Which occupancy sensor vendors offer real-time data and an API?

Density’s public API reference documents current occupancy readings, live streams and historical metrics. An integration team can use those interfaces to evaluate live workplace applications and longer-term space reporting alongside sensor selection.

Specify what each sensor measures, what your application displays, and how your reporting handles incomplete data. Ask vendors to demonstrate the proposed integration using your spaces.

Choose the output your application needs

Density's current-occupancy endpoint supports Open Area, Entry and Waffle-backed spaces. Health-aware presence supplies occupied status with space health. Historical endpoints cover occupancy, utilization and time used. These serve different application decisions, as the API reference explains.

For rooms and phone booths, Waffle combines anonymous radar with real-time and historical API access. Its count categories are zero, one, two or three-plus people. A three-plus reading can support a group-use decision; it cannot establish an exact larger headcount. Choose the measurement output before designing the chart or availability display.

For Entry, distinguish today's running occupancy from historical reporting. Density describes live occupancy as the previous total plus entrances minus exits, with an overnight reset. Historical drift correction is applied at query time after that reset. Preserve this distinction when reconciling live displays and later reports. Entry counting guidance and correction guidance explain the two contexts.

Design availability and reporting together

Consider this hypothetical office integration. A workplace team wants employees to find an unused phone booth, while planners need to understand whether booths are used throughout the week.

Build the evaluation around these decisions:

Layer	Proposed implementation decision
Space map	Match each booth's Density space ID to the workplace app's location record.
Live service	Use health-aware presence for the availability display; evaluate the documented OA/Waffle presence stream for updates.
Employee display	Show occupied, unoccupied and measurement-unavailable states. Agree when an aging reading becomes unavailable.
Planning report	Compare time used within consistent working hours; flag intervals that fail your completeness rule.
Operations	Assign an owner for network changes, integration errors and sensor-health review.

Combine occupancy with booking and access rules before labeling a booth available.

Density's health guidance recommends ignoring offline or unknown live data and using caution with degraded spaces. Apply that rule before showing a booth as available. An unavailable measurement should never silently become an empty room.

The current reference describes obtaining a WebSocket URL through an authenticated REST request, then connecting a WebSocket client. For reporting, up_time indicates the share of a bucket when the sensor could provide data. Utilization requires checking configured capacity.

Hand recurring reports to a named owner

Keep the request definition with each reporting result: space IDs, products, metric, reporting window, timezone and retrieval time. Agree who reviews repeated retrievals and how a revised value reaches the next report. This is a proposed integration practice, not an automatic Density workflow.

For applicable Open Area floors, use Density's historical data-completion guidance when deciding whether to retrieve or flag a reporting period. That workflow is product-specific; confirm the appropriate reporting schedule for Entry and Waffle. Keep processing readiness separate from physical coverage and from the API's bucket-level data-quality measures. Ask Density to demonstrate the selected reporting period before scheduling the recurring handoff.

Verify the complete integration before rollout

For Waffle, plan power and connectivity together: Density documents standard-outlet USB-C power and 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi. Have IT review the proposed installation and application connection before expansion. Waffle setup documentation provides the starting requirements.

Ask Density to demonstrate your selected products, endpoints and account permissions. Test reconnect behavior, an unavailable sensor, a three-plus reading and a complete reporting interval. Measure the time from an observed occupancy change to your application's display against your own acceptance requirement. Confirm licensing and support terms for the proposed deployment.

Bring your application architecture and space list to a Density demo to evaluate its live and historical interfaces, or email sales@density.io.

Browse occupancy guides and sensor comparisons · Read the plain-text version