Okay, so I’ve been trying to get a better handle on how many people are actually using my gym. You know, not just memberships, but actual bodies coming through the door. It’s surprisingly tricky! I wanted something more accurate than just guessing based on check-ins.
The First Attempt (and Fail)
My first thought was, “Hey, I’ll just use a simple tally counter!” You know, the clicky kind. I put one by the door and asked the front desk staff to click it every time someone came in. Total disaster. They’d get busy, forget, or just plain didn’t bother. The numbers were all over the place and totally unreliable.
Getting a Bit More Techy
Then I started looking at more automated solutions. I thought about security cameras, but just reviewing footage seemed like a massive pain. Plus, I wasn’t sure how to count people accurately that way. I needed something smarter.
The Raspberry Pi Solution
I stumbled upon some DIY projects using a Raspberry Pi and a camera module. The idea is that the camera watches the entrance, and some clever software detects and counts people as they walk by. Sounded perfect! So i start to make it.
Setting Things Up
First, got myself a Raspberry Pi 4, a camera module, and a decent SD card.
and install the Raspberry Pi OS.
Connect the camera, boot it up, and get everything configured.
Basic stuff, really, like setting up Wi-Fi and enabling the camera interface.
The Software Side of Things
This is where it got a little more involved. I’m no coding expert, but I can follow instructions! I found a few different open-source projects for people counting, mostly using OpenCV (which is some kind of image processing library, I gather). I messed around with a couple, but ended up settling on one that seemed relatively straightforward. You can find the code online, don’t need to recreate it. I had to install a bunch of dependencies, which was a bit of a learning curve, but I got there eventually. It’s mostly just copying and pasting commands into the terminal.
- Install OpenCV and other dependencies. This took a while!
- Download and set up the people-counting code.
- Run Some Tests: Exciting Times!
I put the camera up near the entrance, making sure it had a good view of people coming in. Then I ran the script and… it worked! Well, sort of. It was definitely detecting people, but the count wasn’t perfect. Sometimes it would double-count someone, or miss someone completely if they walked too fast or were too close to another person.
Tweaking and Improving
I spent a good few days tweaking things. Adjusting the camera angle, messing with the code’s settings, and trying different lighting conditions. It’s still not 100% accurate, but it’s way better than my clicker method! I’d say it’s probably 90-95% accurate now, which is good enough for my needs.
The Results
Now, I have a little dashboard that shows me the foot traffic throughout the day. I can see peak hours, slow periods, and get a much better sense of how the gym is actually being used. This is super helpful for staffing, planning classes, and even just knowing when to crank up the AC!
It was definitely a bit of a project, but I learned a lot along the way. And now I have a pretty cool, custom-built foot traffic counter for my gym. Not bad for a weekend (or a few weekends…) of tinkering!