Commercial office spaces are experiencing the most substantial transition since their advent. These visible changes are compelling firms and commercial real estate managers to evaluate the efficiency and performance of their existing buildings. Today’s workers demand building design to meet their needs to complete duties successfully. This is where occupancy monitoring may help.
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What Exactly Is Occupancy Monitoring?
Occupancy monitoring technology, also known as count of people, foot traffic monitoring, and crowd count technology, keeps track of the number of people present in a specific building, floor, or designated location.
How Does It Operate?
There are several methods for keeping track of the number of individuals in a given area. Some people are old school and don’t need any technology. Others employ advanced hardware and algorithms.
Here are a few examples of the many types of occupancy monitoring options that are now available:
Break-beam sensors:
It detects mobility by emitting infrared beams of light that count the number of persons crossing the line. These sensors, commonly installed on either side of a doorway, are often low-cost and provide a decent baseline trend. However, they are prone to inaccuracy and lack precision regarding where people are going in the building.
Thermal sensors:
This type of detection is done by the body heat when a person walks past them and uses it to check occupancy. Because of how the sensors measure heat, accuracy can be an issue when individuals are stationary, overlapping, or carrying heated goods like laptops.
Webcam sensing:
Cameras are self-explanatory. They employ video surveillance to actively count the number of individuals entering and exiting an area. The lack of anonymity is ideal for organizations trying to learn more about their clients (i.e., gender, age, etc.). Camera sensors need infrastructural upgrades to be installed.
Why love installing this?
It helps improve in better management of:
Energy: Helps automate lighting and heating as needed. Electrical and HVAC equipment will no longer be left running in empty rooms. It helps to guarantee that power is not wasted on heating, lighting, and cooling chambers.
Space usage: Improving space use within your existing facilities is one of the most cost-effective ways to save money. You can spot problems by having a thorough awareness of how your personnel and visitors move across different areas and floors of your property.
Obtain both current and historical data: Real-time crowd-level information assists businesses in ensuring that their buildings remain at capacity. Occupancy data gathered over time may also provide historical insights and identify crowd tendencies, allowing for more educated and cost-effective space design decisions.
Promotes social distance: The pandemic has made us realize the need for occupancy monitoring technology to assist companies in better managing space density and avoiding potential crowding to comply with COVID standards and promote social distancing.
Employee productivity: The goal of occupancy monitoring in the future is to build productive, occupant-centric workplaces. If real-time occupancy data is integrated into booking systems that rapidly display available spaces, employees will spend less time looking for meeting rooms or workstations.
Finally!
Companies are paying the price for building energy usage from office lighting, heating, and cooling, generating a demand for more precise occupancy monitoring data. The occupancy monitoring system is, thus, a comprehensive sensor-to-cloud platform for evaluating and deploying occupancy monitoring, capable of providing real-time, room-level data on occupancy needed for more effective building energy management.
