The occupancy sensor reimagined for the changing workplace

An area sensor (also sometimes called an occupancy sensor) is a device that detects the presence of people within a defined space. These sensors typically use one of several detection technologies, including computer vision, infrared, WiFi, Bluetooth, or RFID, to identify and report the presence of employees or other occupants in a space. 

Area sensors and analytics platforms enable companies to gain insights into total occupancy and occupant behavior. This information can help businesses tailor their offerings and services to meet employee needs and expectations better. 

Companies leverage data from area sensors to manage a broad range of projects in addition to ongoing analysis. These include return-to-office planning, occupancy planning, improving workspace experience initiatives, CRE portfolio optimization, reducing real estate costs, and hybrid workplace design.

Typically, area sensors are mounted on ceilings or tall objects to track and report on a specific area. They then monitor the workspace below. The coverage range of particular area sensor types and brands varies considerably. While typical area sensors cover about 500 square feet (space for about ten desks,) advanced wide-area sensors like those from XY Sense cover twice that area – about 1000 square feet (95 sq meters.) That’s sufficient space for 20 desks. That difference means that with wide-range sensors, you can monitor the same-sized space with fewer units, lowering installation and ongoing maintenance costs. 

The various types of sensors have different characteristics to consider as you evaluate alternatives for your business. Sensor range is determined by the quality of the unit and the technology used to scan and analyze a space. 

For example, infrared units offer more limited accuracy and range because of technological limitations. They struggle to accurately count the number of individuals in an area and lose accuracy when objects are positioned between the sensor and the individuals being monitored. Computer vision sensors like those offered by XY Sense use a more robust detection technology that is more accurate and can cover far more area.  

Get an in-depth introduction to Area Sensors with this blog post: Occupancy Sensors 101.

Area sensors are increasingly popular as a means of collecting workplace occupancy data and analytics. They help businesses rightsize real estate costs, optimize the use of their workspaces, improve employee productivity, and create more inviting workspaces that drive smoother operation and higher employee engagement.

Area sensor data can provide an accurate and comprehensive data foundation for real estate teams, helping them make the right decisions on critical projects, including:

• Rightsize real estate costs: Many real estate teams are being asked to find savings to help their companies be more efficient and profitable. Area sensors provide the data necessary to rightsize workspaces based on reliable quantitative usage data. 
• Optimize space utilization: Optimize space utilization by identifying underutilized areas and making informed decisions about space allocation. This can help to reduce costs, maximize occupancy rates, and improve the overall efficiency of a company’s property.
• Improve employee experience: Knowing which spaces, workstations, and resources are available in real time provides actionable insight into helping to improve the overall experience for office occupants, including employees, customers, or other visitors. 
• Address key workplace initiatives: Data from area sensors provides the foundation for crucial company real estate and HR initiatives, including return-to-office planning, occupancy planning, improve workspace experience initiatives, CRE portfolio optimization, reducing real estate costs, and hybrid workplace design.
• Reduce energy consumption: Workplace leaders can reduce energy costs and improve sustainability by optimizing lighting and HVAC systems based on occupancy and usage.

   

   

For more insights on this topic, read this blog post about deploying occupancy sensors and analytics on our blog.

When it comes to understanding and optimizing your workspace, entry sensors and area sensors play distinctive roles, offering unique perspectives. While entry sensors focus on monitoring the flow of people in and out of a building or workspace, area sensors provide a more comprehensive understanding of space utilization.

Area sensors are strategically positioned throughout your workspace, meticulously tracking occupancy levels in various areas, including individual offices, meeting rooms, and common spaces. By harnessing this valuable data, you can uncover meaningful usage patterns, fine-tune space allocation, and enhance the overall design of your workplace.

On the other hand, entry sensors are installed at entry and exit points, enabling you to precisely track the number of individuals entering or leaving a specific area. While these sensors provide valuable insights into overall occupancy levels, they do not offer the same level of detailed information as area sensors.

Many organizations employ entry sensors as an initial step toward comprehensive occupancy measurement and optimization using area sensors. They serve as a foundation, providing overarching insights that demonstrate the value of precise measurement. However, to obtain a complete and accurate picture of your workspace occupancy, combining the power of both entry sensors and area sensors is best.

By leveraging a combination of these sensor types, workplace and real estate teams gain a holistic understanding of how their space is utilized. Armed with comprehensive and precise data, informed decisions can be made to optimize workplace operations and maximize the potential of your environment.

For more specifics, download our solution briefs for area sensors and entry sensors.

Occupancy sensors offer a far more accurate way of measuring occupancy in a workspace than these alternatives. Instead of relying on estimates or moment-in-time monitoring, area sensors continuously track occupancy and give workplace teams a richer understanding. 

All area sensors offer a better alternative than surveys, office entry systems, and observational studies, but there are significant differences between vendors and systems that affect sensor accuracy as well. The best sensors monitor frequently — with observations taken at less than 1-minute intervals. For example, XY Sense Area Sensors scan the office environment every two seconds and can actually plot the real-time location of each employee in a space. Some sensors using infrared and other technologies monitor space once every ten-to-twelve minutes. While that makes than far more accurate than a moment-in-time survey, they are incapable of providing real-time employee location insights. Refer to the FAQ below about what to look for in an area sensor for more information on this technological difference/gap.

Versus surveys and team leader estimate information, area sensors offer objective data free of bias or inaccuracies. That is of critical importance because inaccurate or biased data can lead to improper decision-making, whereas objective data provides a more accurate and reliable picture of occupancy levels. For example, many managers consciously or unconsciously overestimate their work station and conference room needs in order to acquire maximum resources. 

In contrast with building or floor-level entry data, area sensors are far more accurate at detecting the number of people in a specific space. While key cards provide “macro-level” counts, they can’t provide data on space and resource utilization and rarely track exits, so they usually overestimate occupancy throughout the day. 

Versus occasional manual counting, area sensors track occupancy over time, which ensures a far more complete understanding of workplace utilization. Manual counting is even more accurate as businesses turn to hybrid workplace policies to reflect employees’ preferred ways of working.

In short, area sensors provide more complete, accurate, and granular data than alternatives. When this information is delivered in a robust insights platform, workplace teams get the answers they need to decide the best way forward. 

To learn more about this and other foundational topics, download our buyer’s guide to workplace utilization technology. 

Computer vision area sensors are a type of sensor technology  to capture and analyze visual data using machine learning algorithms. They capture data on the real-time occupancy of an office region and then analyze that data to identify the specific location of each employee in that space. 

These sensors have several advantages over other types of sensor technology, such as infrared, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or RFID. One of the most popular advantages is superior coverage range. The best computer vision area sensors, like those offered by XY Sense, can track ~1000 square feet (95 square meters, or enough space for about 20 desks) of office space. By contrast, infrared, WiFi, and Bluetooth sensors are usually limited to about half that range. 

Another critical advantage of computer vision area sensors is their ability to provide highly accurate and detailed data about an environment. This enhanced functionality is critical for answering questions requiring precise measurements, such as understanding which workstations are in use, how activity levels vary throughout a day, and how many people occupy a specific area. For example, with XY Sense Area Sensors, you can track the location of each employee in a space to within one square foot of their actual location. That level of precision enables a workplace or real estate team to understand which specific resources in use at any time. Computer vision area sensors are also superior in detecting and tracking objects. This is because they can capture visual data from multiple angles and analyze it to create a 3D model of an object. 

Additionally, quality computer vision sensors also offer unsurpassed security and privacy protections. This is important to safeguard company information, create a positive work environment, and comply with the various national and regional regulations regarding data privacy. For example, XY Sense Area Sensors don’t store or transmit any images of the workspace they monitor. Instead, they leverage edge processing, which means that they analyze all data collected within the sensor and transmit only the X and Y coordinates of each individual in a space. That’s why we call ourselves XY Sense! 

Finally, computer vision area sensors provide a higher return on investment. Additionally, because they are based on software and machine learning algorithms, they can be easily updated and improved over time without requiring hardware upgrades.

To get a richer understanding of your options see this comparison of XY Sense versus competitive area sensors. 

Area sensors measure and capture data about an environment or space. Here are some of the key data output metrics offered by high-quality area sensors:

• Occupancy: This is a measure of the number of people or objects within a space at any given time. This can be useful in projects like understanding how much office space is necessary for a team and which resources are most popular/in-demand. Occupancy is also a critical consideration for validating space types, purchasing equipment, and allocating resources to specific teams.
• Occupancy Rate: The occupancy rate is the percentage of occupied versus available space. This metric helps organizations understand how efficiently they are using their space and whether they need to make changes to better reflect the needs of the teams and the financial health of the business.
• Peak Occupancy: Peak occupancy is the highest level of occupancy observed during a specific period. This metric helps organizations identify the maximum level of capacity utilization — the upper end of temporal demand for a workspace. It helps them understand peak usage and reflect the level in their real estate and workplace plans.
• Utilization Rate: The utilization rate is the percentage of time a space is being used versus the total time it is available. This metric helps organizations identify underutilized spaces and optimize their use. A great example here is the utilization rate for conference rooms.
• Dwell Time: Dwell time is the length of time that people spend in a particular area. This metric helps organizations understand how people use different areas of their space. Dwell time can be valuable for optimizing resource allocation because it can be triangulated with other data to make space type adjustments.
• Movement Patterns: Movement patterns refer to the flow of visitors through a space, including how they move from one area to another. This metric helps organizations understand how people use different areas of their space and identify areas for improvement.
• Occupant Density: Occupant density refers to the number of people in a specific area at a given time. This metric can help organizations ensure compliance with safety regulations and identify areas where social distancing measures may be necessary.
  
  

By capturing this data, area sensors provide essential inputs for businesses and organizations to optimize operations, improve safety and security, and enhance employee experience.

Get insights on how to calculate Area Sensor ROI. 

When considering which area sensors to purchase for your company, there are several important attributes to keep in mind. Here are some of the most critical:

• Accuracy: Sensor accuracy drives the quality of the data it produces. Make sure to choose a sensor that is accurate enough to meet your specific needs. For example, many buyers of infrared sensors choose this technology, assuming it can provide precise information on how many people are in a particular space and which resources they use. But research shows that these seemingly simple tasks are a problem for infrared units. They simply cannot deliver the necessary accuracy that many clients want and expect. By contrast, XY Sense computer vision sensors can deliver a remarkable level of precision and accuracy. They scan the office environment every two seconds and can actually plot the real-time location of each employee in a space to within one square foot of their location. 
• Range: The range of the sensor is another crucial attribute to consider. This refers to the maximum distance the sensor can accurately capture data. Make sure to choose a sensor with a range appropriate for the size of the space or environment you want to monitor. For example, XY Sense Area Sensors can track ~1000 square feet (95 square meters, or enough space for about 20 desks) of office space. By contrast, most infrared sensors can only monitor about 500 square feet of space. Greater range means fewer sensors are necessary, lowering installation and ongoing maintenance costs.
• Activity Data: Insights from activity data help workplace leaders better understand teams’ specific needs and behaviors and empower them to make better decisions on validating space types or ordering new equipment. Key here is the frequency with which sensors scan their work areas. There are huge differences between vendors here. For example, XY Sense Area Sensors can their region once every two seconds. By contrast, many infrared sensors scan only once every 10-12 minutes. 
• Integration: The ease of integration of the sensor with other systems or software is also an important attribute to consider. Choose a sensor that is compatible with your existing systems and software to avoid compatibility issues and minimize the need for additional development or customization. For example, XY Sense offers an API enabling it to connect with leading workplace experience and booking applications, including Appspace, Calven, and GoSpace. This is a great way to boost employee productivity by ending ghost bookings of conference rooms and workstations.
• Reliability: Area sensor product quality can mean the difference between a system that provides valuable insights for many years and one that fails after only a year or two. Talk to your providers about how long their sensors typically last. Ask specific questions about software update and patch delivery and how often your company’s facilities team will have to manually service the units. The best units, like XY Sense, offer over-the-air patches and software updates so no manual servicing is required. For battery-powered units, ask questions about typical battery life and battery replacement costs so you have an accurate picture of the costs for such systems.
• Sustainability: Some systems are better at limiting materials usage and e-waste than others. Wide area sensors cover a greater office footprint than competitor sensors – 1,000 sq ft sensing area, or the typical space occupied by 20 desks. That means fewer sensors and wiring are necessary.  Daisy-chain installation methodology pioneered by XY Sense in our SenseLink solution dramatically reduces wiring and equipment costs for every installation – including up to 90% less cabling. Further, battery-free sensors mean reduced toxic e-waste. For a 20,000-headcount organization, a battery-powered system could mean as much as 1-2,000 pounds of disposable battery waste every two years.
• Support and Customer Service: To ensure maximum value from your investment in area sensors, it makes sense to understand the quality and availability of support from a vendor. Additionally, your area sensors must be installed correctly to maximize the quality of insights available from your occupancy analytics platform.
• Cost: Finally, cost is an important consideration when purchasing area sensors. Make sure to choose a sensor that fits your budget while still providing the necessary level of accuracy, range, resolution, sensitivity, connectivity, and integration. Consider both installation and ongoing maintenance costs so you make the right decision.

By carefully evaluating area sensor alternatives on these attributes, you can choose the sensor that best meets your needs and provides sufficient data accuracy, detail, and connectivity to optimize your operation.

Download our buyer’s guide to workplace utilization technology.

When selecting area sensors for your workplace, it is crucial to consider security and privacy. Sensors are designed to capture a broad range of information about the environment and individuals within it. You must ensure the data collected is protected from unauthorized access or misuse. 

Fortunately, great area sensors are available that offer outstanding privacy and security protections that meet or exceed the most demanding standards. Here are some tips to ensure that the area sensors you choose provide strong security and privacy protections:

• Choose proven vendors: Look for companies whose solutions have already been reviewed and approved by large enterprise businesses with high-security standards, like financial services companies. 
• Carefully review the data collection methodologies: Do the sensors store or transmit images that could compromise security or privacy? The best providers, like XY Sense, leverage “edge processing”, which analyzes captured images in the device and then deletes them. XY Sense Area Sensors are designed to be incapable of storing or transmitting images that could compromise employee privacy or company security. The only data transmitted from the unit are the XY coordinates of each individual in the space. Actually, that’s why we call ourselves XY Sense!
• Leverage access controls: Access controls restrict who can see and use sensitive data. Implementing access controls ensures that only authorized personnel can access the data collected by area sensors.
  
  

Download a privacy and security fact sheet now. 

You can watch a recorded demo of our solution working live in an office environment by following this link. 

The XY Sense team would also be pleased to give you a personalized demo of our industry-leading Area Sensors and Analytics Platform. Please complete our convenient Demo Request Form  and our team will be in touch shortly.