The Sentinel product line was launched close to eight years ago, and it has become a critical tool in our highly flexible solution stack.  The initial launch included our standard Sentinel 100, which is a ruggedized long range Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beaconing device that includes a full suite of sensors.  We later enhanced the product line to include the Sentinel Anchor and Sentinel Logger to address even more customer use cases.  Our Sentinel tags can also be used in combination with our SENTRY device to enable applications ranging from pharmacy monitoring to mission critical aviation tracking.  While the combination of Sentinel and SENTRY devices proved to be incredibly effective, several key customers approached us seeking a tracking and monitoring solution that would deliver the low cost, compact size, long battery life, and simplicity of our Sentinel tags, but could operate without the need for any SENTRY devices – enter the Sentinel 100S.

As we began development, it was critical we prioritized market feedback to deliver a solution that achieved customer goals.  How could we deliver all they asked for in a device that didn’t use higher cost technology like cellular?   How could we preserve the elegance and simplicity of Sentinel with an eye toward sustainability, scale and global use? Market analysis indicated that existing competitor’s solutions for stand-alone tracking devices had average dimensions of 97mmx90mmx24mm and weight of 144g – our Sentinel products are 64mmx50mmx13mm and 51g, already representing a dimensional reduction of nearly 50% and weight reduction of 65%! Sentinel was the right size, and already offered substantial sustainability benefits and CO2 footprint reductions versus competitive solutions in the market, so we knew we had to stick with the same size. Growing the size, complexity and cost of the device just wasn’t a viable option from our perspective.  

The next requirement was ensuring maximum battery life.  While the SENTRY can last hundreds of days, many of our customers reported applications that required closer to 12 months. This already matched what Sentinel can do, so we had to preserve Sentinel-like battery life while offering the autonomous ship-it-anywhere capability of a cellular device . . . how could we do this?

The final major requirement was simplicity in operations. Most tracking devices complicate matters by requiring complex activation processes and periodic recharging. Again, our Sentinel product suite has streamlined operations because every Sentinel ships already turned on (so field activation is not required) and Sentinels last for at least 12 months (so no recharging required). Sentinel already has the operational simplicity we were looking for!

OK, so now we had a path, and we just needed to solve the problem of making a non-cellular device work anywhere in the world, without any guaranteed infrastructure to support it . . . Hey, no big deal right? Just another Monday at the office here at OnAsset! But seriously, how could we do this? And then it clicked – we already had the pieces in front of us: 1) A global customer base built over our 20 years in business, already operating in over 180 countries; 2) the OnAsset Global Network was already in place, spanning most major airports worldwide and hundreds of major freight forwarder warehouses; and 3) hundreds of thousands of devices roaming the world every day, tracking and monitoring shipments, assets and facilities in near real time. What if we could make all these things operate like one big cohesive network, and mesh them together for a common purpose? Add the right components of security, scalability, a little of the ‘old OnAsset magic, and we could build a solution that gives a tracking experience equal to (or in many cases better than) a cellular tracker. The Sentinel 100S was born (insert applause here)!

The Sentinel 100S has now been deployed globally for over 12 months, and has been dropping jaws ever since. Don’t believe that we can deliver a global tracking and monitoring experience without cellular? Try us, and we’ll make you believe. Game changed, and hey, it’s only Tuesday here at OnAsset 😉