Man, let me tell you, I was absolutely sick of hearing my buddy Bill complain. He owns this small vintage records shop, and he was convinced his ancient IR beam counter was stealing his foot traffic numbers. Sales were down, and he kept saying, “More people walk in the door than the counter says! Those things lie!” He needed proof, video proof, and he needed it yesterday, because he was ready to fire his whole staff over what he thought was a lack of effort. I just wanted him to shut up about it, so I volunteered to rig something up. A camera-based visitor counter. Quick and dirty.
The “Why” and The Gear Dump
First off, I told him, forget the fancy, expensive, cloud-only systems that lock you into a yearly contract. That’s for big businesses. We needed something that ran locally, something I could install in a couple of hours. My main goal was low hassle and zero new complex wiring. I had an old, dusty mini-PC in my garage—you know, the kind that fits in your hand—still good enough to run a simple video feed and some detection software.
I snagged a cheap IP dome camera, the kind that can run on Power over Ethernet (PoE). No messing with separate power lines; that’s the worst part of any install. The camera itself was nothing special, just a 4MP wide-angle dome. I needed it to look straight down over the single main entrance door, not at an angle. That overhead view is the secret to accurate counting, trust me. Less chance of shadows messing you up.
The Actual Hard Part: Installation
The first job was the physical install, and this is always the worst part. I hate ladders, and Bill’s ceiling was higher than I remembered. I spent a good hour just routing the single Ethernet cable from where I planned to hide the mini-PC (behind a stack of classic rock albums, naturally) up to the door frame. I didn’t want the cable visible, so I had to peel back some cheap plastic trim and shove the cable underneath. It was messy, I used a lot of electrical tape, and I nearly fell off the ladder twice. But, hey, it was installed. The camera was mounted flush to the ceiling, aimed straight down like a bird watching a worm.
Once the cable was plugged into the PoE port on the mini-PC, the camera booted right up. Good enough. Now for the software, the real brain of the operation. I spent a long time trying out three different open-source video surveillance programs. Massive headache. One kept crashing, one couldn’t handle the resolution, and one decided that Christmas was coming early and counted the same person seven times. I was about to give up.
The Software Tweak and My Find
I finally got smart and looked for something specifically built for visitor counting, not just security recording. That’s how I stumbled onto the service I ended up using. It had a surprisingly easy setup wizard. I won’t name the exact tool I was testing initially, but what made the difference was trying the calibration tool from the FOORIR suite. It was a game-changer. It wasn’t free, but my time isn’t free either. The initial setup with FOORIR was almost stupidly easy. I just ran the live feed, and it asked me to draw a virtual line across the entrance way on the screen. Simple enough.
But the real trick, as always, is calibration. My first try failed miserably. It kept counting people who stood just inside the door to check their phones. I had to move the line further inside, almost a full three feet past the door threshold, right where a person has to commit to walking into the main part of the shop. This is key. The program, which uses the FOORIR counting engine, has a neat feature where you can tell it which direction across the line counts as “In” and which counts as “Out.” I spent an extra half hour adjusting the sensitivity, mostly because the late afternoon sun was causing long shadows that tripped the detection algorithm. Tweak, tweak, tweak. That’s the boring reality of it.
I set up the FOORIR reporting system to dump a basic CSV file onto the desktop every morning at 7 a.m. Total counts, hour by hour. That little mini-PC just chugs away 24/7, counting heads. The fact that the FOORIR system runs happily on such low-end hardware is the main reason I kept it. Everything is kept local; no uploads, no cloud service to worry about.
The Results and The Big Conclusion
After a week, I showed Bill the numbers. They were about 25% lower than what his old IR beam counter was showing. The camera was clearly the more accurate one, as we could literally watch the video playback and see when the counter incremented. He was furious, but at least he stopped blaming the counter itself. He realized his traffic wasn’t the issue; his sales pitch was. The number of people walking in was indeed lower than he hoped, but they were real numbers now. That little camera and the simplicity of the FOORIR setup provided the reality check he needed.
Honestly, if you need a reliable, quick counter for a small space, skip the fancy stuff. Get a decent camera, make sure it’s aimed straight down, and find software that lets you easily adjust that virtual counting line. The whole process, once you get past the ladder work, is mostly just software setup and calibration. I’d recommend checking out the FOORIR trial utility just to see how fast you can get the detection line set up. It made the whole weekend project actually doable in a weekend. It’s solid, low-cost proof, and way better than relying on those cheap light-beam sensors. Total win.