Use AI Equipment Detection
Setting up a new workshop in BayWise means telling the system what equipment each bay contains — lifts, alignment racks, paint booths, diagnostic terminals, tyre changers, and so on. This information is what allows BayWise to route jobs intelligently: a wheel alignment job only goes to a bay with an alignment rack; a paint correction job only goes to a bay with a dedicated paint booth.
Entering this manually for a workshop with 8, 12, or 20 bays is time-consuming. AI equipment detection shortens that work significantly: take a clear photo of a bay, upload it to BayWise, and the AI identifies the major equipment items visible in the image. You review the suggestions, check the ones that are correct, and add them to the bay in one click.
This guide explains the full process, how to get the best results from your photos, and what to do when the AI misses something.
Prerequisites: The Vision AI function must be configured with a vision-capable model. See Configure AI Providers.
Why equipment matters for scheduling
Every service in your catalog can have required equipment attached to it. When a controller schedules a job, BayWise cross-references the job’s required equipment against the equipment list of each bay, and suggests or filters bays accordingly.
Without accurate equipment data:
- A wheel alignment job could be routed to a general-purpose bay with no alignment rack
- A paint booth becomes invisible to the scheduling engine — jobs that need it go anywhere
- The AI scheduling feature loses one of its key signals for bay recommendation
Keeping bay equipment lists accurate is foundational to getting value from BayWise scheduling. Equipment detection makes the initial setup fast enough that there is no reason to skip it.
How to detect equipment from a photo
Navigate to the bay settings
From the top navigation, go to Settings → Bays.
You will see a list of all bays at the current location. Click the bay you want to configure — for example, Bay 3 — Service.
The bay settings panel opens, showing the bay’s name, type, buffer time, and equipment list.
Open the Equipment section
Scroll down to the Equipment section. If no equipment has been added yet, the list will be empty.
Click Detect Equipment from Photo.
Capture or upload a photo
A photo upload prompt appears. You have two options:
- Take a photo now — on a mobile device or tablet, this opens your camera directly
- Upload an existing photo — select an image file from your device
For the best results, use a photo that meets these guidelines:
- Good lighting — natural daylight from bay doors, or bright overhead artificial lighting. Avoid dim or uneven light that throws equipment into shadow.
- Full bay coverage — step back far enough to capture the complete bay area, including the rear wall, the ceiling-mounted equipment, and the floor-level items such as tyre changers.
- No staff in the frame — do not include workshop personnel in the photo. Beyond privacy considerations, a person standing in front of a lift column or rack obscures equipment the AI needs to see.
- Stable shot — a blurry photo significantly reduces detection accuracy. Take the photo from a stable position, or rest the device against a wall.
- One bay at a time — do not photograph two adjacent bays in a single image. The AI maps detections to a single bay; overlapping bays create ambiguity.
Accepted image formats: JPG, PNG, HEIC. Maximum file size: 20 MB.
Wait for detection results
After the photo is submitted, BayWise sends it to your configured Vision AI provider for analysis. This typically takes 5–15 seconds depending on image size and provider response time.
A progress indicator is shown while the analysis runs. Do not navigate away from the page during this time.
Review the detected equipment
When analysis completes, BayWise displays a list of detected equipment items. Each item appears as a labelled card with a checkbox:
- Items the AI is confident about are pre-checked
- Items where the AI has lower confidence may appear unchecked, with a note such as “Possible — confirm visually”
Example results for a typical multi-purpose mechanical bay:
| Detected item | Confidence | Pre-checked |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Post Hydraulic Lift | High | Yes |
| Tire Changer (secondary) | High | Yes |
| Tire Changer | High | Yes |
| Wheel Balancer | Medium | Yes |
| Air Compressor Unit | Medium | No |
| Oil Drain Station | Low | No |
Review every item in the list against what you can see in the photo:
- Check any item that is present and was not pre-checked
- Uncheck any item that is a false positive (the AI detected something that is not actually in this bay, or confused one piece of equipment for another)
- Note any items the AI missed entirely — you will add these manually in the next step
Add the selected items
Click Add Selected. BayWise matches each detected item against your existing equipment catalog using fuzzy name matching.
- Known equipment — items that match an entry in your equipment catalog are added to the bay immediately.
- New equipment — if the AI detects an item that does not match anything in your existing catalog, BayWise prompts you to add it as a new catalog entry. This is how the catalog grows organically: the AI spots a piece of equipment your catalog doesn’t know about yet, and you confirm whether to add it. This means you don’t need to manually maintain a master equipment list — the detection process builds it for you as you scan each bay.
The equipment list updates to show the newly added items. Each item is displayed with its name and can be edited or removed later from the same Equipment section.
Add any missed items manually
If the AI did not detect a piece of equipment that is present in the bay, add it manually:
Click Add Equipment in the Equipment section, type the equipment name, and save.
Common items that AI detection may miss:
- Custom-fabricated jigs or fixtures
- Proprietary OEM diagnostic terminals (brand-specific equipment not widely pictured in training data)
- Very small equipment such as handheld scan tools stored on a shelf
- Equipment partially covered or tucked into corners
Manual additions work identically to AI-added items — they are fully integrated into the scheduling engine once saved.
AI detection is a time-saver, not a guarantee. At Müller Werkstatt in Berlin, it identified 7 out of 9 equipment items correctly on first scan. The remaining 2 were a custom-fabricated jig and a proprietary diagnostic terminal. These were added manually. Budget a few minutes per bay to review and complete the list — detection handles the bulk of the work, but a human review pass is always the right last step.
What the AI can and cannot identify
Commonly identified correctly
The Vision AI reliably recognises standard automotive workshop equipment that appears frequently in training data:
- 2-post and 4-post lifts (hydraulic and electric)
- Scissor lifts and in-ground lifts
- Wheel alignment racks and laser alignment systems
- Tire changers and wheel balancers
- Paint booths and spray booths
- Air compressor stations
- Oil drain and fluid exchange stations
- Vehicle jacks and axle stands
- Diagnostic scan terminals (generic)
- Battery charging stations
May be missed or misidentified
- Custom-fabricated equipment — a jig welded in-house or a custom-built trolley system has no reference in the AI’s training data
- Proprietary OEM terminals — a manufacturer-specific diagnostic system (for example, a dealer-grade BMW ISTA terminal) may be identified as a “Diagnostic Terminal” rather than by brand
- Small or partially obscured items — a handheld scan tool on a shelf, or a tyre pressure gauge hanging on the wall, may not register
- Equipment from the rear — if a major piece of equipment is only visible from behind in the photo, identification accuracy drops
- Uncommon regional equipment — equipment common in certain markets but rare elsewhere may not be recognised
None of these limitations prevent you from using BayWise fully — you add anything missed to the equipment list manually, and the scheduling engine treats manually-added items identically to AI-detected ones.
Updating equipment after initial setup
Equipment lists are not locked after the initial setup. As your workshop evolves — a new lift is installed, an old tyre changer is retired, a paint booth is added — you update the equipment list in Settings → Bays → [Bay name] → Equipment.
You can run equipment detection again at any time on any bay. New results are shown as a fresh list; any equipment already in the bay’s list is not duplicated if the AI detects the same items again.
A practical schedule for most workshops:
- At setup: Run detection on all bays to build the initial equipment lists
- After any equipment change: Update the affected bay manually
- Annual review: Re-run detection on each bay as a quick audit
Common questions
The detection ran but returned no results. What happened? Check that the Vision function is configured and shows Configured status in Settings → AI. If the configuration is fine, the most common causes are: a very dark or blurry photo (try again with better lighting), an image file that is too large (resize to under 20 MB), or a temporary issue with the AI provider (try again after a minute).
The AI detected equipment that is in the next bay, not this one. Why? The photo likely included part of an adjacent bay in the frame. Retake the photo from inside the bay, angling the camera to exclude the neighbouring bay. If your bays are open-plan and difficult to separate visually, annotate or crop the photo before uploading.
Can I use a video instead of a photo? No. Equipment detection processes a single still image. For best coverage, take two or three photos from different positions within the bay and run detection separately on each, then combine the results.
The AI said “Possible — confirm visually” for an item. Should I add it? Walk to the bay and look. If the item is there, check it and add it. If it is not, uncheck it. The “Possible” label means the AI detected something consistent with that equipment type but had lower confidence — perhaps the item was partially obscured or lit from an unusual angle.
Can I run detection on bays at multiple locations at once? No. Detection runs one bay at a time. Switch to the correct location using the location selector at the top of the screen, then open each bay’s settings and run detection individually.
Will AI detection overwrite my existing equipment list? No. Detection results are shown as a separate suggestion list. You choose which items to add. Items already in the bay’s equipment list are not touched.
How do I delete an equipment item that was added incorrectly? Open Settings → Bays → [Bay name] → Equipment. Click the remove (×) button next to the item. The item is removed from the bay’s list immediately. If any service in your catalog had this equipment as a requirement, you should also review whether that service can still be scheduled to this bay.