Xovis Api Documentation
Mastering Crowd Intelligence: The Ultimate Guide to Xovis API Documentation
In the age of smart buildings and data-driven retail, accurate people counting has transitioned from a luxury to a necessity. Xovis, a Swiss leader in high-precision people flow analysis, stands at the forefront of this industry. Their 3D stereo vision sensors are renowned for millimeter-precision counting, but the true power of these sensors is unlocked through their Application Programming Interface (API).
For developers and system integrators, the Xovis API documentation is the key to transforming raw pedestrian data into actionable business intelligence. Whether you are looking to integrate real-time occupancy data into a building management system (BMS), feed footfall metrics into a CRM, or trigger automated alerts in a queue management dashboard, understanding this documentation is critical.
This article serves as a deep dive into the Xovis API ecosystem. We will explore the architecture, authentication methods, data endpoints, and best practices for leveraging the official documentation to build robust, scalable integrations. xovis api documentation
3. Sensor-to-Cloud: MQTT and Webhooks
Xovis has modernized its API documentation to include MQTT and Webhooks, which are essential for cloud integration.
- MQTT: Detailed topics like
xovis/sensor/[ID]/countwith retained messages. The docs provide a clear payload schema. - Webhooks: Instructions on setting up HTTP POST callbacks to your endpoint whenever a person enters a zone.
What’s Well Documented: Payload structure, retry logic (exponential backoff), and security (HMAC signatures for verification). Mastering Crowd Intelligence: The Ultimate Guide to Xovis
What’s Missing: No clear guidance on throughput limits (e.g., max webhooks per second per sensor). Developers must guess or test destructively.
6. Common Pain Points in the Documentation
After surveying integrators, three recurring issues appear: 3. Core Concepts
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Version Fragmentation: Xovis sells several sensor generations (3D, X3, PC Tool 2 vs. 3). The API documentation does not clearly separate which endpoints work with which firmware. You often find an endpoint, only to discover it’s unsupported on your hardware.
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Rate Limiting: The documentation states “reasonable use” but provides no numbers. One integrator reported that beyond 10 requests/second, the XAP returns HTTP 429, but this is not in the official docs.
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Time Zone Handling: Timestamps can be returned in UTC or local sensor time. The documentation explains this but buries the
timezoneparameter in a single note, leading to off-by-hour errors in reports.
Data modelling & storage recommendations
- Store raw events (timestamp, device_id, in, out, zone) before aggregation.
- Keep timezone-normalized ISO8601 timestamps (UTC) and local timezone separately.
- Aggregate to minute/5-minute bins for dashboards; keep raw for audits.