1. Is your AIS-140 approval current - and does it cover my state?
AIS-140 devices need ARAI or ICAT type approval, and the approved list changes as the standard is amended. Ask for the certificate number in writing before you pay, not after, and check it yourself against the issuing agency's public list rather than taking the vendor's word for it. Separately, confirm the device is approved for use in every state you operate in - approval in one state doesn't guarantee acceptance in another, and a device rejected at the RTO after installation costs you the install, not just the device.
2. What happens to the data when the signal drops?
Every device loses signal sometimes - tunnels, basements, remote stretches, a dead SIM. What matters is what the device does in that gap: does it store the readings and forward them once connectivity returns, or does that stretch of your fleet's history just disappear? Ask specifically about offline store-and-forward logging, battery backup, and power-cut alerts - not "is your data accurate," which every vendor will answer yes to.
3. Who handles the VAHAN linkage, and is it in writing?
Installing the device isn't the same as being compliant. The vehicle also needs to be linked on the VAHAN portal and show live, and a fitment certificate needs to be issued - steps that are easy to skip and expensive to discover later, usually at your next fitness renewal. Get a written, per-vehicle activation timeline, and confirm whether the vendor handles the VAHAN linkage themselves or expects you to chase it.
4. What does this actually cost over three years - not just the device?
The device price is the smallest number in the conversation. Ask for an itemised quote: device, installation, VAHAN linkage, first-year SIM, and what the recharge costs from year two onward - in writing, before you commit. Recurring costs (SIM renewal, support, re-certification where it applies) often add up to more than the device itself over a few years, and a vendor who won't itemise this upfront is one you'll be renegotiating with later.
5. What's your support response time, and where is support actually based?
"24/7 support" means very little without a number attached to it. Ask for an actual response-time commitment, how issues get escalated, and whether support is local or routed through a call centre with no visibility into your specific fleet. If a device goes offline on a Friday evening, you want to know exactly who picks up and how fast - before it happens, not after.
6. Who owns the data, and what happens if you switch vendors?
Ask directly: can you export your historical data, in what format, and is there a cost or delay attached? Ask what happens to your data if you terminate the contract, and whether the vendor will help you migrate off their platform if you leave. A vendor confident in their service has no reason to make this difficult - the ones who hedge on this question are telling you something about how they expect the relationship to end.
7. Can you see it running on a vehicle like yours, before you sign?
A sales deck and a live dashboard are different things. Ask to see the platform on an actual vehicle, in operating conditions similar to yours - not a demo account running clean sample data. If a vendor can't show you that, or stalls when you ask, that's your answer.
Where we stand on these ourselves
We're a new company - VIoT was incorporated in 2026, and we don't have three years of our own customers to point back to yet. What we can tell you is that we built our hardware and platform in-house rather than reselling someone else's, specifically because the failure modes above - signal gaps that disappear, certificates nobody tracks, data you can't get back out - are the ones we kept running into working in this industry before VIoT existed. If you're evaluating us or anyone else, ask these same seven questions. We'd rather answer them honestly than win a sale on a vague pitch.