OPTEX, a sensing and detection company, has launched new solutions to support social distancing in business and commercial environments, as the COVID-19-enforced lockdown is gradually being lifted across Europe , the Middle East and Africa
Three new solutions from IAconnects, Vaelsys and Xenometric have now been developed thanks to the incorporation of the latest Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol into OPTEX’s Akribos VC-1020 people counting system.
The protocol allows 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.
IAconnects offers a socially distancing room management technology to help employers comply with government regulations and create a safe environment for employees to return to. It works by monitoring the number of people and the level of occupancy of common areas such as waiting rooms, meeting rooms, office lobbies, restrooms etc and displaying the appropriate instructions.
For example, it could state ‘do not enter’, ‘clean requisite’, or ‘free to go’, or any other status defined by the customer. The solution includes the sensor counting OPTEX VC-1020 people, WiFi Gateways including MobiusFlow software from IAconnects, and display units mounted by the doors.
The solution can communicate with any Building Management System (BMS) and be able to monitor the occupancy levels accurately during and after lockdown.
To manage people’s flow within retail outlets as they are constantly reopening, Vaelsys has developed EasyCount and updated their existing Datacenter people counting solution to provide more social distance functionality.
EasyCount allows smaller retail outlets to display at any time (with a clear ‘go’/‘wait’ dashboard) the number of people permitted in their store and the average waiting time.
For larger and multi-site retailers, Datacenter is a scalable solution that serves both as a people counter, but also as a more sophisticated analytics and performance instrument. It has now integrated the Akribos MQTT protocol to provide real-time information and dashboards for the occupancy.
The third of the new solutions comes from Xenometric, which has further developed its range of software packages for people counting and occupancy-level to integrate the MQTT protocol and provide the right dashboards for social distancing enforcement.
Xenoview, the entry-level solution, is suitable for independent retailers, or smaller buildings. It collects data from up to four Akribos in real time count, displays occupancy levels on an integrated dashboard, and issues instructions for ‘going’ or ‘waiting’. The count data is stored locally and can also be used for retail analysis purposes.
Xenometric has developed the X-Server for bigger or multisite applications. As with Xenoview, it differs in terms of functionality in that it is fully scalable and includes a SQL database and full reporting features. It can be hosted on the server of the client, or on the cloud.
