Smart Container Tracker

Overview

Smart Container Tracker is a rugged IoT device that bolts to the corner casting of any 20-foot or 40-foot shipping container and streams live GPS, door, shock, temperature and humidity data for the entire voyage — ocean, rail and road — on a single 5-year battery.

Built for ocean carriers, freight forwarders, BCO shippers and customs brokers who need door-to-door visibility, cold-chain compliance evidence and instant theft / tamper alarms across thousands of boxes. The device runs edge geofence rules so it can fire alerts even mid-ocean over satellite back-haul.

Multi-band GNSS — GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou for sub-10 m accuracy globally
Cellular + satellite — LTE-M / NB-IoT primary, Iridium SBD fallback at sea
Door, shock, reefer temp — magnetic door switch, 3-axis accelerometer, internal probe
5-year battery — Li-SOCl₂ pack, adaptive duty cycle, optional solar trickle

How It Works

Container + tracker — the IP67 device is bolted, riveted or magnetically mounted to the container. It carries GNSS, modem, accelerometer, magnetic reed (door), and a probe lead into the reefer cavity. Antennas have line-of-sight to satellites while the cellular modem reaches towers along coastal routes.
Geofence engine — the device runs local rules: door-open outside an allowed zone, shock spike above 3 g, reefer drift > 2 °C, route deviation. It buffers data when offline and bursts on reconnect.
Logistics cloud — ingests position, status and event streams. Provides ETA prediction, on-time SLA tracking, cold-chain compliance reports, and AI anomaly detection across the fleet.
Shipper & alerts — role-based dashboards and apps for shipper / forwarder / customs, with push, email, SMS, and EDI / REST webhook channels. Acknowledgements and threshold changes flow back to the device.

The purple feedback loop along the bottom carries operator acknowledgements, updated geofence polygons and over-the-air firmware back to every container in the fleet.

Features

Door-open detection with geofence-aware allow-list (auto-clear at trusted yards)
Theft / tamper alarm — shock + GPS jump + cell-tower spoof detection
Cold-chain monitoring — internal reefer probe with audit-grade time-series
ETA prediction — ML model using AIS + weather + historical port dwell
Route deviation alerts with auto-replanning suggestions
Cellular + satellite failover transparent to user
Bulk activation — pair 1,000+ devices to a shipment via barcode app
Open APIs — REST, MQTT, EDI 315 / 322 events for TMS integration

Use Cases

Ocean shipping lines — fleet-wide visibility for owned and leased boxes
Reefer cold-chain — pharma, seafood, dairy with audit-grade temperature evidence
High-value cargo — electronics, automotive parts, luxury goods anti-theft
Dangerous goods — IMDG class tracking with shock and tilt event evidence
Cross-border trucking — live status for customs and forwarders
Intermodal rail — visibility through inland depots and rail yards

Specifications

GNSS: Multi-band GPS / GLONASS / Galileo / BeiDou, ~5-10 m CEP open sky
Cellular: LTE-M, NB-IoT, 4G fallback — global roaming SIM
Satellite (optional): Iridium SBD, low-bandwidth burst mode for mid-ocean
Sensors: 3-axis accel (±16 g), magnetic reed (door), internal probe (-40 to +85 °C)
Battery: Li-SOCl₂, 3-7 yr typical (duty-cycle dependent); optional solar variant
Enclosure: IP67, shock 50 g / 11 ms, -30 to +70 °C operating
Security: TLS 1.3 to cloud, AES-128 device storage, mutual cert auth
Certifications: FCC, CE, IC, GCF, PTCRB, IEC 60529 IP67, ATEX option