Enhance Your Office Space with Humly Booking Device’s Presence Detection

News / 24.10.24

Managing office space effectively is crucial in today’s hybrid work environment. With flexible schedules and shared workspaces, ensuring that desks and other resources are used efficiently can be a challenge. That’s where Humly’s new Presence Detection feature comes in, making the booking process smoother while providing valuable insights into desk usage.


What is Presence Detection?

Presence Detection is a feature that allows the Humly Booking Device to automatically prompt users to book a desk when their presence is detected. It ensures that resources are actively being used and helps prevent desks from sitting idle or being blocked by unneeded reservations.


This feature integrates seamlessly with popular booking systems with Microsoft 365, Exchange, Google, or through the Humly Booking Device with PIN or RFID authentication. Once activated, it also provides organisations with key data on how workspaces are benign utilised, helping them optimise desk allocation.


How Presence Detection Works


  1. Automatic Booking Prompt: When a user interacts with an available desk, the Humly Booking Device detects the vibration (e.g. from sitting down or placing a device) and prompts the user to confirm the booking.
  2. Confirm and Continue: Once confirmed, the desk status changes to Ongoing for the duration of the booking. Users won’t be prompted again during this time.
  3. Early Departures: If the user leaves early, they must manually cancel the booking to free up the desk.
  4. Non-Response Handling: If a user doesn’t respond to the prompt within 5 minutes, it will disappear but return after 10 minutes if their presence is still detected.
  5. Upcoming Booking Notifications: Users will be notified of upcoming bookings 10 minutes in advance, preventing presence prompts during this window to avoid interruptions.


Why Enable Presence Detection?

Enabling this feature offers several benefits:


  • Better Utilisation Data: By detecting actual presence, you can collect accurate statistics on desk usage.
  • Increased Efficiency: Desks won't remain reserved if they're not in use, freeing them up for others.
  • Simplified User Experience: Users can quickly and easily confirm bookings without navigating complex systems.


System Requirements

To use presence detection, ensure your setup includes:


  • Humly Control Panel and Humly Booking Device version 1.27 or later
  • Note: The Humly Room Display does not support this feature due to its lack of an accelerometer for vibration detection.


How to Enable Presence Detection

Enabling presence detection is simple:


  1. Open the Humly Control Panel and go to the Resources page.
  2. Select Desk as the recourse type.
  3. In the Desk Settings tab, choose the desks to modify and click Edit Selected.
  4. Under General Resource Settings: Enable Make instant booking under booking settings and check Enable detecting user presence under Presence Detection.
  5. Click Save to apply your changes.


With Presence Detection, Humly helps you maximise office efficiency by ensuring resources are used effectively. Whether you want to gather presence data, prevent underutilisation of desks, or simply make the booking process easier for your team, this feature will enhance how you manage your office space.


Ready to get started? Upgrade your Humly Booking Device and turn on presence detection today?