XY Sense Occupancy Sensors and Insights Platform

XY Sense was founded in 2016 by Alex Birch and Luke Murray and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with offices in Sydney, New York, London and Bengaluru. It captures accurate workplace utilisation data so real estate teams can size and design offices around how people actually use them, with deployments in more than 30 countries.

The system pairs ceiling-mounted sensors (Area Pro, Entry, Presence) with the cloud Insights Platform. Area Pro covers up to 3,000 sq ft, tracks up to 255 people at about 99% accuracy and refreshes every 2 seconds, outputting only anonymous X/Y coordinates processed on-device. The platform offers live views, daily replays, AI-assisted dashboards, heatmaps and an API. PremLink, launched in September 2026, delivers occupancy to building management systems via BACnet/IP and UDMI without a cloud round-trip.

• Area Pro sensor: Covers up to 3,000 sq ft and tracks up to 255 people at about 99% accuracy.
• Entry and Presence sensors: Count entries and exits and monitor pods and small meeting rooms.
• Live Views and Replays: Show real-time and replayed detections across floors.
• AI-assisted analytics: Provide predictive workplace analytics, dashboards and heatmaps.
• PremLink: On-premise appliance that outputs occupancy to BMS via BACnet/IP and UDMI.
• Open API: Gives access to live and historical occupancy data for booking, cleaning and energy systems.

A bank in Ho Chi Minh City can measure desk and meeting room use before consolidating branches and headquarters floors. A green-certified office tower in Hanoi can connect occupancy to its BMS to ventilate by live headcount. A multinational can benchmark utilisation across regional offices.

Real estate teams get utilisation data accurate to about 99%, rather than sampled badge or Wi-Fi estimates, before making lease and fit-out decisions. Privacy-safe sensors capture no images, easing employee and works council concerns. Feeding live headcount into HVAC is claimed to save 20 to 40% of HVAC energy. Wired PoE sensors avoid battery maintenance.

Return-to-office policies and high rents push companies to measure real utilisation before cutting or redesigning space, while building owners link ventilation to actual headcount to cut energy and meet ESG and WELL reporting. Large corporate occupiers and green-certified office buildings in Vietnam face similar pressures.

Founded in 2016 in Melbourne, Australia; publicly launched in July 2020 after three years in stealth. Backed by Blackbird Ventures; raised an 8 million USD Pre-Series A led by InterValley Ventures in 2022. Integrates air-quality data from Airthings and Kaiterra. Area Pro won a 2026 Australian Good Design Award.