves off a company's proprietary network, any Samsara-connected device that picks up the signal will relay the location data.

"It doesn't matter if it's your truck that's listening for it or somebody else's. If that Samsara network picks up the signal from this label, then we'll hear about it, know about it, know exactly where it is," Gall said.

Range and Signal Penetration

The open-air range of the Bluetooth signal is approximately a couple hundred feet. However, the density of the Samsara network enables the signal to penetrate cargo and metal trailer walls. Gall said that Samsara has tested the sticker on shipments carried by carriers that are not Samsara customers, with the Bluetooth signal chirping through cargo inside a truck, passing through the metal walls of a box truck, and being picked up by another vehicle traveling on the opposite side of a highway.

"The thing that really makes this possible is the density of the Samsara network. It's the fact that that Samsara footprint is really everywhere in this ecosystem," Gall said.

Pricing and Market Positioning

The tracker's commercial significance lies in its pricing and network reach. Gall said customers should expect "roughly single-digit dollar pricing per shipment" at volume, with no capital infrastructure required for deployment. The product is available through Samsara's enterprise pricing structure, which includes volume discounting.

This positions the sticker between two existing tracking technologies. On one end, RFID tags offer low per-tag costs but require significant capital investment in reader infrastructure. Once an RFID-labeled item leaves that first-party infrastructure — even by a few meters — visibility is lost. On the other end, LTE and GPS-based cellular trackers offer broad coverage but come at a high cost. Samsara, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker IOT, competes in a supply chain visibility market that includes both hardware-centric providers and software-only platforms such as FourKites and project44 — though those software-focused rivals typically rely on carrier data integrations rather than a proprietary network of physical listening devices.

"What the Bluetooth technology enables us to do is find a really interesting sweet spot in the middle where we can have a low-cost tag, no capital infrastructure required to deploy because of that Samsara network, because anybody's truck will pick it up. And it means that you get visibility everywhere," Gall said.

Comparison to Consumer Trackers

Gall contrasted the product with consumer-grade options such as Apple AirTags, emphasizing that the key differentiator is disposability. Samsara's existing durable asset trackers are built to last six years in the field and are used for tracking construction equipment, tools, and other long-lived assets. However, customers requested a lower-cost, single-use alternative for outbound shipments they never expect returned.

"We have heard, of course, of consumers putting AirTags in shipments and whatnot, but that's gone. Once you ship that out, you're not getting that AirTag back, or if you try to get it back, it's really expensive to do so," Gall said. "The key difference here is that this is disposable, and the network that's listening for it is exactly in the right place at the right time. In other words, it's on the roads and highways, it's at the job site, it's in the residential area. So the coverage is really remarkable."

Use Cases Beyond Standard Freight

While standard palletized freight remains a primary application, use cases have extended well beyond tan boxes and pallets. Gall cited biological samples, GPUs and cabling for infrastructure buildout, copper wire destined for building infrastructure projects, and chemicals headed to construction sites as examples already tracked with the device. The range of applications reflects broader industry demand for chain-of-custody visibility across regulated and high-value goods, where shippers face both compliance requirements and loss-prevention pressures.

"The whole world of physical operations, in some sense, really exists for shipments. And so we're just seeing all kinds of those out there," Gall said.

Anti-Theft Applications

The discreet form factor also supports anti-theft applications. The sticker resembles a normal shipping label, making it difficult for potential thieves to recognize. Cargo theft has been a persistent and costly challenge for the freight industry, with organized groups routinely targeting high-value loads in transit and at rest stops. Customers have adopted several concealment strategies, including placing the sticker on the inside of cargo, positioning it beneath shipping labels, or printing shipping labels directly on top of the tracker.

"We've seen some pretty interesting use cases with our customers, whether maybe putting the sticker on the inside of cargo, for example, to make it even more discreet, or underneath a shipping label, or even printing the shipping label on top of it," Gall said.

Long-Term Outlook

Looking ahead, Gall said Samsara expects costs to continue falling as the technology scales. The product is currently brand new, and the company anticipates that over time the technology will scale and prices will decrease further.

"We think long-term, in the future, 5, 10 years out, this should be really ubiquitous. We should be able to get cost to really scale and be in a pretty exciting place," Gall said.

The battery technology within the sticker enables 45 days of continuous operation once activated, providing roughly six weeks of shipment visibility. Gall described the internal components — combining a battery, Bluetooth radio, antenna, and embedded software — as a significant engineering achievement in a paper-thin, flexible form factor.

Source: FreightWaves