It's becoming obvious that ultrasonic sensors are not the best way. I have failed to make another one work with a different model of a chair, which means they will not work everywhere. Apart from that, they are very bulky, coupled with 3AA(A) batteries will have to create a reasonably large sensor. Time to think of alternatives.

I have just received the new US-100 ultrasonic sensors from ebay. As they operate from 3V, a 3.3V supply can be common to the microcontroller and WiFi. Current consumption is also lower, I am measuring 1.8mA vs 7.5mA with the older sensor, 4 times less, this should improve overall power consumption.

I have set up an emoncms panel to watch over the data. Unfortunately it takes a precise level of zoom for the first graph to look this great: the visualizer decimates the data and then interpolates the remaining points linearly, which usually causes it to draw diagonal lines between some sitting and non sitting event. However, here is a section that looks great:

On Saturday, 30th may I left something on the chair by accident, which caused it to record a lot more hours. Human and non human distinction would be great for new types of sensors.