OT: Desk occupancy sensors

[OfficeDrone]

The company I work for is planning to fit every desk in the office with a desk occupancy sensor. This appears to be an battery-powered under-desk PIR sensor (similar to those used in security lights) combined with a 433MHz transmitter, which sends data to a logging computer: For example,

I suspect the motivation is to justify moving us to a smaller cheaper office, rather than to monitor individuals.

Does anyone have experience with these systems? Are they reliable? Were any data protection concerns raised?

[Davey]

What is the company's published reason for this?

[charles]

Only indirectly. A colleague was working in a newly built office where an occupancy sensor turned off the lights if it thought nobody was present. I was talking to him on the phone for quite some time and suddeenly he cursed and put the phone down, When he picked it up again he said becasue he was sitting still for too long - the lights went out. "That at least was the gist of what he said"

[harryagain]

I once fitted similar years ago. There was a light over every desk. If no-one was present, it was extinguished. Energy saving. The sensor was in the light. I think it was Thorn made them.

Also dimmed out as there was more daylight.

[OfficeDrone]

The published reason is to ensure that costly office space is efficiently utilised, by hot-desking for example.

To clarify, the office already has ceiling motion sensors to control the lighting. These new sensors are going to be installed under every desk, to monitor the utilisation of each desk. Just part of the joy of office life I suppose.

[alan_m]

I've worked in a building like this for many years. The sensors are in the ceiling and lights are in zones. If you are alone and working at a desks the lights will tend to go off on a regular basis. They require movement to detect presence and the more people moving the more chance of the lights staying on.

An under desk PIR is unlikely to work as it too would require a change in incident radiation to work reliably.

[Tim Watts]

Mod a couple and fit spycams.

Then phone the press.

Seriously, it seems a daft idea - never heard of anyone doing that before.

[Tim Watts]

I've been in a company's bogs that had this. And the sensors could not see anyone having a dump in the cubicle. Genius...

[Thomas Prufer]

I suggest "Drinking Lucky Bird", strategically placed.

Thomas Prufer

[Terry Casey]

When I was working for what then was ntl: I did a lot of night working. All the original Nynex head-ends were fitted with IR sensors which turned off banks of lights.

Being on my own and often in a strange head-end I would invariably be working half way along a row of racks, completely invisible to the sensors which were NEVER sited at the end of the row I was working in!

Also, I would usually find the rack I was working in was several sets of lights back from the entrance!

When the lights started going out, the trick was to stop what I was doing and head for the end if the rack, then take a circular trip round the floor so that I triggered all the lights in sequence. Things could be a bit dodgy if all the lights went out together!

As the work usually included loading a new configuration into one or more Cisco routers and watching carefully to ensure that the changes I'd made to reflect the other work I'd carried out didn't cause any problems, this could be a pain in the proverbial at times ...

[Jonno]

Tim Watts scribbled

No shit...

[Tim Watts]

More like "no wipe".

Now I understand the problems a blind man faces... Or should that be faeces?

[Sam Plusnet]

Some Corporate-moron got distracted by the latest shiny gadget .

[Graham.]

When I was a kid I has a little booklet of electronic gadgets to build. One of them was intriguingly called a "Male/female discriminator" and was based on a pyroelectric detector (A PIR in modern parlance)

I suppose back in the '60 all girls wore mini-skirts, and all men wore long trousers, because if they didn't, this device would never work.

[jrwalliker]

I built such a device for a school science fair a long time ago. It measured the reflectivity of the legs through a red filter. It worked very well until the headmaster tried it out while wearing white cricket flannels. He was not amused. Everyone else was - afterwards.

John

[Brian-Gaff]

Ah, what you need is a small electric fan in the line of sight of the sensor so it will see that move instead of the person. Brian

[RobertL]

We have Microsoft Lync at work and it knows if you are at your desk or not. It detects use of the keyboard, mouse or telephone etc.

Of course, if you work just with pencil and paper, or are reading a printed document, it thinks you are absent.

Robert

[Lobster]

On 01 Jun 2015, Thomas Prufer grunted:

?

That's a big "Whoosh!" here...

[CB]

"pencil and paper - reading a printed document" - in a modern office! - you seem to need some serious retraining :-)

[Syd Rumpo]

They needed motion detectors.

Cheers