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Choosing to measure and understand how your real estate spaces are used can unlock tremendous value for your company, allowing you to improve the design and utilization of your spaces. However, not all occupancy sensors are created equal, and it’s critical to understand the pros and cons of every solution.
When you’re making the investment to measure your space, it can be tempting to turn to battery-operated sensors as a faster, seemingly cheaper sensor solution. However, relying on batteries to power sensors poses a range of challenges, ranging from reliability issues to operational nightmares.
Here’s why visibility into what’s happening in your space shouldn’t hinge on a few AA batteries:
Batteries die.
Battery-powered sensors start dying the minute they’re installed. Not only do batteries die, but they’ll also die at different times based on varying levels of usage, as batteries die quicker in busier areas. This requires a costly maintenance program to monitor and replace different batteries at different times.
Batteries also die faster than you may expect. One Fortune 500 company reported that in their experience the battery-powered sensors were failing well before the 18 months they were promised.
Batteries give you spotty data.
When battery-powered sensors are going offline at unpredictable times, it compromises the data. You need all the sensors in your spaces working to get reliable measurement. This not only gives you spotty data, it also hurts the credibility of the entire sensing program. If your sensors are not giving you good data, then what good are they?
Batteries can corrode sensors.
One Fortune 500 company shared a horror story about their experience changing sensor batteries. They were standing on tables trying to change batteries, and battery acid was leaking on them. Then the new batteries didn’t work - the leaking alkaline batteries had corroded the contact point. The team ultimately had to sand down the contact point of the sensor to get the battery to work. This was not something they were interested in doing every time the batteries died, and was the last straw for their battery-operated sensor program.
Batteries have high latency.
Battery-powered occupancy sensors capture data every few minutes to preserve battery life. This is in contrast to 10 frames of data per second for Density’s hardwired sensors. Data is captured every few minutes, which means there’s a high chance of missing data in between captures.
For example, if you want to figure out what happened during a 20 minute meeting, you would need at least you need at least 20 samples aggregated to figure out if someone was actually in a room.
Batteries can’t do real-time data.
Because battery-operated sensors need to conserve their battery life, they typically delay data. This means they can’t report on what’s happening in a space in real-time.
Ditch the batteries.
Don’t let batteries hold your team back from understanding how people use your spaces. Invest in hardwired infrastructure to deliver better coverage, require less maintenance, and ultimately be more cost-efficient.