Activate New Devices from the Samsara Dashboard

As you grow your fleet, you can add new devices at any time. For flexibility, you have two options for new device activation:

Install and activate your Samsara devices with the Samsara Fleet App, designed for a smooth onboarding experience. (Recommended)
Activate devices from the Samsara dashboard as described below.

Note

Devices that plug in to the gateway, such as cameras, do not require preactivation.

To activate devices, you must be assigned a Full Admin role or a custom role that allows Device Activation.

To activate new devices from the Samsara dashboard:

Select the Settings icon () at the bottom of your Fleet menu to view dashboard settings.
Select Devices.
On the top right, click Activate Devices.
Enter the Hardware Serial for each device, pressing Enter after each entry.

You can locate the serial number on the back of each physical Samsara device.

Note

You can activate up to 200 serial numbers at a time from the Samsara dashboard. If you enter more than 200 serials, the activation attempt may fail silently, and no error message or warning will appear. To avoid issues, activate devices in batches of 200 or fewer.
When done, click Activate devices.
If you manage multiple organizations, and the serial number of the device is registered to a different organization than the one you are currently active on, you are prompted to switch to the organization the serial number is associated with. Click Switch organization to switch to the desired organization and repeat the previous steps.
After the activation process is complete, click View dashboard to view your newly activated devices.
From the Settings > Devices page, select the appropriate tab for your Gateways or Sensors.

Related articles