Samsara Inc. has introduced the Samsara 360 Camera and Samsara for Equipment, bringing the AI-assisted safety and operational visibility it already provides to road fleets into excavators, forklifts and other machines working in construction, warehouses, mines and airports.
The camera is a dual-fisheye, 360-degree AI unit built for equipment with open cabs, machines that often work within feet of coworkers and other vehicles but have had no camera system designed for the job, according to the company. Samsara argues that without footage from the ground, incident investigations stall, liability is disputed and the same unsafe behaviours can repeat.
One mount instead of four
Conventional 360-degree systems for equipment require four cameras, four mounting points and a separate recorder, Samsara said. The 360 Camera captures a full surround view from a single mount and lets managers pan and zoom through any recorded event to watch it from every angle. It installs in the same way as the company's dash cameras and is built to withstand harsh weather and rough operating conditions.
"The frontline workers operating forklifts, excavators and ground equipment do some of the riskiest work in physical operations," said David Gal, vice president of product and engineering at Samsara. He said those machines have open cabs, no windshield and no roof, with hazards on every side, and that the camera was designed to see all the way around the operator.
What the AI flags
Samsara AI, which the company says draws on nearly a decade of development of its AI dash cams, turns the footage into a safety program. According to Samsara, teams can:
- See risk from every angle: detections flag mobile phone use, camera obstruction, seat and lap belt use and harsh impacts, trained on how equipment is actually operated.
- Locate repeat behaviour: managers can see which operators, sites and equipment types show recurring risk. Each impact automatically pulls video into the Samsara Safety Inbox so investigations close on evidence rather than competing accounts.
- Act on the footage: managers coach operators using their own video, enforce zero-tolerance mobile phone policies and speed up OSHA investigations without adding headcount; timestamped footage can support insurance claims and help establish or clear liability quickly.
Equipment monitoring on the same platform
Samsara for Equipment places equipment monitoring and Samsara's agents on the same platform organizations use for their road fleets. Teams can see how long a forklift or excavator sits idling, schedule preventive maintenance by actual engine hours instead of the calendar, and check how many forklifts really run at peak before buying more. Samsara said its agents work with the equipment out of the box, so a fault code can open a work order automatically, and every vehicle, machine and operator can be managed on one platform rather than a separate OEM portal for each equipment brand.