Chair status: occupied
Install
A patented sensor fits any chair you already own. No cameras, no microphones, no patient identifiers.
The shift
You measure the schedule. Start measuring chair time.
Every utilization number you have divides scheduled hours by available hours.
- Retrofits any dental chair
- U.S. Patent 11,657,696
Chair time by hourSee where the day opens up.
Less occupiedMore occupied
Light columns reveal idle windows.
Illustrative chair-time pattern. Your dashboard shows your own offices and chairs.
Measured at the base of the chair you already own.
Occupancy signalActual chair time
What SmartChair.AI is
A patented sensor on every chair. The real numbers, one screen.
Real chair occupancy, measured at the chair, across every location.
A patented retrofit sensor for any dental chair, paired with a cloud dashboard.
- Registers when each chair is occupied or open
- Turns that into utilization, idle time, and production per occupied chair hour
- No cameras, no microphones, no patient identifiers
Your team keeps every decision. SmartChair.AI supplies the number.
Real-time chair-time counterby SmartChair.AI.
120,648 hours, 03 minutesProduction equivalent$60.3millionCalculated at $500 per sensor-measured occupied chair-hour.
The insight
The schedule says 80 percent. Actual chair time says a third.
Published benchmarks measure scheduled time. The sensor measures actual chair time.
Every practice management report divides scheduled hours by available hours. That is the schedule, not the chair.
- Measured at the chair, offices run closer to a third of the day
- The difference is hours you already pay for, in rooms you already own
- It takes an accurate number, not a new operatory
About 80%
About one-third
Hours you already pay for
About half the dayHow groups fill the gap today
Spreadsheets, PMS reports, and walking the floor. Now add chair time.
Each one tells you part of the day. Actual chair time fills in the rest.
Today the capacity conversation runs on four things, and each describes the plan or a single moment.
- A PMS report, a spreadsheet, a patient-flow board, a walk on the floor
- SmartChair.AI adds the layer underneath: every occupied minute, every chair, every location
- Keep your reports. Add actual chair time.
- Current inputPMS report
- Current inputSpreadsheet
- Current inputPatient-flow view
- Current inputFloor walk
- Added layerChair timeEvery occupied minute at every chair, all day.
Automatic measurement. Monthly and quarterly reports.
The sensor does the counting. Your team does the deciding.
Measurement runs on its own. Reports arrive monthly and quarterly. Schedule, staffing, and expansion stay with you.
Measure
Every occupied minute, first patient to last, recorded on its own.
Report
Live status and heat maps by chair, hour, and location, plus monthly and quarterly reports.
Your team keeps every decision. SmartChair.AI replaces the spreadsheet, not the manager.
Real-world ROI and who is using it
One recovered occupied chair hour is worth $290 to $700.
One recovered hour a month covers the subscription many times over.
$290 to $700 per occupied chair hour
- U.S. Patent 11,657,696
- Retrofits any dental chair
- Deployed across DSOs, private practices, community health networks, and dental schools
Dental production runs $290 to $700 per occupied chair hour.
- One recovered hour per chair a month pays for SmartChair.AI several times over
- One DSO office: occupied hours up about 17 percent in a quarter, same chairs, same team
- Deployed across DSOs, private practices, community health networks, and dental schools. Ask any of them.
Alpha Dental
Compare chairs and providers.
A full appointment book could not show production per occupied chair hour.
Illustrative offices feed a chair and provider comparison: production divided by occupied chair hours. Compare by chair, provider, or location to inform where hours and providers should sit. No customer values are shown.
“With SmartChair.AI, we were able to compare production per chair hour across providers, hygienists, and specialists. This level of clarity was impossible before. It's now driving data-based decisions, and we're in the process of rolling the system out to all 18 locations.”
Read what they changed at Alpha Dental
- Compared actual chair time and production side by side across providers, hygienists, and specialists
- Decided where hours and providers should sit
- Adding locations office by office
Dental Elements
Find the quiet hour.
A recurring light block around lunch was hidden inside the schedule.
Illustrative weekly chair-time heat map with a recurring light midday column across weekdays. The pattern explains the scheduling gap in the Dental Elements story; it is not customer data. The team can reshape the midday schedule.
“SmartChair.AI revealed something we would have never noticed. Our staff was consistently booking a light schedule around lunch. Once we saw the real occupancy data, we restructured our schedule to maximize chair use during that time. The impact on productivity has been immediate.”
Read what they changed at Dental Elements
- The same block sat light day after day, at the same hour, across the chairs
- Restructured the schedule around actual chair time and filled the block
- No chair, room, or day added to the week
Excel Dental Management
Use the operatory you already own.
The new room had appointments, but actual chair time was lower than expected.
Illustrative operatory with about one of five equal time units occupied, representing the rounded one-in-five share in the Excel Dental story. This is a share of time, not a consecutive timeline. Review workflow before adding another room.
“We recently added a new operatory, and SmartChair.AI is helping us track actual usage and hold our team accountable. The data showed our usage was lower than expected, giving us a clear opportunity to address workflow and maximize our investment.”
Read what they changed at Excel Dental Management
- The gap pointed at workflow, not capacity: the room was there, patients were not reaching it
- Fixed how the day moved through the building instead of building again
- The operatory they already owned became the cheapest capacity available
Implementation
Professional install, nationwide.
Your team keeps seeing patients. Nothing changes in your practice management system.
- Nationwide installers fit the sensors, and remove them whenever you need
- Your team keeps seeing patients
- Nothing changes in your practice management system
- Add the next location on the same agreement
At the chair base
Fits your existing chairSmartChair.AI sensorFitted at the base
- 01Chair sensor
Measures occupied chair time
- 02Office Wi-Fi
Connects your chair-time data
- 03SmartChair.AI dashboard
Shows the patterns across locations
What success looks like
Stop guessing. Add hours before you add operatories.
What changes when chair time has a number of its own.
Success looks ordinary.
The morning huddle starts with what the chairs did yesterday
A light lunch block gets filled because the heat map showed it
A new operatory gets a workflow fix instead of a second build
Wait, and the next expansion runs on a schedule report.
Questions, answered
What your team needs to know before the first office.
Does it work with the chairs we already own?
Yes. The sensor is a retrofit for any dental chair, any make, any age, so you keep the chairs you have.
What does the sensor collect?
Whether a chair is occupied or open, and for how long. No cameras, no microphones, no patient identifiers.
Does anything connect to our practice management system?
Nothing changes in your practice management system on install day, and the dashboard runs on the sensor alone. Pair occupancy with your production summary and you see production per occupied chair hour today; integration is underway with a leading cloud practice management system.
Who installs it, and what does our team have to do?
Professional installers from our nationwide partner, UptimeServices, handle the install while your team keeps seeing patients. After that, nobody on your team operates anything.
Can we start with one location?
Yes. Start with one office, then add locations on the same agreement.
Why 30 minutes is worth it
Thirty minutes. Your chairs, your question, a real dashboard.
Bring the capacity question your group is working through.
- Whether to add a room, where to add hours, why one location out-produces another
- Real chairs on a real dashboard, in 30 minutes
- Nothing to prepare. If it fits, we talk about your first office.
Khamir Patel, DMD
CEO and Co-Founder, SmartChair.AI