Okay, so I needed to figure out how many people were coming in and out of our office building. You know, for… reasons. Security, space planning, whatever. Didn’t matter. I just needed a dang headcount. I started by looking around to see how other folks solved this.
I checked out a bunch of pre-built systems, but man, those things are pricey! Plus, they looked complicated to install. I’m not exactly an electrician or a computer whiz, so I wanted something simpler.
My DIY Adventure Begins
Then, I stumbled upon this idea of using a simple infrared sensor. Basically, it’s like those automatic doors at the grocery store. When someone walks by, it breaks a beam of light, and that triggers a count. Sounded easy enough, right?
So, I ordered a cheap IR sensor kit online. It came with a transmitter (the thing that sends the invisible light) and a receiver (the thing that detects the light). I also grabbed a little microcontroller – an Arduino Nano, because they’re small and easy to program.
- First Step: Powering Up I connected the sensor and the Arduino to a power source. I just used a USB cable plugged into an old phone charger. Easy peasy.
- Second Step: The Code Now, this was the slightly tricky part. I had to write some code to tell the Arduino what to do. Basically, I told it to “listen” to the sensor, and every time the beam was broken, add one to a counter. I found some sample code online and tweaked it a bit. (Okay, I tweaked it a lot).
- Third Step: Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 I set up the sensor across a doorway in my office. Then, I walked back and forth like a crazy person, watching the numbers on my computer screen. It worked! Every time I broke the beam, the counter went up.
- Fourth Step: Making it Pretty (Sort Of) I didn’t want a bunch of wires hanging out, so I used some tape and cardboard to make a little enclosure for the sensor and the Arduino. It wasn’t beautiful, but it was functional.
I added a tiny display to the Arduino, so I could see the count without having to plug it into my computer. And that was it, I had my basic foot traffic counter! I had built a little screen to check up on the counting progress. It was awesome!
It’s not perfect, of course. If two people walk through at the exact same time, it might only count them as one. But for a quick and dirty solution, it’s pretty darn good. And it cost me way less than those fancy commercial systems!
Later, I might add some features, like a way to reset the count automatically each day, or maybe even send the data to a spreadsheet. But for now, I’m pretty happy with my little DIY people counter.