EvolvePlus Blog

EvolvePlus offers two models of battery-powered wireless people counters, each with its own advantages for different footfall-counting environments. Whilst both models feature the same sensor enclosure with horizontal infrared technology, they offer different data transmission methods, which enables customers to choose the model that best suits their environment.

The Wireless RF (Short Range) People Counter model can transmit count data every few seconds and is ideal for organisations that require live occupancy displays or self-hosted software. It features lights on the sensors to indicate successful data transmission and low battery.

The Gateway (SNG Hub) for the Wireless RF (Short Range) People Counter model needs to be located within 20 metres of the people counter sensors and offer ethernet network connectivity. It includes the reporting software for installation on your own PC/server or the option of the EvolvePlus Cloud Dashboard.

EvolvePlus is pleased to announce updates to its LoRaWAN People Counter, which includes support for the AS923 band. The advantage of the LoRaWAN AS923 band is that it is being widely used for IoT devices across both Australia and New Zealand, and more broadly supported by LoRaWAN network operators and gateways.

Our battery-powered LoRaWAN People Counting solution enables organisations to easily count people at both indoor and outdoor entrances that may be located hundreds of metres from the nearest mains power source and have the data automatically transmitted to an online cloud platform for analysis and reporting.

Some of the facilities where the battery-powered People Counter sensors can be implemented include parks, footpaths, sporting facilities, public toilets, cemeteries, information centres and more. Organisations can choose to push the data to either the EvolvePlus Reporting & Analytics platform or to their own reporting platform being used for other IoT projects.

The challenge faced by many organisations is how to effectively count people at entrances and facilities that may be located hundreds of metres from the nearest mains power source and have the data automatically transmitted to an online cloud platform for analysis and reporting.

Our LoRaWAN People Counting solution solves this challenge by installing battery powered People Counter sensors at the remote locations (e.g. parks, sporting grounds, public toilets, footpaths, buildings, libraries, visitor centres and leisure complexes) and automatically transmitting the footfall traffic data to a LoRaWAN gateway that is located hundreds of metres away from the entrance (and in some cases a few kilometres away with a high powered base station and long range antennas).

The counting principle is based on the interruption of a horizontal infrared beam from the Transmitter causing the LoRaWAN Receiver to record incremental counts. When the outer edge of the wide horizontal infrared beam is interrupted in either direction, e.g. by a person, car, bike, pram etc. the LoRaWAN Receiver detects this disruption and will send this information to the LoRaWAN Gateway. The allowable max distance between the Transmitter and LoRaWAN Receiver is up to 8 metres.

Our battery-powered LoRaWAN People Counters offer a reliable, user-friendly, and affordable people counter solution that provides valuable insights and footfall traffic analytics to organisations. LoRaWAN is a Low Power, Wide Area (LPWA) networking protocol designed to wirelessly connect battery operated IoT sensors over long distances.

One of the key features of our LoRaWAN People Counters is the choice to push the traffic data to either the EvolvePlus Reporting & Analytics platform or to your own reporting platform.

The following provides an example of how organisations can push JSON data from the LoRaWAN People Counters using HTTP Integration within The Things Network community edition.