Samsara Industrial

Samsara expanded beyond its successful Fleets offering and into the Industrial market vertical. There were a number of product explorations such as industrial gateways, machine health monitors, power monitors, and AIOs / DIOs modules.

I managed the Industrial HW team during the group’s beginnings. We worked closely with the sales team, going onsite with customers, researching needs, and quickly iterating products from 0 to 1 to test product market fit.

The IG21 was the Industrial Gateway that allowed Samsara to begin the Industrial sales flywheel. The goal for the HW team was to leverage previous hardware, and flexible manufacturing, such as laser NCT enclosures, to reduce lead time and capital costs. The IG21 accomplished this and lasted for several years before its iteration.

The IG21 was initially design such that it’s electrical hardware could be broken into (1) a comms modules (2) a AIO / DIO modules and (3) the main device. This is why you see 3 PCBs in the exploded view.

This strategy would allow us to build and certify a single device that could easily evolve into several devices depending on market feedback.

Samsara Machine Vision

Another Samsara bet was Machine Vision. In simple terms, machine vision is when a camera captures an image of a product, typically on a production line, and a software program interprets that image. If the software finds something wrong in the image, it can send a signal to the surrounding machinery to pause or stop processing, or trigger some type of alert to let the end user know that there is a problem with production.

Our team participated in many customer onsites to understand the device needs, mounting points, optimal camera direction and lighting. We consistently met with our customers, building the product with their needs as our top priority.

These onsites are critical for good product definition and for building a strong relationship with the customer.

As HW Lead, the goal was to quickly prop up machine vision to test the device in the field and get the sales flywheel in motion. We built the VS2 device in less than 6 months, leveraging off-the-shelf camera hardware and enclosures.

The gateway for the VS2 leveraged the AG24 enclosure, replacing the solar panel with an appropriately sized heatsink to dissipate the processor inside.

Many clever mechanical strategies were implemented to make the VS2 work within its tight timeline.

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