Show HN: Density – Anonymous People Counter and API

The site is rather vague. They provide the hardware and install it for free, which implies they&#x27;re selling data to someone else. Who? There&#x27;s no privacy policy. No terms of service. The &quot;order&quot; button just brings up a blank email.<p>How does the device tell how many people are present based on counting at a doorframe? Is it counting people passing through the door? Does it detect direction? Is it good enough to estimate the number of people inside by subtracting out counts from in counts? Will this work for wide entrances, such as malls? Is this a passive infrared sensor? Those go blind in hot weather.<p>This looks like a cheaper alternative to video counting systems, of which there are many. Video systems get about 98% count accuracy. If you already have surveillance cameras, you can often use them for counting. Beyond that, there&#x27;s queue measurement - not just how many people are in line, but how many gave up and left without buying.[1] (Seven people in a queue is the tipping point – any longer and most shoppers won’t bother joining it. After 9 minutes, shoppers are likely to give up queuing and leave empty handed (other research says as little 6 minutes). 70% of customers who leave never come back.)<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.retailsensing.com&#x2F;queue-management.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.retailsensing.com&#x2F;queue-management.html</a>

Fantastic product idea and a landing page that&#x27;s so good that I figured out what the product does without touching my scroll wheel.<p>I wish however, you&#x27;d include a section that provides a reasonable explanation as to <i>why</i> Workroom got a 950% increase in traffic. I&#x27;m thinking that if I saw that a place was full, I&#x27;d be less likely to head over there. But, if I didn&#x27;t know, I&#x27;d probably give it a whirl. Alternatively, if I&#x27;ve gone there a bunch of times and it&#x27;s always been full, I just wouldn&#x27;t go. What exactly is happening?

&gt;&gt; &quot;After adding Density, we saw as much as a 950% increase in site traffic to supported locations. Our users love it.&quot; - Darren Buckner, Workfrom CEO<p>When I use google maps, it shows me how busy various roads are and it also chooses the fastest route based on how fluid the traffic is. Seems like google maps is just observing the world and making decisions based on those observations.<p>Now I was wondering, what if all the drivers used google maps at the same time ?<p>Wouldn&#x27;t it mean that google maps is influencing and even <i>creating</i> the traffic patterns ?<p>Same here - just measuring the &#x27;density&#x27; has the effect of actually influencing it which is an interesting outcome and resembles quantum mechanics voodoo stuff :).

Please don&#x27;t be too clever for your own good - let me Cmd-Click on the links to open in a new tab.<p>I don&#x27;t want to be taken away from your page, I want to continue reading more about YOUR product before I go to view your &quot;partner&quot; sites. Same goes for your API, Twitter, etc.

Why does this need to connect to your servers? What happens if you become insolvent? Why can&#x27;t I just buy the damn thing then use it? Why do I have to pay for a subscription to a service which is effectively a simple proxy between the device and my infrastructure?

Had no idea what this was. Clicked link. Within one minute I figured out what Density is. Nice job on the landing page!<p>IMO, this is the strongest section: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;#comparison" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;#comparison</a>

Don&#x27;t camera systems beat this in pretty much every way? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.placemeter.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.placemeter.com&#x2F;</a> comes to mind.<p>You don&#x27;t have to resort to infrared sensors in order to provide anonymity, but they do inherently limit you potential accuracy and metrics you can prodive. It all comes down to where the data is processed and what is made available. Also, cheap camera components are coming down fast due to economies of scale, not sure how IR will play out in the long haul.

Any plans to offer a &quot;disconnected&quot; version where I could push this data to my own aggregator+API instance? Use case for me would be where foot traffic numbers would itself be sensitive data.

Our student consulting group, Optimir, worked with Density to test their product around UC Berkeley&#x27;s campus. It&#x27;s a fantastic product, and we&#x27;re really excited to get these installed permanently in libraries, coffeeshops, and weight rooms around campus.

(some) Kroger chain stores have a similar technology [1] to this to determine how many cashiers are needed at any given time! Neat stuff!<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.informationweek.com&#x2F;strategic-cio&#x2F;executive-insights-and-innovation&#x2F;kroger-solves-top-customer-issue-long-lines&#x2F;d&#x2F;d-id&#x2F;1141541" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.informationweek.com&#x2F;strategic-cio&#x2F;executive-insig...</a>

Bug report: In Firefox, when on this page [1], clicking on the Density logo in the top left takes me to <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;undefined" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;undefined</a><p>Looks like you&#x27;ve got a JS issue in there somewhere.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;?ref=hn" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;?ref=hn</a>

I have a few questions for the Density folks:<p>- How well does it handle people walking in side by side?<p>- What about someone pushing a cart or stroller?<p>- Can it tell if someone is walking in or out?<p>- How far does the laser reach? Would I need two sensors if I had a double or triple wide door?<p>- I assume these are battery powered? How long do they last?

I have always wanted to build something like this since I was a kid. The biggest driving thought was to make traffic signals dynamic and build a central communication system for a city&#x27;s transport.<p>Really glad to see a product coming into the regular consumer space for this :)

I spoke with Andrew over at density.io.<p>His answers regarding can it see the traffic direction (answer - yes for each individual) and how it is powered (custom length power cable, cut at install time for both sensor and base) are inline in this thread.<p>Also Andrew explained the base gathers info from all the sensors for counts.<p>I asked also about people in a group - most doorways are a physical narrowing that automatically places people in single file. If the doorway is wider than that, they can place a sensor on either side (my assumption is that these results are then filtered so a person is not counted 2x).

Does this use PIR out of curiosity, or are you using an emitter, receiver in one package.

Looks great! It could be very nice with public transportation, so I&#x27;ll be able to know beforehand which wagons are not overcrowded.

This is pretty awesome. I mentioned doing something like this at the IoT talk I gave, I had read a paper on counting animals by their heat signature for conservation purposes and thought something along those lines would be a simple replacement for the &#x27;walk through the door ring a bell&#x27; detectors, and given that a 32bit ARM Cortex-M is about $1.25 you could do that for not much more money than the old light + photocell.<p>Something the paper pointed out was that while the temperature from animal to animal varied, the <i>same</i> animal often kept the same temperature (+&#x2F;- epsilon) when moving from sensor to sensor and that give some idea of uniqueness.<p>And while I also love kefka&#x27;s solution I think the face recognition stuff gets a more Orwellian reaction than just tracking heat sources.

Ok. So businesses already have cameras. Yeah, privacy, schmiravacy. That horse has done gone left the barn.<p>So, the second problem with cameras&#x2F;face tracking is cost?<p>I wrote this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jwcrawley&#x2F;uWho" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jwcrawley&#x2F;uWho</a><p>It does what your hardware does, but also does facial recognition. It&#x27;s still early in the build process, but I&#x27;m working on a commercial (non-QT) version of this.<p>But right now, it can accurately count unique people, as well as remember people. So when Jane walks in front of the camera, it remembers that her database number is 1234. Tomorrow, it will also remember that she&#x27;s 1234. And tracking is all stored in few XML config files for easy calculation.

This reminds me of Motionloft. Their CEO was an idiot and ran into some legal trouble [1] which hurt the company, but it was backed by Mark Cuban and is still running afaik. I have thought since first learning about Motionloft that this could be a big business but I don&#x27;t understand why both companies refuse to just sell the hardware. There have to be a ton of companies that would buy it but don&#x27;t want their very sensitive data about customer counts etc. being transferred to a third party that could be hacked etc.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;01&#x2F;cuzyolo&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;01&#x2F;cuzyolo&#x2F;</a>

Soo I thought I had seen this somewhere, just with WiFi used to measure users, turns out it comes straight from the past![0]<p>In the interests of science, why did you switch from WiFi signals to infra-red door counters? Was it that you picked up passersby? (See [1] for previous pitch, which explains it more than the archive.org website)<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20140605031145&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.density.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20140605031145&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.densit...</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yRGa9-QUDWo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yRGa9-QUDWo</a>

Something like one of those points rewards cards with rfid and this could allow a merchant to get your purchase data as you enter the premises. Then with other rfid readers throughout the store you can pinpoint where $user spends most time and adjust $coupon for them to incite purchase. Or maybe multiple IR beams like this one in different parts of the store to have traffic metrics on the floor plan. Looks very nice from the design standpoint. It is something that will not register in the mind of the customer.<p>If this interests you:<p>This type of thing can be done at the hobby level. Since this is mostly an IR sensor with wifi connectivity talking to an API and sending mqtt data.

Great product and great team. Congrats everyone!

How does your product compare to existing traffic solutions, like Shoppertrak?

There many similar startups over the world:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sensalytics.net" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sensalytics.net</a> - Deutch project counting people, mobile tracking and cash register data.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i-counter.ru" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i-counter.ru</a> - Russian projects - uses IR counter with 3G transmission module, so data send directly to web analytics server without additional networking devices.

Looks like an awesome product and hardware but the SAAS model sucks (for us). Here&#x27;s to hoping they release a LAN model for a one time fee.

Your home page freezes my Firefox (33.1 on Mac) :( . Have to pound through five or six unresponsive script warnings.<p>After that, pretty cool idea and nice site!

This seems really cool! I can think of a bunch of new things to do with this and a lot of places where I want to know how busy they are.<p>The one thing that really confuses me is the pricing structure. Why do you need to pay each month? Paying $300 for one year of usage seems pretty steep.<p>It&#x27;s service pricing but it seems like one-time service&#x2F;purchase.

This looks awesome! Would love to know ahead of time how crowded my local coffee shop is before I packed up to work there.

How do these talk with the outside world? Do you need to attach them to your own internal WiFi?

Gorgeous web design, kudos.

Does anyone know why is this product &quot;Show HN&quot; while the other product currently on the front page, Soloshot, only has a product name and slogan?

There will be a big business putting these on all the entrances of a publicly-traded casino and then tracking activity levels.

What communications protocol is it using?

Looking forward to hearing more about it when you&#x27;re ready to share

Could this be done with Apple&#x27;s iBeacon as well?

Foot traffic should be inexpensive, accurate, and available in real-time. It should be dead simple to integrate with other applications, and it should never invade people&#x27;s privacy.<p>imo.