The Samsara Vehicle Gateway (VG) detects harsh events, such as harsh brakes, accelerations, turns, and crashes. After installation, Samsara assigns harsh event thresholds based on the automatically detected vehicle type. Each harsh event surfaces in Harsh Event Reports and for Safety Event Review in the Safety Inbox.
To raise a harsh event in the Samsara dashboard, the following minimum criteria must be met:
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The vehicle is on a trip.
A trip is defined as traveling from a starting point to a stop or destination. By default, a trip begins when your vehicle achieves a speed of at least 5 mph and ends when the vehicle speed remains below 5 mph / 8 kph for 5 minutes or when your vehicle crosses a state or national border.
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The VG detects an event with a g-force above the harsh event threshold. For more information, see Harsh Event Types and Thresholds.
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The safety event has met the minimum safety event criteria. For safety event criteria, see Safety Event Review in the Safety Inbox.
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The safety event video is available to review. For video retrieval limitations and considerations, see Video Retrieval.
For the most accurate detection that's appropriate for your fleet, Samsara recommends that you:
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Ensure the VG is securely installed in a location where the device is unlikely to be disturbed by the driver. For example, if the VG is loosely installed or kicked by the driver this could interfere with detection or generate a false harsh event.
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Only relocate the device if necessary. The VG re-calibrates after the device detects movement to its position.
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Select an appropriate Trip Activity threshold for your fleet.
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Verify device calibration status is
Calibratedfrom the Gateways report. For proper calibration, ensure the vehicle has adequate drive time with varied driving styles including braking, accelerating, and turning. If your Device Calibration Status is notCalibrated, see Calibration Status Types.
The calibration process can take up to a few hours and is dependent on gateway health, driving behavior and duration, and a successful installation (see Best Practices for installation recommendations).
The Gateways report (Settings ( ) > Devices > Gateways) indicates one of the following Calibration Statuses for your VG:
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N/A: Device does not require calibration for detection.
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Pending: Device is updating to enable calibration. Ensure that the device is powered on and allow up to two hours for this process to complete.
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Not Calibrated: Calibration process has not yet started. Ensure the vehicle is active and review the Best Practices to ensure successful calibration.
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Calibrating: Calibration is in process. Review the Best Practices to ensure successful calibration.
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Calibrated: Calibration is complete.
The VG automatically detects the vehicle type and assigns harsh event thresholds. You can influence the volume of events that the VG surfaces to the Samsara dashboard by modifying the default sensitivity settings:
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Select the Settings icon (
) at the bottom of your Fleet menu to view dashboard settings.
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From within the Fleet settings, select Safety > Harsh Events.
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Select the default Vehicle Type for vehicles in your fleet (Automatic, Passenger Car, Light Truck, Heavy Duty).
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Adjust the Harsh Event Sensitivity settings for each harsh event category (Harsh Acceleration, Harsh Brake, Harsh Turn) according to your dash cam model:
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Save to confirm the settings.
Samsara recommends that you monitor the event volume using the recommended default Normal settings for 1-2 active weeks before adjusting the thresholds. Increasing to a High sensitivity setting may increase the volume of harsh events detected. Conversely, decreasing to a Low setting may decrease the volume of harsh events detected.
Harsh acceleration, brake, and turn events that occur at speeds of less than 5 mph are automatically filtered out of the Safety Inbox.
Samsara recommends that you Use Recommended Settings and monitor the event volume for 1-2 active weeks before adjusting the thresholds.
When you enable Advanced Options, you can configure the sensitivity settings for each vehicle type. You can adjust the sensitivity from OFF (no events) to MAX for each harsh event category and vehicle type.
Samsara automatically assigns harsh event settings based on the vehicle type. The VG's built-in accelerometer detects g-forces to gauge the severity of a harsh event, relative to the vehicle. For example, harsh brake and harsh turn events are calculated differently for a passenger vehicle as opposed to a heavy duty vehicle.
For multiple events, if the VG detects a crash at the same time as a harsh acceleration, turn, or brake, the VG prioritizes and surfaces only the crash event in the Samsara dashboard . If multiple harsh events occur simultaneously, the VG surfaces only the most recent event with the highest g-force in the Samsara dashboard.
The higher the sensitivity level that you set when you Configure Harsh Event Settings, the lower the g-force threshold to trigger an event. The following list summarizes the harsh event types and the g-force thresholds for each vehicle type:
Note
The thresholds specified in the following list pertain to CM3x series dash cams. To view or change the g-force thresholds for prior models see Harsh Event Sensitivity Settings (CM11/CM12/CM22).
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Crashes: Triggered only by driving events that exceed 2.0g, regardless of vehicle type. Each event surfaces a 10-second video to the Safety Inbox. All other crash forces do not automatically generate a safety event; however, if the vehicle was on a trip, you can request Video Retrieval in order to Manually Generate a Crash Event. Because any event with a max g-force above the threshold triggers a crash, some common non-crash scenarios can occur:
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Low impact events: Low-speed impacts such as parking lot collisions, and low-impact events, such as sideswipes and impacts to the extremity of the vehicle, do not typically generate enough force for an automatic crash detection.
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False positive crashes: If the VG detects an event with a max g-force above the threshold, but is not a crash, the VG may report the event as a crash. Examples of false positives can include a kicked VG, reverse hook-ups, potholes, and road bumps.
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Harsh acceleration: Each event that exceeds the threshold triggers a 10-second video to the Safety Inbox. The g-forces for each sensitivity level vary by vehicle type:
Vehicle Type
Low
Normal
High
Passenger
0.671g
0.670g
0.669g
Light Vehicle
0.581g
0.580g
0.579g
Heavy Duty
0.991g
0.990g
0.989g
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Harsh brake: Each event that exceeds the threshold triggers a 10-second video to the Safety Inbox. A Very Low sensitivity level is recommended only for fleets with vehicles that generate a large number of harsh brake events, such as fleets with dumpster trucks or construction site vehicles. These vehicles would otherwise generate a large number of harsh brake events. The g-forces for each sensitivity level vary by vehicle type:
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Harsh turn: Each event that exceeds the threshold triggers a 10-second video to the Safety Inbox. The g-forces for each sensitivity level vary by vehicle type:
Comments
1 comment
Samsara took a huge step backwards by dumbing down the g-force thresholds for harsh turn and harsh brake events on the newer camera models. As you can see on this page, the older cameras (CM11/CM12/CM22) still allow the user to fine tune the g-force required to trigger an alert using a high-granularity slider. This fine tuning was available for the newer cameras (CM3x) until Samsara took this functionality away, replacing it with a dumbed down four step configuration (Very Low, Low, Normal, High) for Harsh Turns and Harsh Brakes and a three step configuration (Low, Normal, High) for Harsh Acceleration, each with pre-configured thresholds chosen by Samsara. My company had taken time to fine tune these settings using the previously available slider to generate an alert volume appropriate for our specific needs; we no longer have that ability. Again... huge step backwards and I don't understand why Samsara would remove the ability to fine tune settings.
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