Radars

A radar counts people whether or not they are carrying anything. That is what makes it the honest answer to "how many people are in this room" in a building where nobody wears a badge.

The radars Omaya reads

Model	Connects by	What it gives Omaya	Fields	Feeds
Minew MSR01-A	Bluetooth, heard by any gateway	How many people are in its view, and where each one is	total_people (0–15), and a position (x, y, z in metres from the sensor) per person	People Count, Right Now, Room Usage Map, Space Utilisation, the radar rule measures
Minew MSR01-B	Bluetooth	People crossing a doorway, each way	entry, exit	Enter / Exit. Covered on Presence, motion and door sensors
Milesight VS370	LoRaWAN	Whether anyone is there (yes/no), not how many	occupied	The zone's occupied state, Space Utilisation

Only the MSR01-A gives positions, so only the MSR01-A has the Coverage calibration panel described below. The rest of this page is mostly about it.

Not radars, but count people too: the Milesight VS133 and VS135 (3D time-of-flight) report over LoRaWAN; their per-line crossings arrive as entry / exit and their per-region counts as people in the room. Mount and configure them with Milesight's guide, register them like any LoRaWAN sensor (Milesight LoRaWAN).

The Milesight units' reporting interval can be changed later from their Configure page in Omaya. Minew radars are set up with Minew's app only.

MSR01-A at a glance

Radar	60 GHz (Minew)
Field of view	120° (Minew)
Mounting	Ceiling, centred on the area to count; ships with a magnetic ring
Power	Wired 12 V DC, 1 A (Minew accepts 10–25 V). Not battery
Configuration app	Minew MinewLink
Most people it reports	15
Covers, in theory	A circle about 3.5 × the mount height across, at the floor, from the 120° angle alone (about 9.4 m at 2.7 m). In practice its range is shorter; plan one unit per room, not one per 10 m

Two things catch people out. The wedge is thin directly underneath, so a radar over a desk sees the room better than it sees that desk. And glass is not a wall to a radar — a unit facing a glazed partition will count people in the corridor as though they were in the meeting room, which is why a room that is visibly empty can report two.

Seen from above. The radar reports where each person is; calibration puts the sensor on the floor plan and turns it to match, so Omaya counts only the people inside the room's outline (less the Wall margin). People beyond the glass, and a reflection that never moves, are left out.

Where to put it

Do	Don't
Ceiling, roughly over the middle of the area you want counted	Over one desk because that is "the desk that matters": it sees the desk worst
One radar per room	One radar for two rooms through a partition: it sees through it, but Omaya can only give its count to one zone
Aim away from glazed walls, or plan to draw the counting area inside them (see Calibrating)	Face a glass partition onto a busy corridor and leave it uncalibrated
A spot with nothing moving in view	Under a ceiling fan, next to a swinging door, a hanging banner, a curtain in the aircon's air
A fixed ceiling, tile or slab	A ceiling tile that flexes, or a light fitting that vibrates
Note the mount height on your install sheet	Assume Omaya knows it: there is no height field for a radar; you use it once, for Ignore z above

Size the room to the radar. One unit suits one meeting room. A large open area needs several units, each over its own zone; where two units' views overlap, someone standing in the overlap is counted by both unless each unit's counting area is drawn to stop at its zone's edge.

Mind the glass. Radar passes through glass. A unit facing a glass wall counts people in the corridor beyond as though they were in the room, and the symptom is a visibly empty meeting room reporting two. Calibration fixes this: Omaya counts only the people whose position falls inside the room.

Step by step

1. Before you go to site

1. The Location, Venue (floor) and Zone (room) exist under Space.
2. The zone is drawn on the floor plan. Calibration needs the room's outline in metres: the floor plan must be scaled and the zone's corners clicked in on the Map Editor's Zones tab. See Floor plans and positioning.
3. A 12 V DC supply is planned at the ceiling point.

2. On the bench

1. Power the MSR01-A from a 12 V supply.
2. Open MinewLink, connect to the unit, and check it is the people-counting (area) version with its broadcast on. Note the MAC address.
3. Leave the detection area at its widest: Omaya trims it to the room later, on the plan, which is easier to change than the sensor.

3. Mount it

1. Fix the magnetic ring to the ceiling at the planned point and click the sensor into it.
2. Note which way the sensor faces (for example the cable exit points to the door). You will turn it to match on the plan.
3. Measure the mount height (floor to sensor) and write it down.
4. Wire the 12 V supply.

4. Register it in Omaya

Device → Sensor → Add Sensor, from the top of the form:

1. Sensor Name: the room, e.g. L5 Meeting Room Orchid — radar.
2. MAC Address.
3. Brand / Vendor Minew, Sensor Model MSR01-A. What This Device Provides shows People Count and Radar Positions.
4. Location, Venue, Zone: the room. The count is written against the radar's own place, so set them; a radar with no location writes nothing.
5. Save. The Coverage calibration box on the form now says the device can be calibrated.

5. Calibrate the coverage

A radar reports each person's position relative to itself. Calibration places the sensor on the floor plan, so that Omaya can count only the people inside the room and drop the ones beyond the glass.

Open the radar's Edit form (or the View panel's Calibration card) and press Calibrate coverage. If it says the zone has no polygon drawn in metres, go back to step 1.2.

1. Put the sensor where it is. Drag the sensor marker on the plan to its real position, or type Sensor X (m) and Sensor Y (m).
2. Walk into the room with a phone or tablet showing the panel. Your own dot appears (the badge at the top changes from Live · waiting).
3. Turn it. Drag Rotation (or press +90°) until your dot is where you are standing. Walk to two corners and check it follows you.
4. Shape the counting area. It starts as the zone's outline. Drag a corner to move it; double-click an edge to add a corner; double-click a corner to remove it. Reset area to zone puts it back.
5. Wall margin (default 0.3 m): how far inside the outline a person must be to count. Raise it if people walking past outside a glass wall are counted.
6. Ignore z above (m) (optional): drop targets reported higher than this. Leave it empty unless something on a high shelf or the ceiling is being counted; z is not a person's height.
7. Compare the numbers: Radar count (everything the radar sees), Inside (this setup) (what the area you are drawing would count), Inside (saved). With three people in the room and two in the corridor, Radar count says 5 and Inside (this setup) should say 3.
8. Show last 90 s draws the recent trail, handy for checking the edges.
9. Save calibration. It applies to the next reading.

A dashed red ring marks a target that has not moved for hours: usually a reflection (a metal cabinet, a window frame) being counted as a person. Drag the counting area so the ring is outside it, then save.

Clear calibration removes it; the radar then counts everything it sees again.

6. Check it works

1. View the radar. Last seen is seconds ago; Latest reading shows total_people.
2. Have two people walk in and sit down. Within a few seconds the count is 2. The live feed arrives in pages, so a count that jumps for a moment and settles is the feed, not the room.
3. Have them leave. The count returns to 0.
4. Monitor → Right Now & Live Alerts shows the room's count; Reports → People Count and Room Usage Map fill from the next hour.

Reading what it gives you

It counts people, not tags. A radar zone and a tag zone answer different questions even where the column has the same name. See Occupancy: which number is which.

It reports up to 15 people. A larger crowd needs more units.

Height is not what you would guess. The z figure is not a person's height. Use it only to drop a fixed reflection with Ignore z above.

First rules

Goal	Rule measure	Recipe
A room over its capacity	People in Area (radar) greater than the room's capacity	A room over its capacity
Rooms nobody uses	Area Empty For (radar)	Rooms nobody uses
Switch off when it empties	Area Empty For (radar) 15 min	Switch off a room when it empties
Someone in a room after hours	People in Area (radar) above 0, outside hours	Someone in a room after hours

When a radar is the wrong choice

You only need to know whether anyone is there. A presence sensor is cheaper, often battery-powered, and simpler.

You need to count people crossing a threshold, not standing in a room. That is a door counter, and the two numbers are not interchangeable.

The space is bigger than one unit covers. Two radars in one room need their overlap thinking about; two rooms with one each is usually the better layout.

Questions and problems

An empty room reports people. Something beyond glass, or a reflection, is being counted. Calibrate, and draw the counting area inside the glass; look for the dashed red ring.

The count is right but the dots are in the wrong place. The sensor's position or rotation on the plan is off. Re-open Calibrate coverage, stand in a corner and turn it until your dot is there.

Calibrate coverage says the zone has no polygon drawn in metres. Scale the floor plan and draw the zone's corners on the Map Editor's Zones tab, or give the radar a zone that has one.

The count is always 0. Check Last seen and the 12 V supply. Check the radar has a Location. If Radar count in the panel is above 0 and Inside (saved) is 0, the counting area or the rotation is wrong.

Two adjacent rooms count the same person. Their radars see through the wall between them. Calibrate both, so that each counts only inside its own zone.

The count flickers between two values. Paged frames: above five people the radar sends its list in two parts. The reports keep each hour's peak and average, which are steady.