Otari Group was founded in 1978 as Otari Electronics Limited, with Elaine and Peter Clark as the principal owners.

In the early days, Otari Electronics designed and manufactured sophisticated electronics for New Zealand Railways. This included designing and building the prototype of Locolog, then a giant technology leap for railways data logging. No magnetic or paper tapes were needed as were used by US and European data loggers. Locolog was the first fully solid state data logger in the world, and it revolutionised the industry.

Since then Otari Group has manufactured a whole series of products that have advanced the world of on-board railway electronics. Translog was introduced to industry in 1990, and in 2003 Tranzlog 4 was released. To date over 1200 Tranzlog units have been produced and are currently supported in markets around the world.

In addition to Tranzlog, Otari has pioneered a range of new products used on-board locomotives and transit vehicles. These include:

In the year 2000 Elaine and Peter's daughter Juliette joined the company and over the following 10 years worked her way from the factory floor to head of Otari's US operations based in Los Angeles. She is currently the CEO of Otari Group.

In 2016 Otari Group relocated its operations from Wellington and Los Angeles to Canterbury, New Zealand. In the new Ohoka site the company has built a design, development, manufacturing and support operation which is resilient to world events and is capable of significant expansion without resource constraints.

Since 2016 the company has worked on a range of products outside of it's core rail industry business. The new products position the company for continuous growth in the exciting world of energy generation and personal mobility.