SimplyCount
SimplyCount

How to Count Smoke Detectors on a Blueprint — Fast & Defensibly

Counting smoke detectors by hand is slow and error-prone. Detectors, pulls and horn/strobes look similar and are spread across large plans. SimplyCount finds and marks every one on your plan set automatically, and you sign off on the total.

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To count smoke detectors on a blueprint with SimplyCount, you import the plan set as a PDF and point at the smoke detectors symbol from your own legend. The engine sweeps every sheet and marks each instance, and a live count updates as you review. Miss one? Add it. See a wrong detection? Reject it — the total updates and the number you export is the one you signed off on. In on-prem mode everything runs locally — even a scanned page or a phone photo of a drawing gets counted without your plans ever touching a cloud service — or run the hosted cloud mode if you'd rather nothing to install.

Why it's hard by hand

Detectors, pulls and horn/strobes look similar and are spread across large plans.

A miscount of smoke detectors flows straight into a wrong bid.

Doing it by hand on every revision burns evenings.

How SimplyCount handles it

What you get

  • Point at the smoke detectors symbol from your own legend — the engine finds every instance on every sheet.
  • Review the marked-up detections and reject or add any you need; the total updates.
  • Export the count to Excel, CSV or PDF.
  • Deploy it your way: run SimplyCount fully on-prem — encrypted local database inside your firewall, air-gap-capable, nothing uploaded — or as a hosted cloud solution with nothing to install. Two supported modes; you pick the one your shop needs.
  • SimplyCount's benchmark is 60 unique symbols across 168 pages in about an hour — roughly 168× faster than counting by hand.
faster than hand-counting — 168 pages, 60 symbols, in about an hour
of detections you review & sign off — you bid, not the model
reclaimable industry-wide with better document workflows
Watch it count

Drag the line. See every symbol get found.

A real electrical panel sheet — slide to reveal what SimplyCount marks.

An electrical panel sheet before counting The same sheet with every symbol detected and marked Your planCounted Every symbol on this sheet — found & marked
Example: an electrical panel sheet.
Questions

Common questions

Can SimplyCount count smoke detectors automatically?
Yes. Point at the symbol from your own legend and SimplyCount finds and marks every instance across the whole plan set, then lets you review and sign off on the total before it lands in a bid.
Can we keep everything inside our network?
Yes — that's the on-prem/offline mode: detection runs locally, results sit in an encrypted local database, there's no upload step, and you can run it with the network cable pulled, inside your firewall, air-gapped. Prefer zero install? Run the hosted cloud mode instead. You choose per your security needs.
How fast is it, really?
SimplyCount's benchmark is 60 unique symbols across 168 pages in about an hour — roughly 168× faster than counting by hand. Most sheets go from open plans to a draft count in minutes.
Can it learn our custom or non-standard symbols?
Yes. SimplyCount is self-learning: teach it a symbol once from your own legend and it counts that symbol on every future job, getting more accurate the more you use it.
Keep exploring

Related

Fire Alarm →Switches →counting by hand →Electrical Estimators →

Never manually count another symbol

Start free — run your first plan and see a number you can defend. 168 pages · 60 symbols · ~1 hour.

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No credit card · On-prem or cloud — your choice

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