After the Great Recession in the late aughts, large office-based organizations began tapping real-estate consulting firms to analyze their space utilization, seeking opportunities to significantly reduce real-estate costs. This led to the development and implementation of the first occupancy sensors, which monitored desks and other workspaces for the presence of occupants.
But despite the development of these sensors that promised to address the shortcomings of other solutions like manual walkthroughs, badge data, and desk booking software, they were not widely adopted for reasons including cost, privacy concerns, low occupancy tracking maturity, and the fact that these other solutions had another purpose in the workplace (access control).
In a recent occupancy tracking study, we asked real estate leaders at major enterprises to specify the occupancy tracking technologies their companies use. The vast majority used badge scanning (76%) and/or desk booking software (68%), and just 29% used some form of occupancy sensor. So what are the 71% leaving on the table? Where do reservation and badge data fall short?
In this article, we’ll explore why some major firms require more advanced occupancy tracking solutions. But first, let’s dig into what occupancy sensors are and how they work.
What are occupancy sensors?
Occupancy sensors, also referred to as space utilization sensors, are pieces of hardware that track the presence of people in a space using a variety of detection methods. Depending on the type of device and application, this equipment may be installed on an individual desk or workstation, in a doorway, or on a wall or ceiling to monitor a large area.
Most occupancy sensors are intended to track occupants anonymously. They track the space being used, not the people who use it.
How do occupancy sensors work?
Occupancy sensors monitor changes in the environment associated with the presence of a person, such as changes in heat, light, or soundwaves. Depending on how sophisticated the monitoring method is, the sensor may recognize multiple distinct bodies in a single space, or it may simply track that a given space is occupied. Some of the more common types of occupancy sensors are motion detectors, Passive Infrared (PIR) scanners, ultrasonic sensors, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDaR) strips, and blurred vision cameras.
These sensors typically transmit this data to a space management or occupancy analytics solution like Tango Space, which then organizes the data into dashboards and helps identify patterns, anomalies, and other insights, or else incorporates it into space management processes.
Now let’s look at what sets this data apart from what other occupancy tracking technologies can provide.
Occupancy sensors vs. other occupancy tracking technology
Space utilization sensors are generally more expensive to install and maintain than other forms of occupancy tracking technology. Depending on the level of insight you need and the amount of space you want to monitor, your organization may need dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of occupancy sensors, compared to a single badge scanning system with multiple access points or a single desk booking software. But despite this larger upfront and ongoing investment, occupancy sensors offer several advantages that most badge and reservation systems simply can’t provide.
Track every type of space
Desk booking software can track individual workstations, offices, meeting rooms, neighborhoods, amenities, lockers, specialized equipment, and more. If an asset is reservable, an advanced office reservation system should be able to track its use. But what if the space isn’t reservable? Software can’t track the use of walkways and common areas that people can (and should) use without reservations.
Additionally, just because someone has reserved a space doesn’t mean they’re occupying it at the specified time. “No-show” cancellations can often make a meeting room or workstation appear occupied, even though no one is using the space. Requiring check-ins can improve the accuracy of your desk booking software’s occupancy data, but not all solutions can facilitate that process.
And what about spaces that are permanently assigned, like workstations and private offices for fully in-person employees? Some workplace reservation systems, like Tango Reserve, have capabilities to assign space to a department or individual, but allocating space isn’t the same as tracking its use.
Occupancy sensors can track any type of space, regardless of whether it’s reservable, non-reservable, permanently assigned, or unassigned. Different types of sensors are designed for tracking different types of spaces, but whatever space you want to optimize, occupancy sensors can provide the data you need.
Widespread coverage, pinpoint accuracy
Most badge scanning systems primarily function as a form of access control. When you require badge scans at every building access point and integrate this system with an occupancy analytics or space management solution, you can see how many people are in the building. (For this figure to be reliable, however, occupants must always scan their badges individually upon entering and exiting the building.) This gives you coverage of the entire building, but it doesn’t tell you anything about how the spaces within it are being used.
An office reservation system, on the other hand, can show you whether individual reservable spaces are occupied, but not the occupancy level of the building as a whole.
Occupancy sensors give you the best of both worlds, offering building-wide coverage and location-specific precision. Your exact coverage and level of precision depends on your needs and the combination of sensors you select, but this category of technology is equally suited to breadth and depth. And since sensors track people’s actual presence and don’t require employee action (scanning a badge, making a reservation, checking into a reserved space), the data is more reliable, too.
Deeper layers of insight for more complex decisions
Badge scanning systems give you a general sense of a building’s occupancy and vacancy levels. You can use badge data to track high-level space utilization metrics, identify patterns in demand for space, optimize building infrastructure, and improve maintenance schedules.
Office reservation software provides more granular visibility into the utilization of your reservable spaces, which lets you see how desks, meeting rooms, amenities, and other shared office resources are being used.
But when you want to optimize your mix of space—including non-reservable spaces—or determine precisely how much square footage you can remove from your portfolio, you need more precise insights than what these other occupancy tracking technologies can provide. Occupancy sensors are ideally suited for these more advanced use cases.
Badge scanning systems and office booking software are often adequate for high-level decisions based on occupancy—like lease renewals. But sometimes you need deeper layers of occupancy data. And for that, 29% of enterprises are using occupancy sensors.
Real-time occupancy analytics
Sensors can also play a key role in real-time occupancy analytics, where real-time data lets you respond to emerging workplace problems, like overcrowded hallways, lack of meeting spaces, and other situations that are more likely to arise during special events or peak occupancy.
Other occupancy tracking technologies may let you broadly understand some of these problems by indicating when there are more people than usual in the building, or reservations of certain spaces are fully booked, but occupancy sensors let you see more of the specific ways that capacity issues affect people’s ability to use your space, and where you have other space that could help solve the problem quickly. Perhaps you can point people to alternative pathways, informal meeting areas, or other suitable but undefined spaces for various work activities.
So, does your company need occupancy sensors?
Occupancy sensors are significantly more expensive than other occupancy tracking solutions. But they’re also far more reliable when it comes to understanding how your space is being used. Some of the most common use cases for occupancy tracking—like making lease decisions—don’t require the level of precision sensors provide. But if you’re trying to optimize a hybrid workplace and manage the variable demand for space, you may need a balance of coverage and accuracy that badge and reservation data simply can’t deliver.
Organizations with a more mature understanding of occupancy monitoring will recognize more opportunities to get value from this data—like closing specific floors or buildings on days when occupancy is typically low. And with that maturity, they’ll find more reasons to justify the expense of these deeper layers of insight. But for everyone else, there’s still more value to be realized from the occupancy data they already have.
Learn more about the state of occupancy tracking
In The 2025 Enterprise Occupancy Tracking Report, we surveyed North American and European enterprises from five different industries about their experience with occupancy tracking. Each of our respondents had significant influence over the organization’s adoption of occupancy tracking technologies, and shared insights including their greatest barriers to investing in occupancy tracking, their organizational priorities, and how their priorities align with use cases for occupancy tracking.
You can access the entire report for free—we won’t even ask for your email.