Every move you make
ý Local firms have come up with solutions for a business sector that suddenly has to comply with new protocols for health and safety. New tech solutions to curb the spread of Covid-19 have been developed quickly with the potential to replace manual processes for sanitary and social distancing measures, temperature screening and managing quarantine.
Datacentrix has a smart feverscreening solution that is contactless and reads the temperature of multiple people simultaneously. Its thermal handheld screener works from a distance of 1.5m-3m, and its long-range bullet camera is able to get temperature data 4.5m-9m away which it says is accurate up to 0.5°C-0.3°C. The devices are Wifi enabled and offer the monitoring of thermal and optical high-quality images. Data is secured by means of access control, including IP address filtering and encryption.
Pretoria-based Iot.nxt has created a product called Covision to help companies manage the distancing of people and vehicle counting as well as queue monitoring using low-cost hardware.
Nico Steyn, CEO of Iot.nxt, says Covision is paired with a smartphone or the Covision Raptor with a camera to measure the number of people walking along a passage or entrance. This enables tracking in shopping centres, retail chain stores, hospitals, libraries or banks.
“It can also use existing hardware such as cameras on a local network to monitor the same metrics by identifying the pixels that make up the shape of a human or vehicle through its software application and machine-learning algorithm. It monitors when an object or person crosses a virtual line, which the software keeps count of, in real time,” says Steyn.
Covision has a web interface to monitor the data, which can be viewed in real time and as a historic set of information from a device that has access to the internet and a browser.
The information can also be made public to assist consumers who want to get a sense of how busy a store, for example, may be, before setting out for it.
Iot.nxt’s people-counting software costs R5,000-R10,000 depending on the site, traffic volumes and accuracy that is required. The company has also created an Android application, which allows small businesses with limited funds to get the benefits of the software.
“Covision is fully compliant with privacy regulations based on international standards; the gateway will purely send values to the platform ensuring that no personal information is ever collected,” says Steyn. All information is stored for up to a year and accessible via two-step verification. Steyn says the software will add value long after the pandemic is over.
Meanwhile, software firm Macrocomm has imported a temperature-monitoring camera made by China Mobile International (CMI). CEO Sivi Moodley says Macrocomm has brought in a host of solutions from CMI after studying successful cases in dealing with constraints imposed by the pandemic in China. A thermal temperature camera with built-in facial recognition is one of them.
“The hardware is manufactured in China but the software and analytics run on the Macrocomm [internet of things] platform and integrates with our existing access control and time and attendance systems that manage security, health, safety, human resources and payroll.”
The system will monitor temperature and note people who are not wearing a mask.
Macrocomm’s smart analytics platform is able to analyse information
★★★★★ /5
Usability ★★★★ /5 well-thought-out, and is suitable for play between couples or parents and kids. There is no urgency to complete the games, making this a great way to pass the time while remaining indoors during lockdown.
Each game offers a voice-over explanation so you understand the rules, and there’s an explanation of the mechanics through an aid that can be turned off.
A single player or two players can participate, and online play is possible. However, I couldn’t get the latter to work, so I stuck to offline single- and two-player modes.
Some games support up to four players — useful for a household with multiple Joy-cons.
If you have a Switch console and need to entertain the kids during lockdown for hours on end, it is worth forking out R799.
It’s available on the Nintendo eshop as a 2.3GB digital download, or can be bought as a physical set.