As 2019 comes to a close, all of us at Samsara are reflecting on a truly game-changing year. This year, we reached dozens of exciting new milestones—from launching our new AI dash cams (the CM31 and CM32) to receiving our SOC 2 report and celebrating our first 10,000 customers.

But the milestone we’re most proud of can be summed up in a single number: 87. This is how many new features we added to Samsara this year, a reflection of our commitment to innovation.

When you choose to partner with Samsara, hardware is just the beginning. From custom roles and permissions to our new utilization report and global search, every new feature is an additional tool to help you operate more efficiently, safely, or sustainably. Our goal isn’t just to help you gather data, but to make your data more actionable with useful features and reports.

Whether you’re looking to catch up on what you missed or simply reminisce on this year’s greatest hits—here’s a roundup of Samsara’s top 10 most exciting new features from 2019.

1. Driver coaching tools

Launched in May, our new driver coaching tools make it even easier to identify coachable driving moments and give drivers relevant feedback that improves performance. Now, you can flag incidents that need coaching and assign them to a specific safety manager for review, simplifying how you divide responsibility and improve accountability. Plus, Samsara aggregates coachable events by driver and provides suggested scripts to standardize feedback. The cherry on top? You can easily track your impact with dynamic charts that show harsh events, crashes, and speeding trends over time. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

2. Live Sharing

Meeting customer expectations in the age of Amazon is no easy task—especially when it comes to providing accurate ETAs. In March, we redesigned a feature that makes it easy to delight your customers: Live Sharing. With a fresh new look, Live Sharing is a simple way to keep customers informed (and happy) by communicating real-time ETAs and live location information for vehicles or assets. In just two clicks, you can create a custom Live Sharing link for any vehicle or route. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

3. New Documents fields

We designed our Documents feature to make it as simple as possible for your drivers to capture information—like fuel receipts or proof of delivery—on the go with the Driver App. Now, your drivers can use Documents to capture two new pieces of relevant information: dates and times. Plus, we’ve made it possible to create required fields and introduced a new field type (multiple choice), so you can standardize the way your team is using and receiving Documents. This year, we also rolled out Document Submission Alerts, so you can get notifications as soon as important forms are submitted, further increasing back-office efficiency. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

4. Wake on motion for unpowered assets

If you have an unpowered asset gateway, you may already know that you can set a custom check-in rate, so your AG pings its location more or less frequently than the default 12 hours. But if you have AG45s on assets that are targets for theft, this new feature is for you. With wake on motion, you can set up an alert for when an asset seems to have been stolen (for example, when the asset is detected outside of a geofence) and automatically adjust the device to check in every five minutes rather than every 12 hours. Higher frequency check-ins help track down assets faster. Using this new feature, we’ve dropped the potential recovery time on a stolen asset from a max of 24 hours to virtually real-time. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

5. Camera ID for driver assignment

Without the information you need to accurately assign drivers, managing unassigned HOS segments can be a challenging and time-consuming process. To streamline driver assignment, we launched Camera ID, a new feature that uses facial recognition and our advanced algorithms to identify and tag drivers to vehicles, trips, and event footage. For carriers subject to the ELD mandate, Camera ID can be a huge time saver. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

6. Planned vs. Actual Report

The Planned vs. Actual Report is a powerful tool that you can use to optimize route performance. With the report, you can see the time and distance it actually takes to complete a route compared to the route plan. With stop-level insights by route or customer, you can identify which drivers are taking too much time at a particular route stop, which stops tend to take longer than planned, and even evaluate trends in on-time performance for specific customers. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

7. Rolling stop detection

Rolling stops are notoriously hard to detect unless a ticket or collision occurs. But if you have a CM31 or CM32 dash cam, Samsara can automatically detect when a driver rolls through a stop and upload footage to your Safety Inbox for review and coaching. You can even customize the speed sensitivity for rolling stop detection via the Camera & Safety settings within your dashboard. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

8. DVIR Templates

New DVIR Templates make it easy to customize your fleet’s DVIRs to your specific needs. Now, you can create custom defect lists so that drivers know what to check for, like fluid levels, ladders, mirrors, mufflers, and more. Plus, you can assign templates to both vehicles and trailers, ensuring that drivers complete the most relevant checklist for whichever asset they’re operating. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

9. Messaging Text to Speech (TTS)

Many fleets use our two-way Messaging feature to help their drivers stay safe and informed. But did you know that Samsara added a new feature this year that can help your drivers stay up-to-date without taking their eyes off the road? With Text to Speech (TTS), incoming messages can be played out loud—providing a safe, distraction-free way for drivers to receive updates on any tablet or smartphone. Messages can be sent to individual recipients or broadcast to groups. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

10. Asset scheduling

When you own and lease equipment, keeping track of where your assets are and what job they're assigned to can be tough. With our new asset scheduling tool, you can manage all your jobs and asset assignments directly in your dashboard, giving all teams visibility into the information they need in one central place. At a glance, you can see which assets are engaged on a job and how long they’ll be tied up, helping you plan for the future and avoid double-booking. <strong>Learn more &rarr;</strong>

Register for our webinar to learn more about new features

With 87 new features released this year, we know it can be hard to keep up! That’s why we’re launching a new webinar series—the Samsara Quarterly Update—to keep you updated on the latest features and how you can use them to benefit your fleet. 

Get a head start on the new year by registering for our first-ever Samsara Quarterly Update webinar on January 16. You’ll see a live walk-through of the Samsara dashboard and learn about new features directly from a product expert. <strong>Register now &rarr;</strong>