How SmartFits Helped Davidsons Homes Eliminate “Data Black Holes” and Achieve 100% Fleet Visibility

In construction, attention to detail is everything — but that detail shouldn’t end at the job site.

For Davidsons Homes, one of the Midlands’ leading placemakers, poor-quality fleet visibility had become a growing threat to safety, productivity, and insurance exposure.

Their challenge wasn’t unique — but their solution was.

And that solution came through partnering with SmartFits.

For 18 months, SmartFits has worked closely with Davidsons Homes to deliver a fully connected, fully reliable, construction-ready camera and telematics system built for the realities of working on live sites. The result? Something many fleets in the construction sector still consider impossible:

100% access to critical camera footage — every time it’s needed.

This transformation didn’t happen by accident. It happened because SmartFits doesn’t sell boxes — we build solutions.

The Challenge: A Fleet Operating in the Dark

Before SmartFits stepped in, Davidsons faced a visibility nightmare.

Their legacy camera system couldn’t cope with:

•         Mud

•         Dust

•         Rough terrain

•         Harsh weather

•         Poor network coverage on remote construction sites

When incidents happened, retrieving footage required travelling to vehicles, removing hard drives, and hoping the data was usable.

“We were facing corrupted hard drives, inoperable cameras, and significant downtime,”

says Ross Bayliss, Health, Safety & Environmental Director at Davidsons Homes.

For a business committed to protecting its people, this was unacceptable.

And this is where SmartFits came in — not with a product, but with a plan

The SmartFits Approach: Solutions, Not Hardware

Unlike traditional suppliers, SmartFits doesn’t deliver out-of-the-box systems.

We start with one thing: understanding the customer’s world.

For Davidsons Homes, that meant designing a system that could survive — and outperform — in construction environments where other technologies fail.

Here’s what SmartFits delivered:

✔ Tailored System Design

We analysed the demands of active building sites and crafted a configuration built to withstand extremes.

✔ MANTIS RECON Platform Integration

This gave Davidsons instant access to live video, remote footage requests, and reliable storage — removing the need to ever touch a hard drive again.

✔ Full 360° Camera Coverage

Front, driver-facing, and rear cameras provide complete visibility for telehandler operators and managers alike.

✔ Multi-Network Roaming SIMs

The true differentiator.

We deployed SIMs that automatically switch to the strongest network, ensuring connectivity on even the most remote or congested sites.

✔ Geotab Telematics

For real-time data insights, vehicle performance tracking, and future sustainability monitoring.

✔ Full Installation & White-Glove Support

SmartFits handled everything — from fitting hardware to platform setup to ongoing support.

This was not a product sale.
It was a SmartFits-engineered operational upgrade.

The Results

1. 100% Footage Availability

Davidsons now has complete confidence in their visibility tools.

“On every occasion we’ve needed to access camera footage, it has been available 100% of the time—without a single issue.”

This level of reliability is a direct outcome of SmartFits’ design approach and the MANTIS RECON platform.

2. Reduced Insurance Exposure & Driver Protection

Thanks to SmartFits’ multi-camera solution, Davidsons can now prove when drivers are not at fault — reducing claims and protecting both people and reputation.

3. A New Standard for Safety Culture

With SmartFits delivering clean, consistent video and telematics insights, the system has evolved from a reactive tool to a proactive safety driver.

Near-misses now become learning opportunities, not mysteries.

4. Future-Ready Sustainability Insights

With Geotab and MANTIS in place, Davidsons is preparing to reduce idling, cut emissions, and improve fuel efficiency — all enabled by the SmartFits ecosystem.

What Davidsons Says About SmartFits

“SmartFits invested time upfront to understand our requirements and configure the system so it aligned closely with our operations.

They delivered what we needed at a competitive price — and since installation, the system has been 100% reliable.

Moving to MANTIS & Geotab through SmartFits was absolutely the right decision for our business.”
— Ross Bayliss, Health, Safety & Environmental Director

Conclusion: Why Construction Fleets Choose SmartFits

The construction sector is one of the harshest environments for fleet technology — and SmartFits has proven that with the right expertise and right partnership, full visibility is achievable.

Davidsons Homes now operates with:

✔ Zero footage loss
✔ Faster investigations
✔ Greater driver protection
✔ Stronger safety performance
✔ A future-ready sustainability plan

And SmartFits is proud to have delivered every part of that transformation.

Because at SmartFits, we don’t just install hardware.

We make the invisible visible — reliably, intelligently, and without compromise.