Workspace sensors: Getting it right

Optimize space utilization

Space utilization is about optimizing your available real estate and spaces to reduce unused square feet. You can read more about space utilization here.

Sensors in the workplace can have many functions: to control lighting or the temperature or to measure space occupancy.

Occupancy sensors might be the most intelligent solution yet, however. Occupancy sensors allow you to accurately measure how your spaces are being utilized, which can ultimately result in more productive employees, optimized real estate costs, and better designed spaces.

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How can sensors help your business?

To know which sensors to install in your office, you first need to know exactly what you want to achieve with the sensors. Not many managers are aware of the importance of optimizing space usage, and a reason for this could be that they don’t know the benefits, both tangible and intangible, it can bring. Briefly, optimizing space utilization can result in:

• Better office design
• Optimized work environment
• Less time wasted on finding a workstation or meeting room
• More productive employees
• Saving millions on real estate costs

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What type of occupancy sensor does my business need?

1. Desk sensors

These sensors enable comparisons between individual employees, teams, or departments, and they provide you insight on how much desks are utilized across locations. You can get insights down to seat level, knowing which seats are occupied, vacant, or in use (taken, but nobody sits there). See more in our dashboard.  

Outcomes

• Dynamic seat pricing based on how often seats are used (especially relevant for co-working spaces)
• COVID-19: ensure proper distance between occupied seats
• Relocation of underutilized desks

Benefits

• 100% anonymized and GDPR compliant
• Accurate
• High granularity
• Discreet design
• Is placed under desk or chair, so it will never be noticed

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2. Footfall sensors

These sensors can be placed at entrances, and you can use them to measure how many people are present in your building. In other words, the sensor counts people as they walk into – or out of - the building. It also allows you insights into peak hours in your building in regard to when the building is the fullest as well as when people are entering and exiting the building the most.

Outcomes

• Only admitting a sound number of people into the building – for example to ensure that your building abides by corona restrictions
• Planning due to insights into the busiest days in the building
• Enables individual employees to plan when to arrive to avoid bottlenecks and waiting in line

Benefits

• No overcrowded spaces in your building or office
• The wall-mounted sensor is very discreet and will not be a disturbing element
• Less stressed employees who do not have to wait in long lines

3. Workspace sensors

These sensors are used in meeting rooms and office spaces, and they’re mounted on the wall depending on your needs, as they are unaffected by present desks, chairs, breakout spaces, lounges, etc.

They provide you with insights into which areas are used by most people (and how frequently), and which are unused. Moreover, you can get data on available spaces, desks, meeting rooms, etc. Ubiqisense’s workspace sensors have a social distancing functionality, which can help you reopen your office to your employees.

The wall-mounted sensor can also be used for smaller rooms such as meeting rooms, allowing you to, for example, see if a meeting room has been booked but is empty. Thus, gone are the days where you have to waste valuable time every week on finding a vacant room.

Outcomes

• Convert unused or underutilized spaces into office space
• Increase employee satisfaction and productivity
• Better office design and to divide into sub-areas
• Move to a smaller office or rent out unused space
• Better energy consumption since employees are only using energy where they are present and to the extent needed
• Maintaining safe office standards
• Historical data allows you to find bottlenecks where too many people gather
• You can have pre-set max capacity settings, alerting you when the limit is exceeded

Benefits

• Eliminating wasted time on finding a vacant space or room
• Better space utilization
• Using data from Ubiqisense’s own platform or through 3rd party applications
• Data can be correlated with other sensor data such as temperature, CO2, noise, etc.

There are many use cases and applications for occupancy sensors, and there are even more benefits to having them in your office. Occupancy data not only allows you to improve your space utilization and employee productivity as well as optimizing real estate costs; it also makes it easier to onboard new employees and to handle employee and company growth. Through supporting an agile work environment, occupancy sensors will make your office futureproof.