LoadingDock AI (DockProof)
Automatic photo evidence and a dwell clock for every dock door
Photographs the trailer interior the moment the door opens, every pallet that crosses and the load at door close, and logs arrival-to-departure times, all filed under the BOL scanned at the door.
- Who buys it
- Operations manager or owner of a small 3PL, distributor or plant warehouse with 2–12 dock doors.
- Why it pays
- About $10–16k a year for a 4-door site (est.), from shortages and damage noted before the driver leaves, detention invoices disputed with timestamps (about $63/h), and outbound damage claims rebutted.
- Target price
- $249 per door kit + $19/door/month, on a shared Edge Hub (target)
- First-minute wow
- The door opens and within 2 seconds a photo of the untouched trailer interior appears on the lead's phone under the PO, before the first pallet moves.
What the research found
And how this design answers it
- Enterprise CV with WMS integration → no integration in v1: the BOL is scanned on a phone, export is PDF/CSV
- Manifest matching and damage AI are unreliable → v1 sells evidence; the pallet count is an assist a person confirms
- Phone photos are the free competitor → triggered by a door contact, hands-free, time-synced and filed automatically
- Forklift masts hit dock cameras → printed breakaway arm with a magnet detent and a steel lanyard
- Video upload is costly → stills stay on the hub; only hashes, signatures and thumbnails go to the cloud until export
- Evidence must be believable → each still is hashed and signed at capture and the signature is logged in the cloud
Use case
Two pallets short on door 3
Receiving leadForklift driverCarrier driver
- 01Trigger: the lead scans the BOL at the DockTag QR and the door opens
- 02Detection: the door contact fires and the hub saves the interior photo; each pallet crossing adds a still and +1
- 03Alert: on 'done' the phone shows camera count 24 against BOL 26 and the DockTag light blinks
- 04Action: the lead notes 2 short and 1 damaged on the receipt with photo reference before signing
Outcome: A noted exception with photos instead of a concealed-damage argument; about $800 saved (est.)
How it works
Architecture
- 01
Sense: one PoE camera per door on a breakaway arm, plus a DockTag with a door contact and a big button
- 02
Decide: the Edge Hub runs truck/pallet detection and a door state machine; the door contact is the authority for open/closed
- 03
Send: MQTT over TLS with events, signed hashes and thumbnails; full stills stay on the hub SSD for 13 months
- 04
Tell: door page on the lead's phone, dwell SMS, weekly door report, one-click evidence pack
Hardware
Real parts, buyable today
Bill of materials: about $105 per door plus a shared $495 hub (est.).
| Block | Part | Why this part |
|---|---|---|
| Hub | IEMI Edge Hub (Raspberry Pi 5 + AI HAT+ 26 TOPS) + TL-SG1210P PoE+ | Up to 8 doors per hub; shared with other packs |
| Door camera | Reolink RLC-510A 5 MP PoE | IR for dark trailers, proven RTSP path, $40 |
| Door node | Seeed XIAO ESP32C3 + Adafruit 1185 100 mm LED button | Wi-Fi to the hub; a button you can hit with gloves |
| Door contact | GRI 184-12 in printed blocks | A hard open/closed signal without drilling the door |
Mechanical
Printable CAD
5 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.
See the CAD parts render
Loading the CAD…
Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways
Bought hardware fitted inside this part (checked in the CAD: nothing collides with the plastic)
Open risks we are working on
- Adoption: dock crews may stick with phone photos; a 4-week pilot decides
- Pallet count under forklift occlusion needs a custom-trained model
- Camera field of view into a 53 ft trailer from inside the dock is unproven
- Claim values vary widely; the money case must be checked against a pilot customer's real claims
Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.