An innovative and highly accurate people counting technology from OPTEX, a global provider of sensing and detection, is at the heart of a series of new solutions to support social distancing in business and commercial environments as the COVID-19-enforced lockdown is being gradually lifted throughout the Europe, Middle and Africa region.
Thanks to embedding the latest Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol into OPTEX’s proven Akribos VC-1020 people counting system, three new solutions from IA Connects, Vaelsys and Xenometric have now been developed. The protocol enables data to be communicated in real time and for the people count to be instantaneously updated – a crucial factor in the live monitoring of people flow.
To help employers comply with the governmental rules and create a safe environment for employees to return to, IA Connects offers a Social Distancing Room Management technology. It works by monitoring the number of people and occupancy level of common areas such as waiting rooms, meeting rooms, office lobbies, restrooms etc and displaying the appropriate instruction. It might, for example, state ‘do not enter’, ‘cleaning required,’ or ‘free to go,’ or any other such status that the customer defines. The solution comprises the OPTEX VC-1020 people counting sensor, WiFi Gateways including IA Connects’ MobiusFlow software, and display units mounted by the doors. The solution can communicate with any Building Management System (BMS) and is capable of accurately monitoring occupancy levels during and after lockdown.
The OPTEX Akribos VC-1020 is a real-time and multi-directional indoor people counter that can provide more than 98% accuracy. It ignores trolleys and baskets and manages groups of individuals by tracking the direction or every individual, even if they are loitering. It now features MQTT, a lightweight messaging open protocol, which manages telemetry information, and is used in Man-to-Machine M2M and IoT devices for real-time analytics, preventive maintenance monitoring etc. The MQTT protocol allows the people count to be immediately transmitted to the integrated occupancy software platform and gives an exact picture of how many people are in the shop, room or a specific area.
