5 ms·

My car (like many) uses some sort of pressure/weight sensor to detect if a passenger is sitting in the front seat. If there is not (or they don't meet a certain

My car (like many) uses some sort of pressure/weight sensor to detect if a passenger is sitting in the front seat. If there is not (or they don't meet a certain weight threshold, like a child) then the passenger side airbag is turned off. Those are probably bulkier than you'd want on a restaurant chair but you can probably tuck a decent sized box under the seat and no one would notice/care. Anyway, I would say some sort of pressure sensor is the way to go. Edit: you might even be able to use something a little more passive. If the chair was equipped with a small, low-power RFID tag that had enough logic to simply toggle its state [vacant|occupied] based on the pressure sensor, you could then position an RFID reader somewhere in the dining area that periodically polled the devices in the chairs. Then you don't have to worry about the chairs having enough power to run an active device.

soneca 12y ago
Sounds the way to go. I am googling "passive rfid tag with pressure sensor". Some promising solutions...
- junto 12y ago
  Stick an RFID tag on every customer's posterior when they arrive at the restaurant. Bingo, now you can track which rear end is sitting where. Seriously though, there are some good options with RFID tags. Does it really have to be per chair, or could it be people per table? You could put an RFID chip on each menu (though the menu would need to be left at the table for the duration of the customer's visit, and you would always need to provide 1 menu per customer). If you didn't want to use menus then you could use something else instead, as long as you could RFID tag it. When you go into clothes store changing room you often get given a tag with a number on it. That tag number defines that number of clothing items you have taken into the changing room with you and it reduces theft. You could operate a similar system, but based on the customers sitting at the table. It won't tell you which seats are being sat on, but it will tell the occupancy per table.

soneca 12y ago

Sounds the way to go. I am googling "passive rfid tag with pressure sensor". Some promising solutions...

junto 12y ago
Stick an RFID tag on every customer's posterior when they arrive at the restaurant. Bingo, now you can track which rear end is sitting where. Seriously though, there are some good options with RFID tags. Does it really have to be per chair, or could it be people per table? You could put an RFID chip on each menu (though the menu would need to be left at the table for the duration of the customer's visit, and you would always need to provide 1 menu per customer). If you didn't want to use menus then you could use something else instead, as long as you could RFID tag it. When you go into clothes store changing room you often get given a tag with a number on it. That tag number defines that number of clothing items you have taken into the changing room with you and it reduces theft. You could operate a similar system, but based on the customers sitting at the table. It won't tell you which seats are being sat on, but it will tell the occupancy per table.