The Royal Park Hotel in Detroit

The Royal Park Hotel in Detroit, Michigan, was built in 2004, but its English manor house design gives the property the look of a historic landmark. While the hotel has the feel of old-world elegance, it uses the latest technology to provide modern comforts for its guests. These technological advances include the holistic implementation of IoT guest services to make the hotel successful now and in the future, such as the migration to the ASSA ABLOY online connected door locking system.

We spoke to Scott Rhodes, Director of Technology at the Royal Park Hotel, who said "There is so much happening with IoT technology. But as with any new technology, it's important to think about a long-term strategy. Otherwise, you may end up with a fragmented approach that is costly, difficult to manage or limits your options in the future. Ruckus is a long-standing provider of the hotel's Wi-Fi system, and they worked with ASSA ABLOY to develop an integrated, networked entrance solution. The joint solution includes the Ruckus IoT Suite, the ASSA ABLOY Hospitality Visionline wireless locking system and Zigbee wireless door locks.

The Ruckus IoT Suite uses cabling, switches and IoT-ready access points (APs) to create a converged, multi-standard IoT network that supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Zigbee standards. This eliminated the need to overlay IoT networks, which typically require additional cabling, switches and gateways for each IoT device, driving up cost and complexity.

Instead of a standalone device, each door lock is now an IoT endpoint on the network. The connected lock sends and receives information to an IoT-enabled AP connected to the Ruckus IoT controller. The IoT guest service controller manages and controls the APs; the IoT controller also connects to the ASSA ABLOY Visionline server, which manages the connected entry system.

Authorised hotel staff can instantly view the status of each guest room door from a single dashboard. Alerts inform staff of anomalies that could indicate problems. These security enhancements may not be the most important to guests, but they do notice the added conveniences, such as the ability to check in and download their keys to their smartphone and go directly to their room. Front desk staff can also extend guests' stays or assign them to a new room without having to update their keycards. These types of conveniences offered by the IoT also improve the efficiency of staff in other departments, including maintenance, front desk, concierge, housekeeping and engineering. For example, maintenance staff no longer need to schedule door checks to test batteries. Instead, an alarm is sent from the door when a battery is running low. Now that the infrastructure is in place with the Ruckus IoT suite, Rhodes and his team are looking at other projects such as IoT devices for panic buttons for staff safety and asset tracking. In the future, Rhodes and his team will evaluate integrating smart TVs, smart lighting and HVAC over the wireless network. That's smart!