You show up to a job site, ready to get to work—only to find that a mission-critical piece of equipment is gone. Suddenly, your team is idle, your schedule is off-track, and your bottom line takes a hit. 

For operations that depend on equipment to do their work, asset theft isn’t an isolated event—it’s an ongoing operational and financial threat.

In the U.S. alone, over $1 billion worth of equipment is stolen each year. But the true cost of theft goes beyond the price tag of a single item. Operations regularly face replacement costs ranging from $1,000 to well over $100,000 per incident. Teams lose days—sometimes weeks or months—trying to locate assets, reorder equipment, and fill out paperwork. More critically, missed equipment can delay jobs, disrupt customer service, and result in lost revenue.

But loss doesn’t have to be inevitable. With the Samsara Asset Tag, companies are recovering stolen assets faster, preventing future theft, and realizing significant cost savings. Featuring a small, rugged design, flexible mounting options, and industrial-grade Bluetooth 100 times stronger than consumer trackers, the Asset Tag is built to mitigate theft and loss. 

Real stories of recovered assets

With the Asset Tag, organizations are recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, preventing theft, and monitoring previously untrackable assets.

Hoskins Equipment, which provides rental equipment to the western U.S., had seen enough theft incidents to know that reactive measures weren’t working. In the first year they deployed Samsara Asset Tags, they were able to recover three stolen forklifts—each valued at over $40,000. This avoided $120,000 in replacement costs, kept their customers’ projects on schedule, and eliminated the logistical scramble that usually follows theft. 

Grand Isle Shipyard (GIS) provides maintenance and storage services for oil rig equipment, including valves worth up to $200,000 each and spools worth up to $50,000 each. GIS installed Samsara Asset Tags on over $10M worth of equipment to create a digital chain of custody and protect equipment in their possession. The Find Nearby feature helps them instantly locate specific valves, while geofences trigger real-time alerts for any movement. In one recent event, GIS recovered over $100,000 of stolen equipment, including a skid steer, tracked with Asset Tag. 

In the UK, Cappagh Browne maintains wastewater infrastructure across the southeast of England, operating with a fleet of more than 200 vehicles. When a digger worth £25,000 was stolen—along with the trailer transporting it—the team initially assumed recovery would be impossible. Thieves had located and removed what they thought was the only GPS tracker on the equipment. However, a Samsara Asset Tag had been discreetly hidden on the digger. Within hours, police were able to use the tag’s location data to recover both the digger and trailer, finding them 30 miles away at a residential construction site. By the next morning, operations were back on track.

TEAMS Transport, a mid-sized carrier operating across Canada and the U.S., had a problem with frequently misplaced or lost assets like pallet jacks, costing time and money. After equipping Samsara Asset Tags across their smaller equipment, TEAMS saw immediate results. They recovered 100% of previously lost pallet jacks, saving over $19,000 in replacement costs.

Expert tips: How to maximize theft recovery and savings

Companies that see the most value from asset tracking don’t just install a device—they apply a strategic approach to mitigating theft. Here are some of the most effective tactics our customers use:

1. Strategic placement

Use the Samsara Asset Tag's discreet design and flexible mounting options to your advantage. Hide the Asset Tag where thieves wouldn’t think to look, such as under panels or within the asset itself. 

“The compact, discreet design of Asset Tags makes them perfect for specialized equipment. They can be easily hidden and consistently deliver reliable functionality.”

Derek Champagne, Logistics & Asset Compliance Manager, Grand Isle Shipyard. 

 2. Take action with real-time location data and theft recovery tools

Set up geofences around job sites, depots, and authorized zones. Teams receive real-time alerts when an asset crosses a boundary, helping them respond quickly and reduce recovery times. The Find Nearby feature uses encrypted Bluetooth signals to find a “needle in a haystack” and guide you to the exact location of a nearby asset, right from the Samsara Driver or Fleet App.

“The Asset Tag provides a complete view of our trailers and equipment. Instead of a 12-hour snapshot, we have a granular view of where everything has been.” 

Eric Thiessen, Transportation Manager, Emery Sapp and Sons

3. Partner with law enforcement 

Use Samsara’s live sharing feature to send police a real-time map of a stolen asset’s location. That kind of visibility makes recovery far more likely, even if the asset is being moved.

4. Spot problems early

Inventory and dormancy reports can help identify assets in unknown locations or those that haven’t moved in weeks—often early indicators of theft, underutilization, or misplacement in an area vulnerable to theft.

“Every asset we recover is an asset we don’t need to replace. The cost we now spend to track an asset with Asset Tag immediately pays for itself, just by giving us the knowledge of where our assets are and avoiding the time and labor it takes to locate equipment.”

Matt Bailey, Landscape Services Manager, MSU

 5. If it matters to your team, track it

The only limit to what you can track is your imagination. The Samsara Asset Tag is rugged, easy to install, and features a four-year battery life, making it ideal for tracking your most valuable assets, whatever they are: generators, compressors, skid steers, fiber splicers, and more. If it’s critical to your business, it can—and should—be tracked.

“Asset Tag allows us to reinforce existing location tracking on our high-value assets and, for the first time, add tracking to smaller assets that we couldn't track before.”

Rich Poppoff, Equipment Superintendent, DeSilva Gates Construction

Protect your most valuable assets from theft and loss

Asset theft is a billion-dollar problem—but you don’t have to be part of the statistic. The Samsara Asset Tag delivers a proven return on investment for customers with real-time visibility into their critical equipment.

You can’t stop every theft, but with the right tools, you can prevent them from becoming losses.

Learn how Samsara Asset Tag can help you protect what matters most.