NEW YORK—In the Shop Talk supplement in the last issue of Hotel Business, Lee Weeks, CEO of Coral Hospitality, advised caution when it comes to implementing new technologies if industry standards aren’t agreed upon. And, while Weeks was speaking specifically of entertainment products at the time, it’s advice that works well across the spectrum of all new technologies. However, there also comes a time when implementing something fresh makes a lot of sense, and it appears that time is here for the Internet of Things (IoT)—specifically, eco-friendly technology.
“There are a lot more options now because of the smart home,” said Dan Levine, CEO of CytexOne, a company that specializes in IoT for real estate property developers, luxury residences, commercial buildings and hotels. “If you looked at CES this year, that was the big talk: smart homes. It really has pushed a lot of this technology down to where there’s a ton of it available.
Levine noted that cost is always a huge concern for owners—and this was especially true when IoT was extremely new, since no one wants to invest money in technology, only to discover six months later that the market has veered to a totally different type of product. “Convergence is the key word,” he said. “A lot of these operators in the past have been sold solutions with the promise of convergence and the promise of integration. The truth is they don’t really work together with others. It’s a proprietary communication layer that talks from one to the other vs. a universal hub concept like the Nest platform or Apple HomeKit.”
The hub concept is key to IoT, he noted, so that hotels are able “to adapt and be malleable enough so that as the hotel is operating, and as guest preference changes or technology comes out, you can change it and adapt to the current needs vs. programming it and it basically being stuck that way forever like a toaster,” he explained. “All of the individual companies, the manufacturers, they want to be the center of the universe. That’s fundamentally impossible with technology. Companies like Google and Apple in their ecosystem can really do that; but these smaller proprietary manufacturers, what you really want them to do is be a leg or an arm to the system vs. the central core. The nice thing is if you ever decide to replace them, it’s easy. You’re replacing an arm; you’re not replacing the core.”
While IoT can be used to connect any object, device or technology to anything else, many owners find IoT enticing because of the potential cost savings with sustainable solutions, specifically when it comes to energy. “When it comes to green, the money is really in HVAC,” said Levine. “Lighting control and automating lighting control is great, but the control aspect is less important in energy savings vs. the HVAC as long as they’re doing LED.”
Of course, hotel owners and operators have been focused on HVAC solutions for years. “One of the ways of saving energy is in reducing the HVAC utilization and using smart thermostats; you can save sometimes up to 40%,” said Levine, noting the real benefits are in tying that into other systems, like shade and lighting control.
“Focusing on IoT, a lot of owners and operators have been really looking at and utilizing temperature controls for years—smart thermostats, so to speak,” he continued. However, he noted, many of the legacy products are not particularly smart. “The nice thing about IoT is being able to take different products from different vendors and easily make them able to communicate with each other and work together, as opposed to standalone,” he said.
While many legacy HVAC solutions are not truly smart, said Levine, hotels that invested in that technology long ago do have options. Companies like CytexOne, for instance, take these legacy systems and make them IoT-enabled. “That’s where we specialize: putting an overlay layer on it and integrating legacy technology with new technology, so they don’t have to rip out and replace. We can add on functionality,” he said.
Hotels that are looking into IoT for the first time should keep a couple of things in mind. “We really are a technology curator,” said Levine, stressing that the company rigorously tests a lot of different products. “The critical component for us is the integrations and the APIs of each product. A product might work wonderfully and might be a solid component, but if it’s own island and doesn’t integrate, it’s essentially useless to us.” Levine noted that CytexOne likes working with Control4, because it integrates with hundreds of companies and more than 8,000 different products. Hotels looking into IoT should research how far-reaching potential integration is—while the hotel might only be looking for an HVAC solution now, it might want to expand to other areas in the future, and an integrator with many partners garners more flexibility.
While the majority of IoT projects are in the higher end or boutique space, Levine noted that eco-friendly IoT is a good entry point for the lower chain-scale segments. “There are operational efficiencies that can be saved in some of the lower-cost hotels,” he said, noting that as smart homes become more ubiquitous, people are going to come to expect it from most hotels. “We believe that, in the not too distant future, these are going to be requirements for people to stay at a hotel.”
And, he noted, beyond smart thermostats and integration into the hotel’s other systems, there’s a lot of innovation in the eco-friendly space—for instance, the ability to retrofit manual shades. “There’s one IoT-based company that is able to retrofit manual shades and curtains where you attach a motor to it that is connected to WiFi or ZigBee,” said Levine. “To me, having motorized curtains is not just about convenience and luxury; it’s really about efficiencies. We work on projects in New York City where every wall is a window. It’s so uncomfortable certain times of the year because of the amount of sunlight. Most people simply just raise the air conditioning up tremendously. If you leave the room, you leave the shades up, the air conditioning blasting,” he described, noting that being able to detect when someone is not in the room and bring the shades down would help save a lot in energy costs.
“There’s an ROI on it because of energy savings, and you’re adding this cool feature that many people don’t have,” he said, noting that, while a cost-saving measure, it will also add a sophisticated layer to guests’ perceptions. “Motorized shades are normally geared toward luxury or high-end properties; one of the inexpensive $100 a night hotel rooms would never be able to get an automated shade system in that hotel. But ,if they deploy technology like this, they have it and guests get the wow [factor].
“It’s exciting that it’s not so expensive and the price is being driven down that less expensive brands will be able to afford [IoT],” said Levine. “People are just going to expect these things.”