Comments on: Counting People in Galleries with iPod Touch

By: Off Center » Walker Top Tens of 2007, part three

Off Center » Walker Top Tens of 2007, part three — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:45:03 +0000

[...] Apple iPhone Everyone is sick of the hype, but it is actually a pretty nifty device. I’m not a fan of AT&T, but as a true “wireless communicator”, it’s pretty rad. The iPhone’s little brother, the iPod Touch, is also pretty nifty and we have had great success using them for some things around here. [...]

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 11:09:19 +0000

how long can i leave the ipod touch on for

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:01:20 +0000

That’s a really clever solution. Just hoping the guards don’t spend too much time browsing facebook on their iPod touch!

By: Nate Solas

Nate Solas — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:10:04 +0000

@Jessica – We’re recording the number of visitors in a database every time it changes. It’s not currently broken up by day, but we’ll have all the data we need to do that.

… actually, thanks for reminding me – I just checked and the script was recording waaaaay to many entries now that Brent made the iPod autorefresh. Gotta clean that up before the show opens!

By: Jessica Sharpe

Jessica Sharpe — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:38:02 +0000

This seems like a wonderful solution. One question I have is are you able to get a total count of the number of visitors who are seeing the show on a given day? If you are “clicking” people in and then “clicking” people out will you ever know the total number who saw the show on a given day at a given time? It seems that you are using this technology to monitor access into the gallery but not to show attendance figures. Are you using some other mechanism for that?

By: Brent Gustafson

Brent Gustafson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:59:03 +0000

We still haven’t tested them in a real life setting yet, this is still mostly R&D at this point, so it’s hard to say how long the battery will last. We have also purchases some battery packs that hook on to the iPods to extend their life however, which should for sure last us through the day. I’ll be able to report on life expectancy once the show opens.

The only interactive stuff we’ve tried on them is Art on Call and the Walker Channel, which was just browsing to those sites in Safari. They worked great. I’m pretty positive we could build something custom as a tour for these things and it would be pretty slick, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

By: Dafydd James

Dafydd James — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:09:27 +0000

That’s a great setup, though some of us unfortunately don’t have wifi throughout our galleries (yet)!

Justin mentioned battery life – how long have the iPods worked without charging, using the browser? (Or approximately how much battery life is left at the end of the day?)

Also have you been able to test interactive material on them yet? (eg to support an exhibition, photos, videos in a browser).

By: Justin Heideman

Justin Heideman — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:50:22 +0000

We also talked about the Nintendo DS and the Nokia N800, but the iPod touch has some key advantages over either of those. The DS is cheaper, screen isn’t quite as good and the input isn’t quite as nice. the N800 has a nicer screen, but is a bit more expensive.

The key advantage to the iPod touch, though, is battery life, and that we can use any of the battery extenders that are out there and compatible with the iPod. We won’t have any messy power cords to deal with.

By: Brent Gustafson

Brent Gustafson — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:30:54 +0000

Yes, one of these will be at each entrance to the gallery. The guards will be adding/subtracting as people enter and leave. To make it easier, we are designating one entrance to be the main entrance. The other is exit only.

Part of the idea of building this app was to use it in the future as well for other events. Not only does it keep a current count of the capacity of a given space, but we also capture the time/date of each entrance into the gallery in the DB. Then in the future we can see the hourly/daily/weekly, etc traffic patterns for any given event we use it for.

By: bryan kennedy

bryan kennedy — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:19:10 +0000

Wow, that is a brilliant solution. What a great hack of the system. So would your gallery guards have these iPod touches at each entrance? Would you ever roll this out on a larger scale in the museum?