25-year milestone spurs battery-powered tracking push and ‘deploy once’ claims

Fresh off its 25th anniversary, Digital Matter is pitching a new wave of battery-powered asset trackers and a broadened presence in North America and Europe aimed at lowering truck rolls, extending device life, and tightening indoor and outdoor visibility. The company says this next chapter will ride an expanded leadership team and its largest product cycle yet. For supply chain operators wrestling with cold chain exceptions, returnable packaging loss and site access constraints, the promise is simple: install once, then stop thinking about batteries for years.

Why it matters

Battery life is the silent line item in every tracking project. When devices die or drift offline, visibility gaps multiply, recovery windows close and technicians start driving. Total cost of ownership is dictated more by uptime, provisioning friction and swap rates than by headline device price. If vendors can genuinely extend life while improving fix rates inside warehouses, containers and dense yards, programs scale without surprise maintenance.

The company is pairing its anniversary with a leadership shift and a product ramp positioned around ultra-low-power designs, broader radio support and easier fleet provisioning. North American and European expansion is meant to put engineering and support closer to customers so pilots can move to thousands of units without custom hand-holding. The market backdrop favors durable hardware: logistics, cold chain, agriculture and industrial users need visibility on assets that can’t power a device, don’t live on a truck CAN bus and spend long stretches idle or in transit.

The claim, in the company’s words

“Marking 25 years is both a celebration of where we’ve been and a launchpad for where we’re going,” said Barancourt. “Having spent nearly a decade as a Digital Matter reseller before joining the company, I’ve experienced firsthand how our commitment to innovation, quality, and reliability has shaped a strong foundation for our partners’ success. It’s that foundation – established over decades – that we are now building on to deliver the next generation of IoT innovation, expand our global footprint, and empower partners with solutions that are built to perform, scale, and last. The next chapter is about moving faster, thinking bigger, and unlocking new possibilities for connected operations worldwide.”Loic Barancourt, CEO, Digital Matter

Digital Matter designs and manufactures battery-powered IoT asset tracking devices and device management software used across logistics, cold chain, agriculture and industrial markets; it is relevant because long-life, rugged trackers reduce maintenance and downtime while preserving in-motion visibility for assets without power.

What to watch

The “deploy once” promise is only as strong as four numbers: verified duty-cycle life under realistic reporting intervals, indoor positioning accuracy, failure and RMA rates, and time to provision at scale. Indoor performance is often where programs stumble, especially in metal-dense environments with spotty GNSS. Network flexibility matters too. Devices that can roam and fallback across cellular bands and low-power networks reduce dead zones without site surveys. Onboarding thousands of units is another breakpoint. Clean APIs, bulk provisioning and remote configuration can decide whether a pilot becomes a program.

Operator checklist

If you are budgeting for 2026, ask for workload-specific battery projections by SKU and reporting profile, not marketing estimates. Request indoor demos in your facilities or a close analog. Push for historical RMA and warranty stats and a clear migration path from existing SKUs. Clarify how firmware updates happen at scale and whether you can adjust reporting without waking the device too often. If a vendor claims multiyear life, validate the math against your exception-handling cadence and compliance obligations.

Why now

Device life and zero-touch installs are becoming the decisive variables as labor tightens and networks fragment. Cold rooms, cross-border roaming and dense urban sheds punish inefficient designs. The companies that win here won’t do it with slogans. They will do it with provable battery curves, smarter sleep strategies and less time on ladders.

Anniversaries don’t move freight, batteries do. If Digital Matter’s next hardware proves it can cut truck rolls and keep assets visible when and where it counts, the milestone will matter for more than the cake.