Why retrofits underperform (and how to stop it)
Retrofitting should be the most capital-efficient way to unlock new value from an asset. Yet too many projects ship features people don’t use – lounge areas that sit empty, gyms that overflow at peak times, meeting rooms that become storage. At Fyma, we see the same root cause, time and time again: decisions were made without a robust baseline of how spaces are actually used hour by hour.
A reliable baseline of footfall, occupancy and dwell time is the difference between CapEx as a bet and CapeE as a business case. With privacy-first video analytics from Fyma, you can extract that baseline from the cameras you already own – before anyone lifts a tile.
What a “baseline” really needs to include
A defensible baseline goes beyond counting heads at entrances. It should capture:
Footfall by zone: not just who enters the building, but how people move and where they cluster.
Occupancy and dwell: time spent at amenities and in circulation areas, by hour and day.
Amenity-level usage: treadmills vs benches; booths vs tables; prams vs bikes; lifts vs stairs.
Modal share: cars, bikes, e-scooters, buses—vital for wayfinding, parking and EV strategy.
Seasonality and events: what changes on Fridays, paydays, school holidays or match days.
Fyma provides each of these as decision-ready metrics. Teams draw a region of interest (ROI) on the live camera view, and get accurate usage data, historically and in real time, without storing personally identifiable information.
The baseline-to-blueprint workflow
Connect existing cameras
Fyma ingests live streams or archived footage; no new hardware, truck rolls or rewiring.Define ROIs that mirror design intent
Draw boxes on proposed or existing zones: “soft seating”, “cold desk row”, “free weights”.Capture hourly profiles
See exactly when and how intensely spaces are used. Morning spikes, lunchtime troughs, evening peaks – evidence that aligns staffing, cleaning and building services.Prioritise the amenity mix
Identify winners (consistently >70% occupancy), reform candidates (30–50% with good dwell), and retirements (<20% with low dwell). Tie each to capex and expected return.Model interventions
Reposition a coffee point closer to lifts, re-orient benches towards daylight, reallocate under-used lockers – then validate the impact with post-occupancy evaluation (POE).Standardise across the portfolio
Use the same KPI definitions across sites so you can compare like with like and scale what works.
Privacy-by-design, always
You can’t retro-justify privacy; it must be designed in. Fyma processes video to metrics without exposing PII. Controls include retention options, restricted views, and exports that contain counts and timings – not identities. This keeps stakeholders comfortable while giving designers and operators the fidelity they need.
How to calculate retrofit ROI with confidence
Start with cost per m² of amenity and target utilisation.
Quantify avoided rework (strip-out, new furniture, downtime).
Model NOI impact from higher dwell in revenue-adjacent zones (F&B, convenience, wellness).
Add operational savings from right-time cleaning and staffing aligned to hourly profiles.
Track post-occupancy against baseline to prove uplift and refine further.
Why video analytics (not just sensors/Wi-Fi)?
Granularity: distinguish a bench from a treadmill; a queue from a crowd.
Coverage: use cameras you already have; no patchwork of devices.
Context: direction of travel, adjacency effects, event impacts.
Comparability: standardised KPIs, site to site.
A retrofit checklist you can use tomorrow
Pull two weeks of archived footage for target zones.
Define 6–10 ROIs that match design decisions.
Capture hourly profiles and weekend/weekday deltas.
Rank amenities by utilisation and dwell.
Build the business case with avoided rework + NOI effects.
Launch POE within four weeks of opening to validate.
Ultimately, successful retrofit depend on replacing opinion with evidence. Your amenity mix – and your NOI – will thank you.