12 Februar 2021

People counter keeps it safe

In the past months, we have seen a variety of creative solutions for how to handle the amount of people in a location. It has been staff outside the store, golf balls, clothes hangers etc. But what if you could do it even simpler than that? Like we did.

Our head office has been pretty quite since the end of April last year, but we figured that we wanted to try our product against a smart IR-camera that can detect how many people visiting the office. We can now feel safe and rely on our entrance screen that gives us a signal when its about to get crowded.

We wanted to ensure that our staff and visitors where safe when entering our office – and to set a good example of taking responsibility for our work environment. This is how we did it.

The camera we used – Vector 4D

In our solution at the office, we used the camera Vector 4D from Irisys.net. There’s many different cameras out there that’s equally as good, but we liked that the camera it self provides a webpage with the status. It’s behind logins but reachable using the windows based Smartsign units. Built in webpage removes the need for an additional service between us and the camera.

The features of Irisys are simple, but fits our needs. You set the maximum number allowed in the area, and when that number is reached the camera triggers a red message. The yellow sign triggers when a certain percentage is reached, and when it’s safe to enter the sign is green.

Smartsign Display Manager Pro

We used our Smartsign Display Manager Pro-license to be able to show two layers. One layer with information to the visitor and one layer who works as a traffic light.

Layer 1: The top box is a layer, where the webpage is booked. This webpage provides us with three different messages, depending on the status.

Layer 2: The box below is another layer, where you can display what you want. In this example we’ve put instructions on how to follow the signs status.

Smartsign – Layout for people counter

This design is free to use, or you could buy a custom from our Project Team.

Show webpages – a time saver

When using Smartsign Display Manager, you could easily schedule your screen to show a specific webpage. That’s a simple, yet powerful tool, that allows you to showcase a huge variety of information.

In many scenarios the auto-updated snapshot feature is a perfect solution. It can handle many login scenarios and players, and also updates the link several times per hour. This could be used to display Power BI – or perhaps parts of your intranet? When using the snapshop feature you can even crop out specific parts of the webpage to display on the screen.

In this particular case however, we needed to access the webpage (provided from the camera) live without delay. And also access it since it’s behind a login. This was possible to handle, thanks to a Windows based Smartsign player.

Can I use other cameras etc?

Definitely! This example showcases one of the possibilities Smartsign Display Manager has. That we can benefit from a webpage. The solution isn’t more complicated than that.

You can use a variety of different technical products out there. Talk with your AV/IT-provider or contact us as project@smartign.se to see if your solution will work with our product.

Pro tip: For this specific solution, it’s important to follow the measurements for door width, ceiling height, distans etc. that could affect how and where it’s possible to mount a camera.

In conclusion, we used:
– Vector 4D camera
– Smartsign Display Manager Pro
– Windows based player
– A screen layout

We dare you to think big. And to challenge us!


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