Reefer telematics: the hardware on the box

Reefer telematics is the hardware on a refrigerated container that reports off the box while it travels: a modem, a satellite or cellular radio, a GPS receiver, and a link into the refrigeration controller. It is the equipment layer underneath reefer monitoring, which is the service a carrier sells on top of it.

The distinction matters commercially. Telematics is fitted to a physical container by whoever owns it, and it stays with that container for the fifteen or twenty years the box is in service. Monitoring is a product, with an account, a portal and a contract. You can be sold the second and still be allocated a box without the first.

What the device actually does #

The controller on a reefer already logs delivery air, return air, setpoint, defrost cycles and alarms. Telematics does not measure any of that — it reads what the controller recorded and sends it somewhere.

That is why the honest answer to “how often is it updated” is always two numbers: how often the controller samples, and how often the device gets a connection to send. At sea the second one is the constraint, and it is why readings often arrive in bursts rather than in a smooth line.

Position works the same way. A telematics unit has its own GPS, so unlike AIS it reports the container rather than the vessel carrying it — which is the one thing it does that no other feed can.

What it is not #

It is not a temperature probe in your fruit. It is not a guarantee that the data reaches you, because that depends on whose account the box is registered to. And it is not universal: a line’s newest boxes carry it, its oldest do not, and allocation decides which one you get.

Trackberry does not read these devices — it follows carrier milestones and vessel positions — so the telematics feed and the tracking timeline are two separate things an importer usually keeps open side by side.

FAQ #

Is telematics the same as reefer monitoring? #

No. Telematics is the hardware on the container; monitoring is the service that turns its output into something you can look at. A box can carry the hardware and still show you nothing, if the data goes to an account that is not yours.

Can a telematics device track my container after transshipment? #

Yes, and that is its main advantage over AIS. The device is on the box, so it keeps reporting through a transshipment and on the road leg, where a vessel feed stops being about your cargo entirely.

Can I fit my own device to a carrier’s container? #

Shippers do use their own loggers and trackers inside the load, and lines have rules about what may be attached to their equipment. A logger in the cargo answers a different question anyway: it records the fruit’s environment rather than the machine’s output.