Intelligent sensors will allow employees to keep their distance

Intelligent sensors will allow employees to keep their distance

By Ray Johnson

Budrigannews.com – Finding ways to maintain social distance will be crucial if businesses are to reengage reluctant employees. An Israeli organization figures it can help, utilizing savvy sensors mounted on work environment roofs.

Prior to the pandemic, PointGrab developed its technology to assist workspace managers in optimizing employee usage of office space. The sensors, which are about the size of smoke alarms, are able to precisely record the number of people in offices, hotels, and restaurants, as well as their location.

Deloitte was one of the company’s first customers, and the system was installed at its flagship London office last year. The building’s screens were connected to PointGrab’s sensors, which displayed the availability of shared workspaces and desks in real time. According to PointGrab CEO Doron Shachar, it was one of several innovations that enabled Deloitte to accommodate 30% more people in 3% less space.

Now that PointGrab has improved the technology, the sensors can also keep track of how far apart people are from one another and whether they are traveling in the same direction around a building.

For instance, workspace managers can set up alerts for when two people are within two meters of one another for more than 30 seconds. Shachar informs Budrigannews that “an organization will choose what to do with that alert.” They shouldn’t, in my opinion, sound an alarm.

Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate services company, came up with the idea for the “six feet office” and included sensors to help employees practice social distance. At a university in the Netherlands and an innovation hub in Belgium, they are currently used in this manner.

Different solutions to the issue have been developed by different businesses. Camio, a tech company in the United States, for instance, uses image-detecting software and surveillance cameras to monitor how close employees are to one another and whether or not they are wearing masks.

PointGrab has installed more than 10,000 sensors for workspace optimization, including in Coca-Cola, Facebook, and Dell offices, despite the fact that the social distancing innovation is new.

PointGrab claims that no images or identifying characteristics are recorded, despite the fact that workers may dislike the idea of being monitored. Instead, a dashboard shows each employee as an unidentified dot.

Shachar asserts, “The sensor does not violate people’s privacy.” In the workplace, this is extremely important.”

Many of the facilities management software and services that PointGrab partners with take privacy very seriously. Spacewell, a provider of building management software, decided to incorporate PointGrab’s technology into its smart building platform because of its data anonymization capability.

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“We do a lot of business with health care companies and financial service providers, so it’s very important to make sure that you don’t have any images or data leaving the device,” Spacewell managing director Adrian Weygandt tells Budrigannews. Although smart sensors on their own may not be sufficient to return employees to the workplace, Shachar is of the opinion that they could assist businesses in taking the first step.

Shachar asserts, “We provide exactly what you need to actually comply with social distancing rules.” That means knowing where people are located in real time.