In recent years the hospitality industry has started to make large investments in smart technologies such as smart door locks, TVs, and lighting. In some cases, these investments have been made as part of an integrated plan for transforming the guest experience. In other cases, these changes have come about incrementally and over time. However, leveraging benefits from these technology investments beyond a point solution have proven to be very challenging. This is due to a number of factors, but primarily it comes down to underlying technical limitations.

Products from different vendors connect in many different ways. Some have a wired connection, whereas others are wireless. Some connect via Bluetooth, yet others connect through device hubs. Some products connect through an API. Others need to be constantly pinged. Some communicate through webhooks. Many more require MQTT, a commonly used messaging protocol for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Bottomline, there is no consistency on how smart devices connect to the world (or external systems like property management systems or PMS, in the case of the hospitality industry) and how business applications can communicate with such devices!

Our homes these days have several smart devices ranging from smart doorbells, cameras, vacuum cleaners, smart TV, smart lighting and so on. Each of the vendors provide their own apps and typically we interact with these devices through the vendor-specific apps individually or through a home hub or voice assistant. (Think Ring, Nest, etc..) While this works in a home environment, how would a business, especially a hotel with hundreds of rooms and a much larger number of diverse smart devices manage this effectively? Extending this even further, how would hotels connect this complex myriad of technologies to their existing business systems, like a PMS for instance?

Now what if there was one common “layer” that these myriad of business apps could talk to?
Furthermore, what if this layer understood the business context of hospitality?

Business apps could then consume physical devices as “services'' and integrate them into workflows bringing together a seamless integration between the physical and digital worlds. Voila! That is where Devicethread comes in.

While IoT platforms from major vendors have attempted to bring together this common (abstraction layer), devicethread^® is unique.

Here’s how:

devicethread^® not only provides this abstraction layer, but does it in a “business-aware” context - devicethread^®’s solutions understand the business, related data flows, guest journeys and staff roles. This “understanding” makes the solution uniquely tailored to the personalization needs of the industry in a burgeoning world of smart IoT devices.

With such implementation, hotel properties that holistically integrate all smart devices into their workflows will harness maximum ROI from their smart infrastructure investments. Hotel properties will be able to deliver delightful guest and staff experiences while driving cost and operational efficiencies.

We call it Smart Hospitality Transformation!