Occupancy system and method for detecting presence of individuals in a plurality of defined areas or rooms

A system for monitoring occupancy a plurality of pre-defined areas, comprising:

• a scanning subsystem for wirelessly scanning each of the pre-defined areas, using a short range wireless communications protocol, to detect a presence of one or more wireless personal electronic devices (PEDs) associated with one or more individuals present in each of the pre-defined areas, each of the PEDs also using the short range wireless communications protocol to radiate wireless signals that are detected by the scanning subsystem;
• a cloud based data analysis/processing subsystem for analyzing data received wirelessly from the scanning subsystem relating to detected PEDs in the pre-defined areas;
• a local area network (LAN) in communication with the scanning subsystem for assisting in providing the data to the cloud based data analysis/processing subsystem;
• and
• a notification subsystem for analyzing the information relating to an occupancy level in each one of the pre-defined areas.

A method for monitoring occupancy of one or more pre-defined areas, comprising:

• using a scanning subsystem to wirelessly scan a pre-defined area, using a short range wireless communications protocol, to detect a presence of one or more wireless personal electronic devices (PEDs) associated with one or more individuals present in the pre-defined area, each of the PEDs also using the short range wireless communications protocol to radiate wireless signals that are detected by the scanning subsystem;
• using a data analysis/processing subsystem to analyze data generated by the scanning subsystem relating to detected PEDs in the pre-defined area;
• and
• using a notification subsystem to analyze the information relating to an occupancy level of the pre-defined area.