AI Accelerates Safe Workspace Reopenings

KIRKLAND, WA—Many companies are debating when and how to reopen, and when that happens, what will it look like? One service, Nomad Go’s HealthySpaces, is an AI-based solution that accelerates the safe and trusted reopening of any physical environment including office, hospitality and food service, retail, and education.

“The world can’t truly get back to business until people are confident that building and business owners are taking every measure possible to mitigate their risk of infection. We saw an opportunity to use our expertise in measuring physical activity for helping companies build trusted spaces and responsibly get back to work,” said David Greschler, CEO, Nomad Go. “By using HealthySpaces, organizations get instant precise data about the number of people occupying spaces and wearing masks, and to what extent social distancing is being followed. With this data, they can take actions such as altering spaces and improving signage. By integrating with HVAC systems, they can also improve ventilation and air quality.”

Built on the company’s Edge AI Vision Platform, HealthySpaces helps organizations improve air quality, ensure COVID-19 related compliance, and provide real-time actionable data about space occupancy, mask usage and social distancing. All data collected is anonymous and protected by Nomad Go’s edge computing system, which never records images or personally identifiable Information to ensure individual privacy.

“When businesses do decide to open up, how do we ensure compliance?” Greschler tells GlobeSt.com. “We are working with those buildings to get to a certain level of compliance, with tools to alert and provide a range when those levels are outside of the compliance. For example, using data, precise ventilation can be adjusted within the HVAC systems.”

HealthySpaces provides real-time data about any physical environment including:

• Occupancy and Density Count–measures how many people have entered/exited spaces and provides real-time counts of the number of people inside specific spaces
• Mask Detection–checks if masks are being worn inside environments that require Personal Protective Equipment
• Physical Distancing–determines social distancing compliance

“Using the data and insights from Nomad Go’s HealthySpaces, we see immediate opportunities to improve demand control ventilation and solve existing occupancy detection challenges that will remain critical both during a pandemic and in everyday building operations,” said Josh Cales, president, ATS Automation.

Nomad Go unlocks actionable information about any built environment from people-counting to traffic flow to social distancing. Its Edge Computer AI Vision generates anonymous real-time data streams about physical spaces for analytics, alerts and real-time management of building controls to enable safer, more cost-efficient and touchless building experiences.

“This problem isn’t going away anytime soon and we will have to live with it for a very long time,” Greschler tells GlobeSt.com. “Touchless technology will be with us perhaps permanently.”

By leveraging the data generated by HealthySpaces, businesses can enable a safe and healthy environment for employees, customers and in the case of education, students. This includes:

• Alerts and screen messages about occupancy and other health metrics sent to phones and screens to help keep employees and customers informed about current conditions. For instance, a screen showing occupancy levels can help inform customers when they can enter a building.
• Compliance and usage dashboards that help companies follow health guidance and regulations while optimizing layouts for safety
• Real-time space conditions that can be integrated into customer apps and services for safe employee scheduling and proactive planning
• Direct control of HVAC systems to provide more precise ventilation per location and within individual spaces, such as meeting rooms and kitchens, a key factor in ensuring healthy environments

The Nomad Go HealthySpaces application runs on smart devices including tablets, phones and cameras. It can be remotely managed and instantly updated to accommodate new metrics.

“We have been long-time users of Nomad Go to help us gain real-time insights about physical activity through our stores, from occupancy to speed-of-service. We were impressed with how accurately it was able to capture guest count data and scale to multiple locations quickly. With the effectiveness of the tools that Nomad Go builds, we expect innovative solutions such as HealthySpaces to continue to help restaurant operators run safe restaurants,” said Matt Avila, director of operations for PizzaRev.