5 Smart Tech Considerations for Creating a Smart Hotel
Smart hotels are increasingly utilising technology to reduce costs, save energy, increase revenue opportunities, provide an elite experience and reach new levels of profitability.
There are various considerations stakeholders involved in retrofitting or building new hotels should consider when it comes to smart technology:
Air quality
Air quality has become a huge topic, especially since COVID. However, often it can be costly to implement and although it is desirable it can be value-engineered out of the specification to reduce the overall expense.
Many studies have been conducted reviewing the impact of bad vs good air quality and the effect on occupants, the results can be shocking but they are often subjective and intangible hence can lead to some stakeholders not taking it seriously.
We spoke to HawkenAQ an air quality monitoring company on our podcast (amBX – The Smart Building Podcast)
They summarised that air quality is the leading cause of asthma, migraines and many other common health problems. Many people who are tired or groggy during the day are simply sitting in buildings that aren't getting enough fresh air, the Co2 levels are elevated, and it has a profound impact. But, it doesn't just affect occupant’s health; it also affects productivity. It has been shown that better air quality can improve productivity and cognitive function in office buildings by more than 10%, and some studies have shown effects as high as 26% if occupants work in a 'green certified' building versus one that is not. It also leads to better sleep scores, and in children, the impact is even more profound. Poor air quality is associated with reduced academic performance, greater risk of autism and lower earnings when they grow up. There are hundreds of peer-reviewed articles showing all of these different effects.
According to a recent survey from Carbon Lighthouse, 77% of consumers would consider a hotel’s air quality in deciding where to stay. Additionally, 52% of consumers would be willing to pay more to stay at a hotel with better air quality.
UV-C light is also a highly effective form of air purification, sterilization and disinfection. It can be combined with HVAC systems to kill air contaminants easily.
Lighting
Ensuring that hotels are beautifully illuminated whilst remaining safe and efficient environments are the main priorities when considering the experience created for both guests and staff.
Light is the biggest synchronizer of our circadian rhythm (or internal body clock). Humans are programmed to be in tune with the natural lighting cycle, but it can easily become out of sync, e.g., if you surround yourself with the wrong kind of light and don’t get enough exposure to light levels outside, you will have trouble sleeping.
A study conducted by USA Today surveyed around 16,000 people across 14 countries in North America and Europe and found that around 90% of people spend close to 22 hours inside every day!
Circadian lighting aims to replicate natural light as closely as possible regarding colour, direction, and intensity. Starting with a warmer amber tone, moving quickly to a brighter white light to allow occupants to feel alert and awake in the morning and throughout the day before gradually changing to a warm amber tone again at the end of the day. This supports our sleep-wake pattern creating the best experience for guests.
Circadian lighting also has a whole host of other benefits, including:
Improved mood
Less risk of developing certain health conditions such as depression and obesity
Improved health and wellbeing
Improved productivity and cognitive processing
In addition, smart lighting can empower guests to create the kind of environment they wish to spend time in e.g., by adjusting the colour of light to suit specific tasks and moods.
Embedding sensors into light fittings is beneficial because lighting is ubiquitous in a building. Various parameters can be monitored; data can be transported to a central source through the existing lighting network. Lighting can be used as a medium facilitating communication throughout the building by utilising a pre-existing, reliable network. It can even react to factors, such as occupancy - turning on when it detects presence but also UV lighting - disinfecting areas when no one is present or supporting other systems such as security or safety.
Integration
At amBX, we support multiple protocols concurrently, e.g., DMX and Dali or BACnet and PoE. This is hugely beneficial in a range of application areas including hospitality. Historically multiple lighting systems would need to be installed for each lighting protocol, but amBX simplifies the process allowing them all to be managed centrally.
There may be a large hotel that runs its lighting off PoE but also requires the system to communicate with their Building Management System; this could therefore also require BACnet. In addition, their emergency lighting may communicate via DALI, hence, in the past 3 systems would need to be installed and maintained. The cost and resources involved in this would be huge and the whole process would be complex. At amBX, we simplify this by offering multi-protocol support. We can communicate with all lighting systems, ingest the data and empower hotel owners to run a more efficient building.
In addition, our ability to integrate with various systems and hardware means we can act as an extremely cost-effective system integrator, removing data silos and getting the most out of the existing infrastructure.
Control/Monitoring
Having a single source of truth that hotel owners and managers can use to view data from various services allows them to gain actionable insights, enable preventative maintenance, analyse energy data and review occupancy data.
It’s important that data collected is displayed in a user-friendly dashboard and is easy for the building manager to view and interact with. AI and ML can be used to automate tasks and reduce some of the manual processes. This allows insights to be prioritised and alerts to be generated when something requires human intervention.
It also empowers guests. Services such as air quality may have previously been hidden away, but now hotels can utilize visual dashboards that display metrics such as humidity, temperature, light levels and CO2 levels. Hotel managers can even consider providing access points through QR codes which take guests straight to the metrics on their mobiles.
Enabling central control for guests improves their experience as various light scenes could be selected, the temperature adjusted, they could connect to the TV and sound systems, they could operate the blinds/curtains remotely and more all through an app on their phone or a digital display in their room - creating a completely tailored environment that meets their needs.
Efficiency & Safety
Building owners can also dramatically improve efficiency and safety through smart technology.
Firstly, having accurate real-time data will allow the front desk and cleaners to know when guests have check-in/out – contactless entry systems can feedback to other systems and occupancy data can ensure guests have access to their rooms on time, whilst cleaning schedules can be automated based on live data.
Emergency lighting is a regulatory requirement and is mandatory in many countries however, historically it has been a very manual process that is time-consuming to maintain. With the advent of IoT and smart connected buildings, emergency lighting systems can be hugely improved through preventative maintenance and automated testing. Smart components can report on the status of the device, battery and lamp, and data can be provided in a user-friendly tool, which allows issues to be flagged and addressed ahead of them occurring. In addition, some tests can be automatically scheduled, saving time, money and improving overall safety.
How can amBX help?
SmartCore smart building automation software can integrate with any system, device, or sensor to create an elite hospitality experience. This integration layer is an extremely cost-effective way of removing data silos and connecting to the cloud.
Emergency Lighting Control is another aspect of SmartCore that can add value to the hotel industry. It can take away some of the manual tests and checks and enable preventative maintenance as well as improved insight.
Lighting Algorithms developed over many years with contributions from academic sources ensure lighting is delivered in the right way to support humans. We enable highly sophisticated experiences to be delivered without complex programming.
Energy-saving smart and dynamic lighting
Manage and reduce energy use with daylight harvesting
Automatically switch off lighting when areas are not in use
Sensor management and information at your fingertips
Works across different lighting and device types
Create moods to differentiate spaces with custom lighting scenes
Leading human-centric and circadian supportive lighting management as standard
Manage individual rooms, buildings or campuses
Designed to fully integrate with other building management systems
Ideal for retrofitting to make older buildings smart, flexible, and adaptable
Future proof your hardware with “smart” software