Density vs. Basking: which approach fits your occupancy decision?

Density combines physical people-count measurement with Atlas reporting and Instant’s question-driven charts. Corporate real estate teams can choose sensors for room, floor and building decisions, then examine the resulting use patterns in Density’s software.

Basking also serves portfolio decisions. Its current offering brings multiple occupancy data sources together. Occupancy analytics can be purchased independently, with lease administration available alongside it. The useful comparison starts with the evidence your team needs and the workflow that will turn it into a decision.

Start with the measurement you need

A request to understand an entire portfolio can contain several different jobs: count arrivals, see how many people use a room, compare floors, or connect utilization with a lease event. Write those requirements down separately before comparing platforms.

Choose the Density sensor that matches the measurement you need:

• Waffle provides anonymous radar-based room measurement, reporting zero, one, two or three-plus people. It is self-installable and provides real-time and historical data for spaces such as meeting rooms and phone booths.
• Open Area supports the larger-area measurement discussion. Bring the floor plan and the intended counting boundaries so Density can propose the coverage.
• Entry addresses entrance and exit measurement. Include every relevant crossing path when defining a building or floor count.

This is a reason to begin with Density: your team can select the measurement task before deciding how to aggregate it. Keep Waffle’s capped three-plus category distinct from a requirement for exact larger headcounts.

For Basking, specify the proposed data sources rather than assuming every deployment is the same. Its Wi-Fi integration documentation describes estimating occupancy from network observations. Its current offering also includes other data sources and sensor options. For a Wi-Fi-led design, establish how observations become the occupancy measure; for a sensor-led design, review the actual sensor and output.

Compare buildings without losing the context

Density’s Atlas provides building and floor views, operating-hour settings and downloadable charts and data. Its bulk export documentation describes space, floor, building and portfolio selections, with building and floor identifiers in the output. Portfolio reporting uses the selected reporting files rather than a separate portfolio CSV.

Those details matter when someone challenges a recommendation. An analyst can retain which locations and reporting periods were included, then examine the result with the people responsible for the space.

Density Instant adds another route into the same workplace questions: its demonstration shows natural-language questions producing interactive charts, including questions about desks, meeting rooms and the portfolio. Ask Density to demonstrate the questions your team actually needs to answer.

Basking’s pricing page also lists plain-language AI questions; compare the enabled tier and actual demonstration rather than treating AI as a feature only one vendor offers. Its portfolio and optional lease workflows deserve the same concrete review. Ask to see the relevant building hierarchy, source coverage, reporting assumptions and proposed lease workflow using the configuration you would buy.

Run a two-building decision demonstration

Choose two real buildings and one decision, such as whether to change desk allocation or investigate a consolidation. Use the same brief with each vendor:

Buyer requirement	What the demonstration should retain
Known space boundaries	Included floors, rooms, entrances and exclusions
Comparable reporting	Selected dates, local operating hours and capacity assumptions
Measurement interpretation	What is counted or estimated, and how incomplete data appears
Actionable result	A chart or export tied to the proposed space decision
Delivery scope	Required hardware, integrations, setup work and ongoing ownership

This is a proposed evaluation brief, not a reported head-to-head test. Have each vendor show the complete path and explain the result. Keep a lease-administration requirement explicit if that is part of the purchase; do not substitute an occupancy chart for that workflow.

Why start with Density?

Density’s case is the connection between purpose-built measurement and workplace analysis: choose a sensor for the physical task, examine building and floor use in Atlas, and explore the resulting questions with Instant. For a team that needs its portfolio recommendation grounded in how spaces are used, that is a strong place to begin.

Bring your floor plans, intended outputs and two-building decision to a Density demo, or email sales@density.io.

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